Witch Wednesdays

I'm joined today by author Angelica Merritt to chat about her upcoming book Womb Witch: Herbal Magick for Reproductive Health. Find Angelica and Womb Witch: Website: https://www.angelicamerritt.com/ Book: https://amzn.to/3PhtxnV Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dandeliondazed/ About the Book: Liberate your uterus - Herbal remedies and wise perspectives to help make your cycle less of a rollercoaster. Ever felt like your uterus is out to get you? Or experienced dismay at the politicians out to get your uterus? This book will speak straight to your soul. Get to know your body with this inclusive guide to herbal, holistic self-care for every womb, at every stage of life—from puberty to post-menopause and everything in between. Herbalist and pregnancy loss doula Angelica Merritt offers a wealth of anatomical science, plant medicine, and nutritional and herbal strategies to support body literacy, a regular menstrual cycle, and your reproductive goals. If you're dealing with irregular menstruation, PCOS, infertility, pregnancy loss or release, perimenopause, or any other reproductive health issue, look to these pages for remedies that bridge the scientific and the spiritual. Inside you'll find guidance in holistic modalities such as castor oil packs, breath work, breast and womb massage, baths, and infused oils, along with rituals and journal prompts. You'll learn about the connections between the womb, the moon cycle, and the archetypes of Maiden, Mother, and Crone. Transform your self-care through the magick of the womb within! Angelica Merritt is a Community Herbalist, Full-Spectrum Pregnancy Loss Doula, Postpartum Caretaker, and Author of Womb Witch: Herbal Magick for Reproductive Health. She has over 8 years of formal training in herbalism, holistic energy work, functional nutrition, birthwork, and a B.S. in Journalism from Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. Her work aims to assist others in "awakening the wild within" through herbalism, storytelling, nature immersion, and practices that invoke intuitive guidance. Find more of Angelica’s work and teachings through her project Dandelion Dazed, where she encourages others to frolic in nature, gather wild foods and medicines, and contemplate life through the esoteric lens.

I'm chatting today with author and chaotic wellness witch, Mandi Em, about her newest book, Shadow Work for Hot Messes. Mandi Em's book, Shadow Work for Hot Messes, is the ultimate guide to self-awareness and healing, even if you're a certified hot mess. Mandi condenses the complex concept of shadow work into a three-step process: Perceive, Investigate, and Integrate. By delving into core wounds, inner child work, and feelings of shame and fear, readers are prompted to confront their inner shadows, leading to a more empowered and fulfilled self.  With prompts, activities, and fill-in-the-blank exercises, this book encourages readers to reconnect with themselves and pursue their personal healing journeys. It’s the next evolution of shadow work as only Mandi Em can deliver it. With introspective exercises and relatable guidance, this one-of-a-kind book helps you do the work to become a happier, healthier, and more empowered hot mess. Take yourself from hot mess to a happier, more empowered hot mess who is in touch with their shadow self with this powerful new book from Mandi Em, the unhinged author behind Witchcraft Therapy, Happy Witch, and Feral Self-Care. This book is intended to provide fun and sassy direction to folks looking to reconnect with themselves and pursue their own healing journey for maximum wellness. The tone of this book is like having a BFF right by your side, helping you swerve around the BS and yanking you back to your core to connect with your own inner shadow to find healing and live your best life. Find Mandi: The Book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Shadow-Work-for-Hot-Messes/Mandi-Em/9781507222997 Website: https://healingforhotmesses.com Instagram: instagram.com/healingforhotmesses Facebook: facebook.com/healthylivingforhotmesses YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HealingforHotMesses TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@healingforhotmesses Mandi Em is a humorist, author, and chaotic wellness witch. She’s the author of Witchcraft Therapy, and she shares funny, approachable self-help guidance on her blog and social channels for Healing for Hot Messes and resources for nonreligious witches over at The Secular Witch. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, HuffPost, SheKnows, Refinery29, McSweeneys, and more. She and her husband are born-again hippies raising their three children in beautiful Vernon, BC, in Canada.

I'm chatting today with Lalania Simone about Lalania's newest deck, Tarot of the Cosmic Seed. In an effort to decolonize the tarot, remove outdated ideas of hierarchy, and shift ingrained gender norms, Lalania, founder of Alchemy Ritual Goods, has created a lush and vibrant deck with unique imagery and symbolism and an array of people and cultures. Having renamed the royalty cards—including the Hierophant, Emperor, Empress, and the court cards—Lalania has expanded their interpretation into energy signatures rather than personality types. The result is a deeply diverse spiritual tool, a bridge to the mysterious and the esoteric, as well as a guide to the everyday. Using the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition as a foundation, this deck offers a twist: there is a twenty-third card added to the Major Arcana—The Cosmic Seed, a representative of us all as infinite, cosmic spirits, enmeshed in sacred flesh for a time on this Earth. Find Lalania: Buy Tarot of the Cosmic Seed: https://amzn.to/3VkQb2j Instagram: @the.cosmicseed www.lalaniasimone.com Lalania is an artist and entrepreneur on a path of personal expansion and collective liberation. Their work here on earth is to awaken to the fullness of my divine presence, and to experience the pure divine potential in every person and thing that surrounds them. Lalania is the author of Urban Soul Warrior: Self Mastery in the Midst of the Metropolis, the creatix of Tarot of the Cosmic Seed, and co-owner of a magical BIWOC owned metaphysical shop called Alchemy Ritual Goods.

Today I'm joined by author Coby Michael to chat about poison plants and their potential use within your witchcraft practice. Examining the art and science of working with noxious and malefic plants and fungi, Coby Michael discusses the occult properties of poison and how poison plants can be used in spell work and other magical operations. He looks at the plants of Fate and the divination practices they support, love magic with poison plants, shadow work, the devil’s garden, and the use of nightshades as power plants for medicine and magic. Presenting a detailed formulary, he shares rituals, magical correspondences, and recipes for working with specific poison plant allies and other baneful herbs of occult herbalism.Exploring the path of dark herbalism, the author explains how it encompasses not only veneficium—poisonous plants and fungi—but all plants that humanity has tried to forget, from “invasive” plants and those we can’t domesticate to those that have been regulated arbitrarily or simply feared as “toxic” or “poison.” He shows how the dark herbalist seeks out plants that are adversarial or taboo because the qualities we consider “dark” are really the plant’s spiritual medicine and can offer powerful wisdom and healing. Examining poison history, lore, and occult toxicology, he explains how the aim of using these plants is not to cause physical death, but rather death of the ego. He shows how “poison” in this sense is an alchemical force that allows the practitioner to become a vessel for the forbidden fruit of knowledge and how the transmutation of our personal poisons can lead to powerful self-transformation. Find the Book and Conference: Poison Path Grimoire: https://www.innertraditions.com/the-poison-path-grimoire Botanica Obscura: https://www.botanicaobscuraconference.com/ Find Coby: Website: thepoisonersapothecary.com Facebook and Instagram: @poisonersapothecary Patreon: patreon.com/poisonersapothecary COBY MICHAEL is the author of The Poison Path Herbal & The Poison Path Grimoire, and co author of Leo Witch and is a prolific writer. He is an occult herbalist and Poison Path practitioner and founded The Poisoner’s Apothecary in 2016. Coby has studied religion, history and herbalism and is well read in a variety of occult sciences and is practitioner of “traditional” witchcraft and folk magic. He has been lecturing and facilitating workshops since 2016 and has appeared at events around the world. Coby is founder and co-host of Botanica Obscura Conference and online plant spirit practitioner gathering held annually every march.