Your Average Witch is brought to you by Clever Kim's Curios. In this episode I'm talking to David Davis of Porous Palms. David tells us about visions, spirits, communion, and how The Exorcist was not allowed in his home as a child.

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David Davis

Chief Dirt Whisperer of Porous Palms

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. In this episode I'm talking to David Davis of Porous Palms. David tells us about visions, spirits, communion, and how The Exorcist was not allowed in his home as a child. Now let's get to the stories!

Kim: Hi David, welcome to the show. 

David: Hello, thank you for having me. 

Kim: Well thank you for being here. Can you please introduce yourself and let everybody know who you are and what you do and where they can find you?

David:  Yes, absolutely. So my name is David Davis. I use he/him pronouns. I am on Instagram and Twitter. I prefer the Instagram because my Twitter is, I just talk a lot of mess on there, but Instagram @porouspalms, so like Porous, P-O-R-O-U-S, and then palms as in the palm of your hand. I like to refer to myself as the chief dirt whisperer of Porous Palms and Porous Palms Apothecary. I'm a folk mystic, sorcerer, artist, writer, etc. Yeah, so that's, that's me. 

Kim: How did you, where did the name Porous Palms come from?

David: So it was, it is, a very clumsy way to sort of allude to like my hands-on approach to magic. I love getting my hands dirty. That's how I learn stuff. I'm a hands-on learner. And so it was a, like I said, a sort of a visually clumsy way for me to allude to like me absorbing information and experiences is via my hands, if that makes any sense. And so that's where that comes from. It's probably not the most obvious way to get that point across, but it stuck, and it has a charm to it. 

Kim: I don't think it's clumsy, and that's, I kind of thought that's what you were getting at, so it worked for me. I liked it. 

David: Awesome, thank you. Thank you very much. I love alliteration. I have a background in poetry, so yeah, I love that.

Kim: Me too. That's why my shop name has all three hard K sounds at the beginning. 

David: Yeah. 

Kim: Well, yeah, because I just love sibilance and similar sounds. I'm a nerd. What does it mean to you when you call yourself a witch?

David: So, funny enough, magically speaking, I don't refer to myself as a witch. So, whenever I do align myself with that word, it's usually more from like an archetypal point of view. So, like the witch as the adversary, this like not quite human, almost animal being. And listening, I sort of came to that conclusion a few years ago, or sort of aligned myself with that viewpoint a few years ago, just from listening to a lot of like traditional witchcraft practitioners, you know, that I met through social media. Like Austin Fuller of BanexBramble being one of them, whether they know it or not. And me sort of forming this idea of what/who, or rather who/what a witch is. So like, magically speaking, I don't refer to myself as a witch just for like cultural reasons. And I really liked that approach to witchcraft and just like what a witch is because it aligned with my sort of like anti-respectability sentiments on a lot of things. I'm really not too big on going out of my way to convince people that I'm not something. And also just like if my enemies don't see me as like wicked or monstrous, then I feel like I'm doing something wrong, so I kind of want that sort of element to be a part of who I am and how I navigate the world and how I present myself. So yeah, for me, witch is more archetypal, but yeah, like magically speaking, I don't work with like witching spirits. I don't work with sort of like the folkloric devil, for example, or certain spirits, and like the elder tree being, you know, like a witching spirit specifically. That's not something that's a part of my practice. And so just out of respect for that tradition and that worldview, or rather those worldviews, because traditional witchcraft is so vast and broad, I make that, I like to make that personal distinction.

Kim: So you want your enemies to be uneasy when they think about you? 

David: Yeah, like...

Kim: Me too. (laughs)

David: ... you know, like, they're my enemies for a reason, right? Like, and not only like magical enemies, but also just like, because also like the witch being like a political figure, right? The witch has always been this politicized thing, like whether you're looking at it from a gendered perspective, or like a queer perspective, or like a racial perspective, or like an economic one as well, like a socio-economic one. You know, like, I'm a marginalized person, I'm Black and queer and working class, and we're in this world where fascism is on the rise, if not, you know, or rather it's already risen. And I want them to be afraid. I want the fascists to be afraid. And I want them to, you know, see me as the monster, or the devil, or their antichrist. Because that's my job. That's what I'm supposed to be to them. So yeah. 

Kim: I like you already. (both laugh) What would you, what term would you prefer I use? 

David: Like I use sorcerer, mystic, like magically speaking I tend to use, I have been sort of experimenting with sorcerer. That feels, it feels more in line with me than like magician. That has a very specific connotation to it. 

Kim: Black top hat. 

David: Yeah, like top hat and I'm just thinking like commanding the spirits into the circle and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like that feels very magician to me. And so, yeah, like sorcerer, mystic, those things feel, conjurer is complicated, but yeah, sorcerer is good.

Kim: What about the practice itself? Was witchcraft okay?

David: The practice, yeah, yeah witchcraft is fine for the sake of conversation. I don't get like offended at being called a witch. Naturally just social media tends to flatten a lot of things for simplicity's sake and so like I get lumped in With witches a lot. I got sort of like my honorary invite to the to the Sabbat. And I'm not opposed to that. I, you know, I'll, I'll show up, but yeah, it's, it's not offensive to me. It's just not something I personally use. So use whatever word comes to mind. You know, I'm aware of the name of the podcast, Your Average Witch. It's, you know, it's whatever, it's fine.

Kim: Okay. (both laugh) I had too much caffeine, I cannot focus on one thing because you just me on so many little mind journeys. 

David: I had my first cup of coffee today after a week-long water fast and I am in the fifth dimension right now so it's... 

Kim: Holy moly. (both laugh) Do you have any family history with witchcraft or practicing magic or any stories from childhood where even if your family would say, absolutely not, there's still something kind of metaphysical happening?

David: Yeah, for sure. I grew up in church, Protestant, like a Protestant denomination. And, you know, my dad is an ordained minister, and we went to the church that my grandmother still owns and preaches at. And so I grew up around religion, but not this like, not to sort of, you know, dog on anyone else's experience, but it wasn't a very passive religious experience where I was like, all right, we go to church on Sunday and that's that. Like, it was so deeply infused into my upbringing. For obvious reasons, maybe not so obvious, but for me, obvious reasons, I didn't enjoy growing up in church, but I'm grateful that I grew up in an environment where conversations about spirits and how they function were so commonplace. Spirits weren't just these abstractions or metaphors. They were like these very real, tangible sort of things that were present in our daily lives. And, you know, it was nothing to hear like a super vivid description of a spirit. I remember I have two distinct memories of many. I forget the context of the sermon, but it was one that my dad was teaching and leading. He was talking about the spirit of lust. He went into a visual description of it. He said it's this being that's covered from head to toe in sexual organs, and it's in a constant state of pleasuring itself. I'm a child at this point. We stopped going to church when I was 13. So any stories of church are like 13 and younger, so keep that in mind. Those are sort of like images I was raised with. And then there was like another story. The church that we went to was, you know, I grew up with a lot of like anti-Catholic sentiment unfortunately, you know, as one does in Protestant spaces. And they, the church is situated in southwest Detroit, which has a very large like Mexican Catholic population. And so there was always a lot of like passive aggressive sort of commentary about the spirits of that area. And my grandmother referenced this demon that she saw with the snake of a tail, snake of a tail, the tail of a snake, like its tail was a snake, and it was never ending. It was sort of like weaving its way through the neighborhood and wrapping its tail around the minds of the people there. And I'm obviously not like super concerned about whether or not these visions were real or whether or not these depictions weren't sort of colored in by a lot of dogma, I'm sure they were. I'm 99.999% sure they were colored in by a lot of dogma, and in propaganda, if you will. 
But that vivid nature of those conversations really helped me not feel so self-conscious about my practice, and the fact that I do commune, and just that practitioners do commune so directly with spirits. And it's easy, especially in this very materialist world that we're living in, to sort of feel like, like I said, a bit self-conscious about that. You don't want to seem too woo-woo or whatever. And it's like, no, yeah, spirits are out there, and there's a spirit in everything. And I also talk about how church was the first time, or the first space where I was taught animism. Not by name, obviously, but I was taught that concept that everything has a spirit. We were going to Friday night prayer one time and I wanted to wear a t-shirt that had Carnage on it, the comic book character. And Carnage is not a very visually appealing character, if you're, you know, for those who aren't familiar, it's this red monster, sort of, it looks like they're sort of made of blood, almost. They have sharp teeth and claws and whatever. They're a Spider-Man villain. And, you know, my dad was like, you can't wear that to church because that shirt has a spirit on it, right? Like that the image looked demonic to him. And I'm like, well, you bought it, but whatever. The image had, it looked demonic to him. And so he's like, that has a spirit on it. And again, like dogma. But there was that idea that like, oh, this t-shirt, right, is capable of carrying something very real and alive. And a lot of this was through reflection. You know, I wasn't eight years old, like, "Yes, animism," but, you know, upon reflection, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's what that was. And so a lot of my practice now involves a lot of me going back to my church, churchy roots, the way I approach ritual, the way I approach spirit work. Yeah, so that's my history.

Kim: That story about the T-shirt really suddenly explains something. I was in Germany, I lived in Germany for a while and we were getting a tattoo and one of the other customers came in and he wanted... I don't think it was a demon, I think it was something from a record, album art or something. Horns. And the tattoo artist was refusing to do it because she said it was demonic and she didn't want it in her shop.

David: Right, I think the act of something just being in that space. Like don't even bring that, we weren't allowed to watch the Exorcist growing up. Like don't...

Kim: Good because that's terrifying!

David: Yeah, I ended up watching it like later on but like... Yeah, I ended up watching it, like, later on, but, like, they were like, you know, don't even press play on that movie in the house. Like, that movie has a spirit in it. There's something, my parents, like, there's something wrong with that movie. It's not just super scary. Because we loved horror movies. I grew up watching horror movies. Other possession movies, they weren't opposed to, like, demonic possession movies, but The Exorcist specifically, they were like, don't, nope, do not play it in this house. There is something wrong with that movie.

Kim: I agree!

David:  They were like, don't do it. And I'm like, all right, like, yeah, sure. 

Kim: I don't know why my mom had that on when I was like six, but she did. And I agree with your parents. Don't do that. I have not watched it since because it bothered me.

David: Yeah. And it is unsettling. I'm not downplaying how unsettling it was, but yeah, it was just... that was my environment.

Kim:  For me, more than bringing it into the house, it's the understanding that something can invade me that it was so scary. It still is still scary. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. 

Kim: I hadn't thought about that as a kid before. And suddenly, whoa. 

David: That was me with the idea of demonic possession didn't scare me as much as a kid. But like my my similar experience was like Hellraiser, seeing Hellraiser for the first time. And I was a bit intrigued by that, because that was the first time that I ever thought consciously about pain. And I was like single digits when I saw that movie. And so like that opening scene of like the hooks coming out of the box and piercing him, I was like, that's the first time I ever thought about like... the fact that I can hurt, if that makes any sense. Like that was really like a very visceral experience for me. And it didn't scare me away from the movie. It's one of my all-time favorite movies. But I had like a similar experience where it was, it kind of shook your young brain a bit. It kind of rewired it, for better or for worse. 

Kim: Yeah, that part still makes me cringe. 

David: Yeah, you're like, oh, just wince a little. 

Kim: So let's talk about your practice a little bit, if we can. Can you introduce us to it? Do you have any daily or consistent anything that you do? I hesitate to use the word ritual really, but...

David: I refer to my practice as like culturally Hoodoo. Again, like, growing up in church, it was a Black church. My grandmother is from Mississippi I believe, and she comes from, like minister, her dad was a minister. And so there's that history of Hoodoo sort of coming out of the Black church in the South specifically. And so, like, I refer to my practice as culturally Hoodoo. So it informs, again, like, my approach to ritual, my sort of bits and pieces of my personal cosmology, my relationship to ancestors and community. I do a lot of ancestor veneration. That's a huge part of my regular work, if not daily, definitely regular. The music I listen to, the foods I eat, all that stuff. The certain superstitions I may have, quote-unquote superstitions. But magically, as far as like spell work, ritual work that I do on a regular basis, on a more regular basis, it's more of like a general North American folk magic approach to things, which encompasses hoodoo, because hoodoo is a part of that larger sort of, it's under that North American folk magic umbrella. But I also pull from other traditions, right? Like, again, like the traditional witchcraft spaces, even if I'm not working with the spirits per se of a specific trad craft practice, I'm picking up on like certain rituals, and certain sort of metaphysical concepts of how different things work, or how to approach different types of spirits. I like to sort of folkify grimoires a lot, which is not, you know, that's not original to me. That's a sort of an established part of North American folk magic. You see like the Key of Solomon being used a lot. I like the Picatrix, other, you know, books that I can't think of off the top of my head, but those are like the big two for me. So that's what it looks like for me. A lot of, you know, divination, predictive divination. I love a good journal prompt tarot pull as much as the next person, but I also want to know whether or not I'm going to get that job, or whether or not this thing is going to happen or not happen. And so divination for me is a big regular practice. And like I said, ancestor veneration. I love mundane acts as rituals. So like cleaning your home is a spiritual act, right? Like cleaning specific parts of your home, right? Cleaning your laundry, your bedsheets, you know, what's good, you know, taking that spiritual bath and you're like, I removed all the blockages but I'm gonna put on these dirty clothes and lay down on my dirty sheets. Like, okay, well, like, like that, you know, you kind of, you know, canceled it out as far as I'm concerned. And so Yeah, that's kind of like what I what my work looks like on a regular basis. It's very Like urban homesteady, that's kind of like what it looks like and a lot of most most often.

Kim How would you say that your practice has changed your life? Or would you? Because it seems like your practice began well into your young life. 

David: Yeah, it, so I've been practicing and studying magic for like a decade now, and I'm 26 for reference. So like high school, you know, I would say I really started being intentional about, you know, I cast my first real spell, quote unquote real spell in high school. It was a love spell, shocker. And so that- 

Kim: In high school, aren't they all? (both laugh)

David: Right. It was very much like rubbing cinnamon on a picture of this person and like binding our pictures together with red thread. I'm glad it didn't work because they're, you know, they're them. But you know, you're in high school and you're like, oh, I have a crush. And so that was that. It has changed my life. It has provided a very like specific way to see the world, and interact with it. It's deeply fulfilling for me to be able to look at the things around me and know that they aren't inanimate, or like without intelligence, whatever that word means to whoever's listening. I love the fact that even if I'm not actively doing, quote-unquote, doing magic, that like that tree I walk past or that bird I just saw fly over me or that lake behind my building, it's alive, right? There's spirits, there's a spirit of that thing. And there's also a, there are also spirits in that thing. And that's just really, like I said, fulfilling for me. I like, you know, I said earlier, I refer to myself as a mystic as well. And I really seek those mystical experiences. I love communion with spirit, even if there's not like a result that I'm looking for, something that I'm trying to make happen, or petition them for. Sometimes I just like to be in their presence, call them into my space and just feel them on a sensory level. My practice is very sensual in that way. And then also, just full disclosure, there's that element of power. I like being able to like do shit, and make stuff happen, and that just feels good to me. Yeah, I like that. It's kind of addictive. 

Kim: Yeah. 

David: Like I'm not gonna pretend like I'm just above that. No, I'm not.

Kim: "It's all about being one with the universe." (laughs)

David: Yeah. 

Kim:What would you say is the biggest motivator for you in your practice? And has it changed since you first started out?

David: I would say it hasn't changed. And it's communion, like I mentioned just now. You know, result-oriented magic aside, and there's definitely a place for that in my work, in my regular work, but I just like, at the end of the day, I just like experiencing spirits. I like smelling them and tasting them and feeling them and hearing them. I don't like seeing them, but I like experiencing them with four of my five senses. And there is... to me, that's where the sort of deeper work is. And I don't mean deeper in sort of like a hierarchical way. Like it's sort of, it's better or more profound than results-oriented magic, but it's just what gets me out of bed in the morning. Being able to experience spirits just as they are with no pretense or expectation. And I refer to myself as a mystic before I refer to myself as a practitioner of anything specific. Yeah, and so that's just, that's been me for the past five or six years. That's been my main driver. 

Kim: Okay, I gotta ask. The taste thing. I am, I don't know what it is about me personally, but I have little interaction with or relationship with what I understand spirits to be. I mean, maybe they are and I'm just oblivious. But anyway, what do they each taste different or is there a specific taste that you get when you are interacting?

David: So it's something that I will induce on my end, right? So all of those senses are things that I will induce on my end, right? So I work with materials. Materials are very important to me and I work, a lot of my work is planetary in nature. And so I don't work with the physical planets. You know, I'm not an astrologer. But I do work within the planetary currents, right? And so each planet has different herbs, materials, sounds, smells, et cetera, that are, you know, associated with them or that they rule over. And so, for example, you know, I work with Mars a lot, right? And so Mars, very spicy, right? It's dry. Like I said, it's hot. Kind of bitter sometimes, right? And so like if I want to induce a martial experience or sort of get myself into that headspace, I might burn some like dragon's blood and ginger. I might put pinch of like cinnamon powder on my tongue and sort of like swish that around in my mouth with like some fireball whiskey, you know, sort of warm up my body. And so that's what it is. It's induced on my end. It's not necessarily, it's not that this has never happened, but it's not that I'm like, I wake up, I wake up out of my sleep and I'm like, "I smell, you know, roses all of a sudden." It's like, okay, I want to sort of commune with that Venusian current. So I am going to expose myself to the smell of roses, if that makes any sense. 

Kim: Okay. I'm freaking out and excited. This, this might change things for me. (both laugh) Holy crap. Okay, okay.  I'm excited, but I cannot focus on that right now. Do you ever experience self-doubt about your practice or any, or in this area of your life? And if you do, how do you beat it or move past it? 

David: Sometimes, though the way I tend to beat that sort of like imposter syndrome is finding what you're- first of all, turn off your phone, okay? Because like looking at, and I'm like I'm 26, and I try not to sound like a, I firmly believe that social media makes time move faster. So that I'm 26 years old and I already feel out of touch with people who are like 20. Which is not, which I feel like is unprecedented, like generations used to feel longer, if I'm, if I, you know, if I'm correct. 

Kim: Yeah, that makes super sense.

David: And I'm like why do I have nothing in common with this 21 year old when we're, we should have more in common as far as, you know, socially, as far as like social stuff is concerned. But saying all that to say this like put down your phone because looking at social media and what other people are doing is only going to make you feel like you're not doing enough. And this isn't to knock when anyone else is doing. I'm a business owner on social media. I get the need for aesthetics and to sort of post content and to sort of be active. But I will also be the first to tell you that like, you know, sometimes for the sake of an image, you will set something, you'll set something up, you'll light those candles for that picture. 

Kim: Absolutely.

David: Right? And so it's not like if I'm posting a picture of like some ritual set up every day, it's not because I'm doing ritual every day. It's because I set that up. It's a photo shoot, right? 

Kim: It's the algorithm.

David: Yeah, it's a photo shoot. And yes, it might have been set up with intention. Sure. But like, I'm not, it's not a conjuration you're looking at, right? And so that is is you know, put that down. Or if you're going to sink into social media, do so with that understanding in mind. Also, look at, find out what you're good, at or want to be good at. Get even better at it, and then do it as much as possible, to like solidify that knowing that you're actually good at it, right? So for me, like writing, I've always loved writing. And I've spent, I've always loved to write. I've, I've, and I've spent so much time honing that craft that I know for a fact, I'm a good writer. If someone came up to me right now and said, David, you're a bad writer. I'd say, you're a liar. You don't have to like it. Like, that's valid. You don't have to like my work, but you cannot tell me that I'm bad at this. Right? And maybe that's just like my Leo nature, just being like, you can't tell me anything. But there are certain things that you can tell me, David, you're not very good at that. Right? 
Like if I tried to go join a, I don't know, a break dancing league, right, I would not be very good at that. And someone would be able to tell me, I don't even know if that's a thing, but anyways, someone would be able to tell me, hey, David, you're not good at this. And I'm like, you're right, right? And I might feel a bit self-conscious in that space because I know I'm not, I know that's not my thing. But you sit me down in a creative writing class, I'm like, oh, I got this. Right? And so I feel like that's how I've worked through different things, right? If I want to get better at reading tarot, I read tarot more, right? I read books on it. I watch the YouTube videos. I take notes. I pick up different interpretations of different cards that, you know, some of my favorite readers on social media, for example, may share, choose to share with the public or with me personally, like if I reach out to them privately. So yeah, just find what you're good at or you want to be good at, and then just do it as much as possible until you're even better at it. And then just keep doing it. And it's a never-ending journey, and that's the fun part.

Kim: For talking about imposter syndrome, that was so positive. I feel uplifted.

David: I'm glad.

Kim: Instead of how I usually feel, which is, "Oh crap." 

David: (laughs)Yeah. Yeah, I tend to have, you know, Leo, I tend to have a bit of a, yeah, that's, I like that effect.

Kim: Me too. 

David: Yeah.

Kim: What would you say is your biggest struggle when it comes to your practice or your work?

David: Keeping it simple. Keeping things simple. So I'm a Leo, Leo Virgo.

Kim: Oh gosh.

David: Yeah, and so like the Leo loves the ornateness of things, and then the Virgo wants to sort of make sure all of that ornateness, if that's a word, is sort of mark, every swirl, every color is just perfect. And there's definitely a time and a place for that. And I find a lot of value in that approach to things. I feel like it's definitely got me in a lot of ways to where I am right now, just in a bunch of different areas of my life, not necessarily just magically or professionally, but just, you know. I value my attention to detail and my appreciation for, and what I'd argue is my sort of affinity for like aesthetics and details. But sometimes it can bog you down. It gets overwhelming and it freezes you, right? Like to the point where you don't want to do anything, because you've overwhelmed yourself with the possibility of what you could do. And so that's that. Also with me with like systems, I'm big on systems. I think they're very helpful but again like those can also bog you down like when you get too, you sort of get into the weeds too much and everything just becomes so, a system can become so intricate that it becomes like overly delicate. Where if one thing is, if one factor changes, then it's like, oh my God, we have to throw the whole thing away because this didn't go exactly as planned, or exactly how it was supposed to go based on this book, or based on this five-page manifesto that I wrote. And just keep it simple. Go with the flow, being a bit more spontaneous and open to improv. It's my biggest struggle. I'm working on it, and I think I'm making progress, but it's definitely something I'm actively working on. 

Kim: Do you like Rococo design? 

David: I do, I do. I love it. I love like a minimal moment.

Kim: (laughs) When you said it, when you said it, I was like "Oh." (laughs) 

David: Yeah, I love Rococo. I love like a, I love, they're like ornate. I love like the ornate nature of like Gothic architecture, looking at like old cathedrals. The church that I grew up in is a Gothic cathedral. The building is. So I grew up around like original stained glass, groin vaulted ceilings, original woodwork. And I was never really paying attention, not never, but I was rarely ever paying attention to the sermons. I was like counting the swirls in the chandeliers or like looking at the color of the carpet and matching it to different things. You know, it was, I like beauty. I love beauty. (both laugh)

Kim: When you started describing it, that's just what I saw in my head.

David: Yeah, very much that.

Kim: What would you say brings you the most joy?

David: The fact that I'm at a point now where I don't... Okay, I love really like vivid confirmation of things, so I'm not at a point now where I like, where I find myself questioning the existence of magic or spirits, right? Like, there was that period where I, in fact, I was an atheist for like one and a half years, like in the middle of my practice. I just sort of full blank slate, did a complete 180, because I was like this, nope, none of this makes sense. And then I was like, well, nope, never mind, because this is super intrinsic to who I am and I just felt like a part of me was missing. Without that belief, I like, I forget where I heard this, but I like to say that I didn't lose my faith, I just misplaced it. And so like that's kind of what that period felt like for me. And it also felt like a moment of like recalibration. Because I thought I had sort of shaken off so much of the religious dogma, the fear of hell and eternal damnation, and I hadn't. And like my affinity for magic and my passion for magic and, you know, the occult, was something I was always very afraid of growing up. 
Because, you know, being queer, growing up in church, I always knew that, like, the anti-queer sentiments, I always knew that that was BS. There was some part of me that was like, "There is no way I'm going to go to hell because I'm gay. That just doe snot make any sense." But for some reason I was petrified that like me being a quote-unquote witch is what was gonna do it, right? Like I was gonna get to the pearly gates and God was gonna say, "You like boys, that's cool. But that magic? Burn." That really kept me up at night. And I feel like the atheism, it was kind of like an Etch-a-Sketch moment where I was able to just like shake my brain and be like, okay, I'm not afraid of that anymore. So now that I return to it, I can return to it with this renewed sense of like freedom and liberation from that fear. With all that said, even though I do have this unshakable belief in these concepts and these things, I love confirmation. Those moments where, and it could be something simple, like I mentioned mysticism and communion earlier, like just being in the presence of a spirit and you call their name and you feel them show up. I'm like, ugh, I love that. I love that, because I'm like, you're here, you heard me and you came. And that's just always, that's just so powerful for me. And even like with the results oriented stuff, you do a spell and it works and you're like, yes, awesome. I love this. Like that this really solidified something in me, or further solidified something in me. So I would say that's what brings me the most joy right now.

Kim: Well, the next question, you may have just answered it. Well, except that... (pauses) Maybe not. Do you have any fear about magic? And if so, what is it?

David: Right now, it's not a fear of anything magical. It's just like a fear of a potential trajectory of like my of my practice, and that's stagnancy. I feel like I'm in a position now where I'm always, where everything is always evolving, right? My cosmology is always shifting and I'm always questioning things and adding things in and taking things out. And if I ever got to a point where I felt just uninspired, right? Because I love the act of inspiration or the process of inspiration more than I love the act of creation itself. And so I could go a while without creating anything, conjuring anything, working on anything specific, but if my brain ever got to a point where I wasn't actively thinking about it, that would kind of freak me out a bit. Like, oh, what's wrong? Right? Like, why am I not... Where's that spark? So that's kind of what would scare me, or  the possibility of that is what scares me. 

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

David: Overly gender everything. Right. 

Kim: Oh, yeah.

David: Yeah. I was very much in that space of, and this was just like 2018, 2019, so not super long ago, I was in that space of like, I want to be quote unquote, one of the "good men", right? And I still do, right? I'm not saying like, yes, all of a sudden I just want to be like super mean to like women and femme presenting people, but there was this period of like overcompensation where it's like, at the, it was at the expense of the quote unquote, or what it, what would be sort of referred to as like the "masculine aspects" of things, right? So everything was like, goddess this and goddess that, and it was never, and it was always very of pictures I drew of divine feminine presences as being pregnant, just reducing the feminine down to motherhood. Not that there's anything wrong with motherhood, of course, but I was just reducing everything down to that because that was the most obvious way for me to lean into that current. In hindsight, it was kind of ridiculous. I'm glad I got away from that, especially as I've begun to like queer my practice more and the idea of gender became or has become more fluid and flexible for me. Like I identify as a cis man, but my relationship to gender is very different than what it was just three, four years ago. So yeah, that's what I used to do a lot. And I'm glad I didn't do it anymore, because it was just very limiting to, you know, for me, and for those who I would interact with. 

Kim: I relate to that a lot. 

David: Thank you.

Kim: Just about everything you said. (both laugh)

David: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Kim: What would you say is your favorite tool in your practice? And it does not have to be a physical object. 

David: I would say it's my body, my whole body. One of my all time favorite movies is the 2018 remake of Suspiria. And for those who aren't familiar, Suspiria, both the original and the remake, it's about a dance school in Berlin. The remake takes place in Berlin, but they both take place in Germany. A dance school in Germany run by a coven of witches. And the original, it was a ballet school. That's kind of where it ended, right? Like the dance school was just like a setting for the other shenanigans to happen, right? It was a lot of murder, a lot of, you know, intrigue, scandal, etc. But the remake, the director, Luca Guadagnino, worked closely with the choreographer, Damien Jalet. And they did this really fabulous thing where they made dance the ritual, right? Like, dance was how the witches expressed themselves. And there's a beautiful- well it's beautiful to me, it's very grotesque, there's this beautiful scene in the movie, spoilers for 2018 Suspiria, where, you know, the sort of head witch, or the sort of head of the dance academy, imbues the hands and the feet of the protagonist with their magic. And as she's dancing, there's a girl in the other room who the witches wanted to get rid of because they were scared that she was going to sort of blow their cover. And as this person is dancing, and it's a modern dance. So the remake, it's not ballet, it's modern dance. So it's very, it's ugly in a lot of ways, right? It's very like Merce Cunningham. 

Kim: Yeah. 

David: Yeah. And it's very visceral and very monstrous. And as she's dancing and contorting her body, I'm getting chills just talking about it, she, the person in the other room, is like being, like, sort of bent out of shape, right? Like her jaw is being dislocated, her legs are sort of being cracked over her head remotely, and it's being done through the dance. And I remember seeing that for the first time in theaters, and I watch that movie often. My sister is kind of creeped out that it's one of my comfort movies. (laughs) And I remember seeing that for the first time in 2018 in theaters, and just being, oh. It was a borderline sexual experience, just watching it, even though it was so grotesque, because I just felt this, I felt something come over my entire body as I was watching it. And it's funny, because later on in the movie, the protagonist, her name is Susie, she's talking to the head of the dance school, her name is Madame Blanc, she's played by Tilda Swinton. And yeah, she plays like three characters in the movie. It's amazing. And she's, Madame Blanc is asking Susie, like, you know, you were a natural out there, right? Like, how did that feel? And Susie comes, she came from this Mennonite background. Right. So this is all very new to her. This sort of worldly, you know, or at least we think it is. That's the twist. Ooh, watch it.

Kim: Oh no! (both laugh)

David: You should watch it. Everyone should watch it. It's amazing. But on a conscious level, this is all very new to her. And Suzy answers, she's like, it felt animalistic. It felt like what I would imagine it would feel like to fuck. She's like, it feels like this is what I imagine it will feel like to fuck. And I'm like, yes, because that's what felt like watching it! It felt so real and so tangible. And my body since then, and more now than in the past few years, for a number of reasons, and a lot of that has to go back to, like, my working with Mars a lot, and Mars being very much, like, of the body and of the blood, of the viscera. And, yeah, that's... Let me stop before I go on, because I could talk about this theory forever. (both laugh) Because I love that movie so much. And I know we'll be talking about influences later, but Damien Jalet is amazing.

Kim: Okay, so I guess I'm going to add that movie to my list because this is the third time and after three, that's when I'm like, okay, now I have to.

David: Watch both. So the original is a trilogy. It's like 1977 Suspiria and then 1980 was Inferno, and then the last one from like 2011, Mother of Tears, it sucks, but just to finish the trilogy, you should watch it. And it's this whole mythos that they strung together, and then like I said, Luca Guadagnino sort of, I don't... I refer to it as a remake just because that's what it is, but I lovingly refer to it as a cover. The score is by Tom York, and I refer to it as a cover because like a cover, like a good one at least, it has all the same elements there. Same lyrics, same beat, same melody, but they put their own voice, it's theirs, right? New instruments, it's so good, you have to watch it. I'm going to watch it tonight. I'm so excited. 

Kim: I love hearing about things that people are really into.

David: Yeah, yeah, I love it. I love passion. Apathy is like a huge, for lack of a better phrasing, turn-off for me.

Kim: Yeah, that's what I was going to say. If you could only recommend one source of information like a book, podcast, YouTube channel, whatever, to a new witch or new practitioner, what would it be and why?

David: Um, oof. So the book I chose is, and I kept it like on the technical end of things because I was like, maybe I should, you know, be different and recommend like a novel or something. And you're like, oh, there are magical themes in that. 

Kim: You can.

David: But I'm going to go with like, yeah, I can't think of anything. So I'm going to go with like the very obvious, like, this is a book about witchcraft. It's New World Witchery by Corey Thomas Hudson. 

Kim: Yes! Hell yeah!

David: And it's so good. Yeah, it's amazing. And I'm still working my way through it. But like I mentioned earlier, like that North American folk magic approach to things. And he just does an amazing job at, and I think he just came out with a new book as well, he does a really good job at respectfully, which I'm big on, respectfully sort of speaking about different cultures, right, because he talks about hoodoo in this book, and I feel like it's done well. Yeah, and you just get ideas, it's very hands-on, it's not too theory-heavy, it's not a bunch of like dead recipes, right? It's work, it's folklore, it's sort of larger concepts that you can sort of extrapolate and sort of pull information from and sort of weave your own practice together that's actually informed by something historical and tangible and just cool. A lot of the stories in this book are just like really cool. So yeah, and they also have a podcast of the same name, which I also recommend. So yeah. 

Kim: Plus, almost, I think on every page, there are resources to check out. Love it.

David: Yeah, like it's one of those, I'm a big fan of, if you are inspired by someone or influenced by someone, to make it a point to look at their influences. And you know, he makes that very easy because you can see what he read, and or sort of experienced, to get come to these conclusions. And so, yeah, I love it.

Kim: Seconded a whole lot. Would you say that environment has shaped your practice? I don't know if you've lived anywhere else, but if you have, did it change as you move around? Did you take different things? And do you think it would be different if you lived somewhere else, like here where I live?

David: Yeah I definitely think it would be different. Just answering it backwards, I definitely think it would be different. I think I would adapt fairly well, but I've lived in southest Michigan my entire life. Like the metro Detroit area specifically. Now I'm sort of out of the metro Detroit area, but I'm only like 30 minutes away from it. I'm in Ypsilanti. And, you know, Michigan, we get all the seasons, sometimes seemingly out of order, (both laugh) but we get them. And you just learn. I feel like when you're from a place like Michigan, you, your appreciation of the seas- and appreciation probably isn't the right word, but your relationship to, or your understanding of, that's what I'm looking for, your understanding of the seasons is a bit different because they can be so unpredictable. And you can't necessarily look to, and this is the same, you know, most places as well, right? I'm not saying that other places are like super rigid, but just from my experience in a place like Michigan, you can't really look to dates to sort of divide the year, right? The equinoxes and the solstices, on a practical level, mean absolutely nothing to me because it could be like summer solstice or spring equinox or whatever, and then it snows for two weeks into spring. So that doesn't mean anything to me, right? As far as my engagement with the landscape. 
And so I've learned to look down a lot, find, develop my own cues and my relationships to those cues. I remember this past fall going into winter, it was... I wanna say like late, probably like mid to late October. So, you know, well before the winter solstice. And I remember being like, yeah, now it feels like winter now. Because I remember I was taking a walk, and I looked down on the sidewalk, and everythying had this grey overcast to it, everything felt very Saturnian, very dry, very dark. And I saw these earthworms sort of wriggling around on the pavement. And they were, you know, you see earthworms during the spring and the summer when it's warm and moist and they're bright pink, sometimes like red, right? But these were like, they were very pale, right? Because they were cold, and they were dying. And I stopped and I looked at that and I'm like, "Yeah, this is winter." right? Like this is winter now. The solstice isn't for a few weeks, a month or so, but like this is winter now. And I can sort of magically move into that wintery space, even though we're technically still in fall. So, yeah, my environment plays a huge role. And especially with foraging, I've incorporated foraging more into my practice. And so, of course, you have to be very aware of when things are growing, and where they're growing, and stuff like that.

Kim: It's interesting to think about that here, because the growing seasons are different here. 

David: Yeah. 

Kim: We kind of have two growing seasons and winter is one of them, and summer is when everything's dead. Nothing happens because it's so hot. It just fries everything. Yeah, our growing season started in about September. It goes from September to now, kind of.

David:  Oh, that's interesting. See, that would be such a shock for me. Like I said, I would adapt after a little while, but yeah, that would be, I'm so used to Michigan, the cycles of Michigan, that anything else would be, like if I lived somewhere like, because you know, one day I would like to move to the South, and if I moved somewhere that was like tropical, that would be very, that would be a big adjustment for me.

Kim: Man, Florida where it seems like you can get everything you want all the time.

David: Yeah, I know quite a few people. 

Kim: They have water. 

David: Yeah, and I'm like, wow, that's just year-round access to, not year-round, because they have their cycles and things die off and stuff like that, but yeah, it will be very different than what I'm used to.

Kim: Me too. It's still interesting to think about. Would you say that you have, like, I feel like everybody, everything is pretty cyclical and sometimes there's a low period. Do you do anything to pull yourself out of it, or do you just sort of... accept that it's part of the cycle and just slog through?

David: It's like a little bit of both. I accept it, I'm big on anti-spiritual bypassing. If you're depressed, there isn't a spell to cure depression, unfortunately, at least not one that I'm aware of or have tried. And so you're acknowledging your humanity in that moment, right, and sort of acknowledging the sort of mundane things that you can do to sort of maybe get you out of it, but if not that, to sort of help you cope. And to me, it looks a lot like those sort of everyday tasks, right, being very cognizant of smell, right? If I know I'm feeling a bit down, I want my space to smell sweet. So I'm going to burn some vanilla incense or some lavender or something like that. Or I'm going to, you know, if I have the capacity, like deep clean my bathroom and take a bath so that I can sort of be in a space that smells good and is clean. I'm going to do my laundry. And again, this is all contingent on what I have the space for in that moment, right? And it's, you want to acknowledge your humanity, but I also don't want to personally, I don't want to allow myself to like get too deep into something to the point where I'm paralyzed. It happens, regardless of what I would want, it happens. But that's how I tend to sort of work my way through that, is sort of bringing stuff back down to earth. You know, it's if I'm stressed out or anxious about something, you pair that with the depressive episodes, I'm not gonna be pulling too many cards on things, or divining too much, because the last thing I need to see when I'm stressed out about finances is, you know, the two of pentacles and the tower. I'm like, I did not need to see that right now. (laughs) That was not something I, so that just sent me down a deeper spiral. And so it's bringing stuff back down to earth, making things, I would say my practice is already quite tangible, but making them even more so. Getting outside, going outside if I can, feeling the sun, the air, smelling the horrible Bradford pear trees. 

Kim: Still, they still have those things? 

David: They still have them everywhere, and I forget about them every year and I'm like why does it smell like, you know, baby gravy outside? It's the pear trees. (both laugh)

Kim: Why...

David:  It's the pear trees. But they ground me because I'm like I'm alive, so I'm grateful for that.

Kim: Grudgingly. (both laugh) What is something you wish was discussed more in, I'm going to call it the witch community?

David: Yeah. Three, I have three things. They're all pretty brief. One minding your own business.

Kim:  Good lord, yeah. 

David: I like to say, you know, what someone does at the privacy of their own altar is none of my business. Obviously, if someone is publicly proclaiming themselves to be like a leader or an authority in a tradition that isn't theirs, or they are sharing sort of unsafe information, right? You're sort of encouraging people to blend poisonous plants into their smoothies to open up their third eye. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, let's not do that, right? Like this person is, they don't know what they're talking about, right? But if someone is like, I wanna put Santa Muerte next to Hecate, I'm like, okay, and? I promise you, you're not going to get any pushback from me, because I don't care. It doesn't affect me. So that's that. Taking accountability for your own education. If that includes, and this is a plug, that includes paying your practitioner.

Kim: Yes! Yes. 

David: I offer a consultation service. It's basically just like office hours. You can pay me for an hour or more to just bring a topic to me and if I'm qualified to talk about it, I will let you know if I'm not ahead of time, but if I'm qualified to talk about it we can sit and talk about it. I'll give you all the books, we can do all that, right? And I make this service known, right, you know, I publicize it, yet there are people who will slide into my DMs, and leave a three, because you know, Instagram will like cut you off after a certain point, like, hey, this message is too long. They will send me three of those outlining a dream that they had or something that they're experiencing. And they're like, what do you think about this? Okay, here's the booking link, you know what I'm saying?

Kim: "Neat dream."

David:  Like, you know, and we could discuss that and I don't hear anything. Right. And I'm like, oh, I'm not trying to police people's pockets. I'm not interested in that. But also. You 

Kim: Your time is still your time. You can't get that time back. 

David: Exactly. And also. That's you know, that's a different conversation. But yeah, taking accountability for your own education, and that includes budgeting for it, just to be frank. So there's...

Kim: If it's not important enough for you to pay for it, why is it important to me? 

David: Exactly. Look, and here's the thing. I wish that we all lived, not just me, that we all lived in a society where it would be economical for me to like center an entire business around like bartering. I would love to introduce bartering, or just being able to do stuff for free, but I can't, right? I have bills to pay. And unfortunately... 

Kim: Yeah, I can't pay my electricity with a crystal.

David: With a crystal or with you just sending me an email telling me how much... 

Kim: Or another tarot.

David:  Exactly. And it's so there's that element. Yeah, taking accountability for your own education. And then the final thing is make, and I'm gonna use the word witchcraft just as a umbrella term, make witchcraft dirty again. Bring back the filth, the blood, the bodily fluids, the bones, the meat, all of that. Bring all of that back, the sex, the monstrousness of it all. Bring all of that back. In the name of, you know, speaking about running a business, I understand the impulse to sanitize what you do. And obviously everything that you do does not need to be publicized. Some of it might right? Because there are definitely elements of sneaking into places and digging things up. So, you know, you don't want to go on Instagram like this: "Yes, I'm grave robbing today." (Kim laughs) But it's like, so like you don't want to do that. And also there, you know, just there's a decorum to social media. Like I don't I'm not going to post like a bloody I'm not going to post like roadkill without like a trigger warning or something because no one, you know, no one wants to see that just scrolling through their feed at nine in the morning. But, so yeah, I get needing to sort of tone things down and sanitize things for the sake of an algorithm, but even then, right, like, there, look, there is, these things are a part of this work, regardless of what tradition you're in. You don't have to use it. If you don't wanna touch bones or work with urine or spit or blood or semen, if you don't wanna do that, that's fine. Again, what you do at the privacy of your own altar is none of my business. Or, and same thing goes for what you don't do. I don't care. But don't judge me when I do. Right? And I say when as opposed to if because it will happen. (laughs) It happens often and it will continue to happen because it's a part of the work that I do. And it's again, it's how I ground myself. You know, if we're supposed to be these magical practitioners, and we're so in touch with nature, and we're, you know, embodying these different aspects of nature, well, nature is filthy, right?

Kim: It's not all pink and glitter.

David: Exactly. It's definitely not glitter, so please stop using glitter.

Kim: Seriously, gross.

David: Just putting that out there. But it can be filthy. One of my favorite things about summer, you know, it's starting to warm up. It's 53 degrees here today, but like I said a week or so ago, it was like 80 consistently. And I'm like, okay, I'm not a huge fan of that aspect of it. But one thing I did enjoy, or do enjoy about this hot weather, is that like faint pungency that's in the air, from the smell of like small carcasses decaying, right? Like the stuff that is kind of preserved in the winter and the fall, right? Because it's cooler out. But like that roadkill now, or that bird that died off on the side of the trail, or that squirrel or whatever, that's gonna start to stink once it's like 80 degrees outside and it starts to decompose. And I kinda like that. I like being outside and smelling that, because it's like those signs of death are also signs of life as far as I'm concerned. And that's where the power is. Yeah, so those are things I wish was discussed more.

Kim: That, I love it. Okay, good. Do you ever work with other magical practitioners?

David: I have. I don't often. (pauses) I'm not opposed to doing it again, but I'm a Virgo rising and my Mercury is in Virgo, so I'm very meticulous about how things, how I think things should be. And when I bring something to a group... I sometimes, I've been told, and lovingly, that I, I, I,  someone, a friend of mine once referred to me as like the secretary of the abyss, right? Because I am very, I love a good spreadsheet. I love, like, I love cataloging things and just making sense of stuff, right? And so if I do bring a specific ritual proposal, I'm speaking about it as if it's like a grant. To a group, it's just that. It's a proposal, right? And I've already taken the time to map out, okay, here's when we're going to do it, what we're going to need, how we're going to do it, blah, blah, blah, blah. And sometimes when other people, rightfully, are like a bit more into improv, or maybe a bit more chaotic in their approaches, it kind of stresses me out a bit. Because my secretary nature, my sort of administrative nature, just gets shaken up. And again, I'm working on that, but that's why I don't do it as much as I used to. Because nothing gets me out of the sort of magical headspace more than like, why is your candle shorter than mine? Like, where did you get your candle? I brought enough for everyone. Why? (both laugh)

Kim: "what is this?" 

David: Where did you bring that from? Where is your pre-blended, you know, incense blend that I made for you. I made enough for everyone. I gave everyone an ounce baggie like what's going on. (both laugh)

Kim:  I feel this so hard.

David:  It's like what is happening? You're throwing me off. Yeah, so I like I always end up enjoying myself. That's the important part. But the leading up to the enjoyment, it's like pulling my hair out.

Kim: Yeah, that's pretty much exactly why I don't. Because I'm a control freak. Yeah. I'm not going to put it any other way. I'm a control freak. I'm a micromanager. And if your candle that I gave you, if it's not the candle I gave you, I'm going to have a conniption.

David: Yeah. I'm a recovering perfectionist. I'm a recovering perfectionist.

Kim: Who would you say are the three big, who or what are the three biggest influences on your practice and can you let them know how they influenced you?

David: Yes. So the first one is long dead, so that would require some necromancy, but William Blake introduced me in college to the world of like mystical poetry. I was already familiar with romanticism and stuff like that, but William Blake specifically, and his relationship to spirits and how unapologetic he was about it. Because the thing that I wanted to go into academia originally, slight tangent, but the thing that kept me from doing it was how, again, like how materialist it all, like a lot of it is, like even in the, even within the humanities, like the spaces where you would assume people would be a bit more open to magic and spirituality and stuff like that, like they were still quite rigid sometimes. I would find myself going back and forth with my professors, saying "I think this piece of art is like magical in nature." And like, I don't think so. I'm like, dude, it's literally a conjuration. Like, what are you so afraid? I know you don't want to, you know, be the weird one amongst your super professional academic peers, but like this person, this is, they're literally referencing like a grimoire. What are you confused about? But I digress. William Blake, because it was so undeniable, like you could not read, well you can't read William Blake and interpret it in any other way other than something that is deeply informed by someone's like religious and spiritual experiences, right? So I love William Blake for that. 

Damien Jalet, the choreographer, for really exposing me to that dance as ritual, the sensuality of movement. There is a specific dance, I talk about Suspiria, so watch that to get an idea of what I'm saying, but if you're not ready to carve out two and a half to three hours of your day, there is a dance that he choreographed. It's on YouTube, I'm terrible at French, but it's like l'evocation, so I guess French for like the evocation. And it's done, the dance was done surrounded by, I think it was in a museum, surrounded by these like ancient Mesopotamian sculptures. And so like that's the backdrop, and it's so animalistic. There's a lot of grunting and stomping and growling, and... ugh. It's beautiful. So I would highly recommend everyone go watch that. Yeah, so like Damien Jalet, if you're listening, thank you.
 And then also Guillermo del Toro. I... seeing Hellboy in theaters for the first time. Again, growing up very weird, very religious family, couldn't watch The Exorcist, but like, Hellboy, absolutely. Seeing that for the first time was such a formative experience for me, and it's what exposed me to Guillermo del Toro's work. I even have, like, the tarot deck, the Guillermo del Toro tarot deck that I really love. But there was this like, that intersection of like monstrosity and whimsicality, right? Like everything had this like fairy tale element to it. And he strikes me as this person who takes what he does very seriously, but he doesn't take himself too seriously, right? There's a sense of humor that he infuses into everything that he does, and I appreciate that and that's something that I really seek to embody. Because I acknowledge that like magic is kind of silly, right? Like we're talking to plants, and you know, asking them to do something for us. Like it's kind of silly. It's in that the silliness doesn't make it any less powerful or potent, but like you can't be so in your own head of like, I'm going to be super serious. It's like, you can banish spirits by banging pots and pans in corners of your home, right? That's kind of strange, right? But that's how it works, right? And that's the beauty of it. And I just love that he's not afraid to go there, that he's not afraid to lean into the horror elements of things while still being open to humor and levity. So those are my three.

Kim: Nice. What words of wisdom do you have for a new practitioner? 

David: The first one, and this traces back, sort of connects to the imposter syndrome. You have to actually do work. All the books, classes, YouTube videos in the world, that's not you practicing. It just isn't. It's good to have that information, and you don't have to. I feel like there's this confusion where people are like, oh, like, I engage with witchcraft from an academic or a theoretical perspective, therefore I am a witch or therefore I am a practitioner. And it's like, no, you're just an occultist. And I don't mean just in a derogatory way, but you don't practice, right? I can read all the anatomy and physiology books I want, but if I try to go walk into, you know, my closest physical therapy clinic, I'm like, hey, I'm here to work. They'll be like, excuse me, do you have any experience? Right, like, so it's the same thing. So actually do work. It's the only way that you're gonna get better at it, and also deepen your confidence in what you're doing. The same thing goes for the failures. Those failures are also going to deepen your confidence. 
I'm also a big fan of... People, you know, unverified personal gnosis is definitely a thing. There are going to be things that certain people do. I know there are things that I do that are quote unquote traditionally seen as like things that shouldn't work, right? But they work for me, and that's the relationship that I have with those spirits. So that aside, that sort of caveat aside, make sure what you're doing makes sense, especially from like a folk magic perspective, since a lot of folk magic tends to be very practical and oftentimes very literal, right? Like you want to bind something, you tie it up. You want to destroy something, you physically break it. You want to banish something, you throw it out your window. Right, like it's very like a very, the thread between the action and the magic is very clear a lot of times. Sometimes it isn't, but more often than not it is, right? And sometimes I'll be scrolling through TikTok, which I like to avoid doing, but you know, dopamine and or serotonin, whatever the chemical is. And they, I'll see things. And it's not presented as personal gnosis, it's presented as like principle, like this is how this works, right? And I'm like that makes no sense whatsoever. They're like, you know, I want to do a fast sweetening spell, so I'm going to fill a jar up with honey and put stuff in it. Well, honey, does honey move very fast? No. So why would you use honey to do something quick? Now, if you wanted to use that honey to get something to stick, or if you want it to sort of prolong something, right?

 For example, when I was at my previous job during quarantine, I had the privilege of being able to work from home, but people were still in the company being like, what's the word, furloughed every once in a while. And thankfully, I never was, and I think it was because of this work that I did where I was like, okay, I'm already here. I have the job, right? So I don't need to do anything quickly, because I have it, but I do want this job to stick. So I'm going to put my business card, along with some other herbs and money and stuff like that, in this jar with honey, because honey, again, it's an adhesive or it can act as an adhesive. I want to stick to this job. Something like that. Like the work has to- or I'm not going to say it has to make sense. In my opinion, the work should make sense in very literal ways like that. I'm all for symbolism. I'm all for abstractions, but if we're talking about a practice that's scalable, something that's rooted in transferable principles, approaching it in a very literal way like that, to me, helps. Same thing when you see people doing like, and no offense to anyone who does this stuff, again, if it works for you, but like, what's a banishing jar? If you're trying to get rid of something, why are you locking it up in a jar and keeping it in your home? You know, it's like...

Kim:  I don't know. I haven't heard of that. 

David: You know, it's like, I'm going to banish this. I'm going to put this in a jar. That literally does not make any sense. Now, if you're going to put it in a jar and then go like get rid of it, go chuck it somewhere. Put it in the trash. Exactly. That's different. But like it's just sitting in your home. You're not banishing it. That's a totally different working, a valid working, an effective one, but it's different. 

And then the final thing, before I get done off my soapbox, is look down, safely, of course, but look down, both literally and figuratively speaking. speaking, don't be so, what's the saying, don't be so heavenly minded that you are of no earthly good. Communion with these greater powers, I'm trying to get away from using the term higher power, but these greater powers is awesome, right? Being able to sort of look up to the heavens and see all this stuff, that's awesome. But notice the earthworms, notice the plants budding up at the beginning of spring or whenever your growing season is, right? Notice those subtle things, you know, and look down, figuratively speaking also, could just be, could also just reference just being more aware of your surroundings. Noticing that like, hmm, you know, it's been a while since I've heard the morning doves. What's going on, right? Or what's that smell? I walk outside, it smells different. Oh, okay, those trees must be blooming. You know, stuff like that, being very aware of your surroundings. I'm an animist, I identify as an animist, and so to be in right relationship with my surroundings involves being aware of them, you know, and acknowledging their existence. And yeah, so those are my three things. So just to someone just starting out.

Kim: Well, thank you.

David: Absolutely.

Kim: After answering all these questions, who do you think would be an interesting guest to hear their answers? Even the weird Patreon ones.

David: Yeah. So it's a duo. The Satyrs and Sinners podcast, I was on there not too long ago and it's Justify and Kane. They're also on Instagram, and I just like their energy and their attitudes. There's this sort of unapologetic feistiness to their approach and the way they sort of express themselves. And I just like their perspectives on things. You know, Justify is approaching things from like more of like a traditional witchcraft perspective. And then you have Kane, who is a horror writer, by the way. And they all say they, I believe they practice witchcraft, but they also infuse it with their sort of like Caribbean roots. And so there's a lot of like that going on in the background, and that those sort of cultural elements. I just think it would be interesting to hear one or both of them answer these questions. 

Kim: Cool. OK, they'll go on my list. Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about that I didn't ask, or did you have any questions for me?

David: I don't have any questions, I just have like some announcements. I like to call them church announcements. 

Kim: Yes, do it. 

David: I have, I'll be, I'm super excited. This is my first lecture not hosted by me. I'll be lecturing at Salem Witchcraft and Folklore Festival this year in August. I'll be doing a lecture, it's called The Gold and Scarlet God, exploring the benefic and malefic elements or aspects of the solar current. And it's exactly that, just talking about solar magic, and the sort of constructive and destructive aspects of the sun, magically speaking, and looking at like folklore and mythology to sort of help sort of color in those different aspects. And then if you're in the Southeast Michigan area, I'll be giving a lecture at a local shop, Evenstar's Chalice, in June on planetary magic. So feel free to follow me to sort of be made aware when the date is released. And we might also be doing, depending on demand, like a remote or like an online version. So even if you're not in Michigan, you might be able to tune in eventually. Yeah. Then there's just like my Patreon where I do like readings, monthly readings. I have like tiers on my Patreon where people can get like discounted monthly readings, and where I just go in there and talk, talk crap and go on. (Kim laughs) So it was like the middle of the night, magical musings where I'm just screaming into my phone and like, what if we, what, what about this? And what about that? And everyone's like, yeah, I like that. I'm like, great. So that's it.

Kim: Can you refresh us on where to find you?

David: Yes, everywhere at Porous Palms. So I have like, you know, my website, porouspalms.com. That's also where I host my apothecary offerings through the same website. So I have like incense and oils and stuff like that. And then there's Instagram@porouspalms and then Patreon, patreon.com/porouspalms. P-O-R-O-U-S P-A-L-M-S. And yeah. 

Kim: Nice. So at the end, I ask two things of my guests. Number one, please recommend something to the listeners, it does not have to be witch or... It doesn't, it can be anything.

David: Suspiria. (both laugh) Suspiria. It's one of those, it's definitely an arthouse film. Right. It's one of those. So if, you know, I totally understand if, and I don't mean this in like a pretentious way, but I just get like some people just don't like that stuff, right? They want like a linear narrative and that's perfectly fine. I want that most of the time. But if you're willing to like sit down and like step outside of your comfort zone maybe, and sort of appreciate something else, like 2018 Suspiria, please go watch it and then feel free to flood my inbox telling me how great of a recommendation it was. I could go on about it forever. Yeah, I love it so much. So yeah, Suspiria.

Kim: Okay, last thing. Would you please tell me a story. I would love it if it was something like, I call it gathering stories, where you're at a family reunion or you're around a campfire or you and a bunch of friends that you haven't seen in a long time but everybody knows the same stories and somebody says remember when and then everybody knows the story but you tell it anyway.

David: So this one is kind of spooky. So I, for context, one of my, I would say I was in like middle school, like late middle school going into high school. It had to have been eighth grade because I was living in Dearborn at the time. I got really into astral projection and lucid dreaming. That was just like a fixation of mine. I was the person going to sleep with like the binaural beats playing in their headphones, and doing the visualization exercises of the silver cord running from my belly button out into the astral plane, and all that other stuff. And I had some really interesting experiences sort of during those moments, during those exercises. But fast forward to like a year and a half ago, I don't do those exercises, at least not intentionally, as much as I used to, if at all. But every once in a while, I still find myself having like one of those out-of-body experiences where I quote unquote wake up, but I'm not fully present in the physical world. I'm definitely sort of in some in-between space, some liminal space. So like I said, a year and a half ago, yeah, I set up a temporary altar, an abolitionist altar. Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass, all those people, and it was sitting on my bookshelf, which I'm looking at right now, sort of like sitting at the very front of my living room, and then on the opposite side of my apartment, I have my ancestor altar. And...

Kim: So they face one another?

David: They, roughly, roughly. 

Kim: Okay. I'm trying to get it in my head.

David:  Yeah. And so, like, so the layout of my apartment, like, so, um, it's a one bedroom apartment. You can, I have like, the kitchen is sort of like, um, it has like a breakfast counter that looks out into the living room. So you can see, you know, into the living room from the kitchen. And the ancestor altar was at the time next to the kitchen, like in the dining area. And then the bookshelf you can see as soon as you walk in. So they're kind of like at a right angle from one another, perpendicular, by the word. Yeah. And so I'm just, I doze off one day, or one night, and I quote-unquote wake up, and I hear this rustling sound. Now I've come to recognize when I'm having sort of like a lucid dreaming experience because of how things look. Everything looks the same except there's this like tint over everything, almost as if I'm wearing like sunglasses, right? There's like this like navy blue tint over everything. And I don't always realize that immediately, especially if you wake up to a jarring experience, you might not be in the most logical headspace like, oh, this isn't, not that it isn't real, but that it isn't physical. You're like oh, what's happening? And so I wake up, I open my eyes, and I hear this rustling sound. And it sounds like, at first, it sounds like someone's carrying like grocery bags. Not unheard of. I live in an apartment. There's a hallway right outside of my front door. Someone could have just been walking groceries to their apartment, whatever. And that's where it sounded like it was coming from at first, like it was coming from outside. And so I'm like, okay, no big deal. 
Until it sounded like it was coming from inside of my apartment. And so I'm like, uh-oh. Someone's in here, right? And I like to joke that I'm more scared of people than I am of spirits, because you can banish a spirit, you cannot banish a person. So I'm freaking out at first, because I'm like, there's someone in my apartment. And so I sort of Pink Panther style tiptoe out of my bedroom. And I look out the peephole of my front door, which is directly next to my kitchen. And at this point, I can still hear the rustling sound, but it's sort of coming from everywhere all at once. I can't pinpoint where it's coming from. And then all of a sudden, as I'm looking to my peephole, my back facing the abolitionist altar, the sound focuses to behind me. So now it's distinctly coming from behind me. And so I spin around and I can see through the breakfast nook window out into the living room. I see clear as day this white spectre, sort of sneaking from the abolitionist altar to the direction of my ancestor altar. And it was so vivid. I, prior to that point, it had been years since I had seen a spirit in such like a clear way, right? And it made sense that the rustling sound was the sound of them moving through grass, or like some like foliage. And I was like, okay, this is someone who was enslaved and they're escaping enslavement. 
And so we made eye contact, they saw me, I saw them. They took off running. And at this point, it didn't fully register in that split second, it didn't fully register that this wasn't a physical person. So my brain is still in fight or flight mode because I'm like, someone somehow broke into my sixth floor apartment. Because my door is locked, the little chain is still on, so I doubt they broke in and then locked up behind themselves. And so they must have come in through the window. I don't know how they did that. So I freak out. I sort of push myself. I sort of fall back into the wall out of shock, until I see them run up to the wall and through the wall that my ancestor altar is placed in. I hope the visuals are making sense. So I'm like, okay, there's a connection there. I haven't done any work, admittedly, to sort of see what that connection could be, but that really startled me in that moment. I'm like, oh, okay, there's a spirit moving from that abolitionist space over to my ancestor space, and it seemed like they were running away from something or someone and I startled them. It's almost as if I was witnessing. I grew up watching like ghost adventures and I remember like those ghost hunting shows and they would talk a lot about the two different types of hauntings, like intelligent versus residual hauntings. And the intelligent hauntings being like a spirit sort of just like living its life in the spirit world, like they're sort of living in real time, and then residual haunting is like a tape recorder on loop, like the spirit kind of just like goes through the same motions over and over and over again, because they don't realize that they don't have to anymore. And that's what this felt like, because there was objectively no reason for that spirit to be afraid of me and to see me, but it was almost as if like the trauma that they experienced was still in them in spirit form. And so the fact that they had been perceived, it startled them and they sort of ran away from me. So that's, that's the, that's my lucid dreaming story.

Kim: That makes me sad.

David: Yeah, it was, it was scary at first, but then I was like, Oh, darn. Like that was, I startled them. And the rustling sound, I'm like, yeah, that was the sound of like, dried foliage that they were sort of rustling through. Yeah. A roller coaster of emotions with that one.

Kim: Yeah. Thank you so much for the story.

David: Absolutely.

Kim: And for being on the show. 

David: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I had a very good time.

Kim: Yay! And thanks again. And I will see you over on Instagram. Bye. 

David: Bye.

Kim: So David, welcome to Patreon. 

David: Thank you. Thank you for having me here. (fades out) (fades in) The interesting thing about scorpions, at least these particular ones, they don't disintegrate upon chewing, they just flatten. And so you take that initial bite and like all the guts... 

Kim: Because It's like exoskeleton.

David: Yeah, the guts just... (fades out)

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