What’s up, swimmers? Yesterday was a jam-packed day, as the Full Moon in Libra aligned with the first night of Passover. Chag sameach to all who observed!
For those who are unfamiliar with the Passover traditions, the first night is observed with a ritual dinner as detailed in the Haggadah, a Jewish text from the Hebrew meaning “telling.” Our reformed family has its own Haggadah, which weaves the family photo album into the ceremonial script.
My in-laws are incredibly welcoming of all at the Seder table, and typically have about 15 people of all faiths and philosophies over to partake, learn and share in their customs. On top of the traditional items, our Seder plate also includes an orange for the inclusion of all genders and the LGBTQIA+ community, an artichoke heart to represent the presence of interfaith friends and family, and this year, we included an olive to stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.
The ceremony, at its core, is about the renewal and hope of Spring alongside the constant fight for liberation for all. As the ancestral timeline collapses, we are reminded that social justice is a present-tense struggle. Our family’s Haggadah recognizes how we can practice allyship with Black, Indigenous, AAPI and other communities of color carrying on the fight for freedom today. With great hope for the future, there is an acknowledgement of the inequities that still plague us today, and the important aide-memoire that until we all are free, none of us are free.
Before I introduce you to my guest today—who also loves a good ritual in the name of liberation—I want to share that I had the honor and pleasure of being included in the Full Moon in Libra episode of the Cosmic Cousin’s podcast, hosted by Jeff Hinshaw.
As a Libra Moon and a huge fan of Jeff’s work, it was so exciting to be able to share a mini-teaching on Libra through the lens of two numbers (7 & 11) and how they relate to the Libran theme of equanimity.
Missing Witches is an excuse for us to do the research we were longing to do, into the ideas and people we felt were missing from our lives.
- Risa and Amy of Missing Witches
Risa Dickens and Amy Torok are the co-authors of New Moon Magic: 13 Anti-Capitalist Tools for Resistance and Re-enchantment (coming September 2023), and Missing Witches: Reclaiming True Histories of Feminist Magic (March 2021).
BUST magazine wrote “Dickens and Torok teach us what it means to create art, engage in activism, and exist at the intersection of witchcraft and feminism.”
You can find their books, podcast, zine and coven at MissingWitches.com
BLESSED FUCKING BE!
- Missing Witches
I’m so grateful to have connected with Risa for a conversation on ritual and play, magic as a practice of anti-capitalism, and the surrealist life and art of Leonora Carrington. It’s always so lovely to share space with someone who can just go deep quickly, and for a first meeting, Risa and I absolutely just dive right into the soup!
Some of my favorite moments from this conversation include:
“We write about art as a witchcraft practice—that's like one of the free anticapitalist tools of witchcraft—and how to get there, and how people have played with that in their work of resistance and enchantment.”
[on Surrealism]: “The language of that art movement really saw young women and especially, you know, wild or mentally ill young women as a vehicle, like as something that could be written into a new form of experience or a new way of seeing. There's pieces of that that seem really terrifying and manipulative: the way that young women's magic and power has been like vampiric be used by patriarchal culture for centuries.”
[on Leonora Carrington]: “…to just relentlessly making her art and just refusing to have that excised or pressurized away from her. That's who she was. She was going to make art. She didn't need to be part of a circle. She didn't need to be part of whatever trends or brands you were brandishing. She needed to live art all the way through her, her body and her life and have it at the center of her family home.”
But there really are so many juicy nuggets within. Let me know which moments stood out to you!
If you’d like to connect with Missing Witches, there are many ways to do so!
SITS 1x14 - Diving Deep with Missing Witches