As Within, So Without

The lovely Brian Truskowski interviewed me for his podcast “Illuminate”. In introducing myself, I found myself saying that I’m a witch, I work magic, and I have a bunch of spiritual tools that have allowed me to build a really beautiful life, one that I enjoy and I’m fortunate to have. And, I’m also an activist, I spend my days working on social change, and I am obsessed with the socioeconomic political context that affects us all.

These two things are core pieces of my identity, why and how I am a witch is a longer story, but I’m an activist because I can’t imagine being a witch and not wanting to influence the outside world as well. As within, so without.

In my conversation with Brian, I told him about three ideas that are important to me, that you’ve heard me talk about before but that explain my deep connection to both witchcraft and activism:

1. Paradox is the organizing principle of Life.

When I believe this idea, I can love more openly and I can love more fully. I believe that connectedness and embodiment of Love is what I need to be healthy and happy. Things that are seemingly contradictory can be true at the same time: I can be very strategic and very analytical and very sharp operating in a pseudo corporate environment and bring to it a decolonizing strategy lens, bring to it an open heart, bring to it a depth of intuition. That doesn’t make the strategy any less valid and it doesn’t make the magic any less magical. But that’s a lot of work: to incorporate seemingly contradictory things and to embody the Paradox. Owning the paradox means that I understand that I may mess up things but that doesn’t make me a messed-up person. You might not be the upstanding human that I want you to be 100% of the time, and that doesn’t make you any less human. Embracing this allows me to love you anyway, and to love you openly and with compassion. I can do this for myself first, and then for everybody else. 

2. Speaking truth is the path of liberation.

The act of speaking truth itself has magical powers. It changes consciousness, creates connections, transforms realities. There’s a reason a classic social change phrase is “Speak truth to power”. Because if there is no problem, there is no solution, and because we do certainly speak our reality into being, it is critical to search for the truth, speak, and when you think you found it, keep searching for it. Truth is direction of travel, not a location.

3. Politics matter.

The rise of fascism, of authoritarianism, of oppression and violence are real. I call it out every chance I get because the way these things happen at a political level is when we try to pretend that it’s not happening or we’re too scared of talking about it. I am terrified of the political situation in the US and while I can’t do everything about it, I can do something about it. This is not going to sort itself out, we’re going to sort it out. 

So if you think that we can love and light our way out of the current mess, please take a seat, and listen to the women and men that have been resisting for centuries and take a page out of their survival playbook. If you think you can green smoothie your way out of your spiritual thirst, you have a long way to go in your search and may I suggest your path will be clearer if you think about others as well.

You don’t have to be a witch to have spiritual power, but it helps. You don’t have to be an activist to be happy, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. I wanna invite you today to do one thing that will get you closer to spirit, and one thing that will make the world around you a little bit better. And let me thank you for that on Life’s behalf.