Welcome to Between Three Witches, where we talk about
witchcraft in plain sight. Everyday magic lived honestly,
and it's hosted by three witches.
Me, GAIL, the witch next door. Me, Vicky the Wheelie green
witch. And me and None, the anonymous
witch. We all walk different paths with
different levels of experience, but we share a deep respect for
the craft as it is actually practice and not the dramatized
version that people expect. So today we are joined by
someone very special as our first ever Witchcraft One O 1
guest for Witchcraft Mentor. She is a beloved voice in the
witchcraft community and a guide for those seeking connection
empowerment through everyday magic.
Through her books, workshops, and online presence, she
encouraged people to explore their craft with confidence and
curiosity. Her passion for helping others
through their own spiritual path makes her truly special.
She is the author. We have multiple books including
Wicca, Charms, Potions, and Law, and her latest book,
Witchatorium, which breaks down the language of witchcraft in a
way that actually makes sense whether you're just starting out
or deep in your practice. Great to welcome you to the
podcast, Nixie. Vale, thank you for having me.
Thank you, thank you. I'm so.
Excited you're here. How have you been anyway?
How has how has things been lately?
And obviously you're writing a book, so that's pretty.
Stressful. I have actually got 2 sort of in
the pipeline and planning stages as well.
So yeah, but it's kind of like the same things, different days.
Obviously I'm disabled and I'm an ambulatory wheelchair user,
so while I can walk around inside, I don't when I'm
outside. So a lot of my practice and a
lot of my life kind of is centred around being disabled
and learning how to do things I used to do, to do while
conserving and protecting the energy that I have.
And it's not always very much I try to do, you know, all the
things, you know, Sabbath experts.
And it's like I've learned to do things when I'm well enough and
have the mental, mental, physical, emotional and all that
stability around rather than rushing off and doing something
and having to take a week to recover.
So that's a really important message.
I'm sure Vicky has spoken about this before as well.
Massively. Your disability and how you
blend it into your magic and understanding what our body
needs and how we feel is like a critical part of that isn't.
It, and I think Vicky's probably the same, that to begin with
there was a level of guilt to not being able to practice the
way I used to, not being able to have my altars set up or because
I used to have 5 or 6. But now it's like I can't
energetically keep those spaces open.
So I have one that looks like a bombers exploded on it.
There was that level of guilt and almost shame that I put on
myself about not being able to do the things I used to do.
It's like I I used to be able to do all of this stuff.
Why can't I do it? And then it's like, well, your
body's portraying me. As a human, we tend to put so
much pressure on ourselves. So the way things used to be and
I funny, I've had which ones this week, my clients and it's
like, well, I used to do this or I used to be, but we can never
revert back to the way we were. Those lessons have learned for
disability, change of circumstance, but it is about
understanding how we move into whatever the current moment is
and accepting that. But you're right, guilt is the
real thing. I can't.
I can't even imagine how frustrating it is, let alone
guilty it is to be able to have done the things and not undo the
things. You have to learn to pace.
Pacing feels like it doesn't get anything done.
You want to do 100 more things than you actually can do.
You have all of these ideas and all of a sudden your body
betrays you and you can't move for the day, which is fantastic.
And then you have to try and make everything accessible.
I'm lucky now because I actually live in an accessible house and
we've made the garden accessible for me.
When I say we, that's the royal, we, the husband built it
accessible for me so that I could continue with my practice.
But you do feel a lot of guilt. And it's also something I think
that a lot of mothers, new mothers feel when they can't
practice how they want to because they're too exhausting
for feeding babies or school runs and it just, it's
overwhelming. So when I'm running and I see
somebody and I wave, and that's probably the worst example to
say to two wheelchair users, so sorry about.
That. Fuck's sake, I'll cut that out.
Or when you're. Or when you're on about.
All right, when I'm in my T5 van and I see another T5, we wave.
But do you like, give a nod to have you seen another wheelchair
user and you go, oh, yeah. Is it like, like the.
Yeah. All right.
And we also check out each other's wheelchairs to see who's
got the nicest. If you want to, and I'm in a
sort of a power chair. So I, I've had people like, oh,
that, that's quite fancy because usually I'll say because people
will stare at me and I'm, I'm used to that.
And it's like, OK, is it the chair or the hair that you
notice first? Because I have green and pink
hair. I love your hair.
At the moment. Thank you.
And it's like so, OK, So what did you see first?
The chair or the hair? And it's usually a mixture of
both, but I had a lady at the vet in October and she was like,
where did you get your chair from?
I'm like, I'm here. So I gave her the address to the
shop that I got it through and she was like, this would make my
life so much easier. And living in, I live in Rural
England, in this, one of the really small towns, it is not
built for accessibility. I mean, there are some places
the doors are physically not wide enough for me to go inside
because they're listed buildings.
Some of these buildings have been here since the 1100s.
So it's like you can't read. So there is quite a bit of the
town that I can't get into anymore, but there are people
who are amazing with it as well. This old gentleman we got on the
bus one day, he had one of these like collapsible scooters and he
went. I wish I could have something
like that because I just don't have the space, but that's what
I want there's. Always somebody worse off.
Is it that like there's somebody wishing that they had what you
had, which sometimes must seem like you say, we want to know a
little bit about the witch that you are.
And so our listeners can, because they love to learn and
listen about all different types of witchcraft practitioner,
which is why US 3 come together. I can't bloody get rid of these
two now to be honest. But when?
When did you come start your week?
I love you. Really.
Sorry. Yeah.
Thanks. So when did I?
I was. *. I think I've always known that I
was a little bit different from like the rest of my cousins and
my family. I was the one who would make mud
pies and potions in the bathtub and all of these things, and my
granddad got really poorly. I started missing like the
folklore tails because he's German, their tails and the
folklore and the mythologies he used to tell me.
And I found at the time more comfort in stories of Valhalla
and warrior than I did in what I was being told by the Father at
the church. That started me looking into
other ways of, well, belief, really.
So I was 11 when I started my spiritual journey and I think I
was about 15 when I felt I was comfortable enough to.
I'm a witch, so that was 24 years ago.
I also think like when is the teenage witches?
It's like that. I mean, I don't know because I
came to witchcraft later in later in my life, just like the
rebellious energy to it as well, which I love about witchcraft
anyway because it is always about and pushing back on the
page and pushing back on what everybody expects from you.
But as a teenager, that would feel so empowering as well to
make that choice. It was, and at the time, in sort
of it was the early 2000s, so everything, the whole world was
starting to open up with the Internet.
You've just made me feel incredibly old that you're a
teenager in the 2. Thousand.
I'm saying nothing about being old.
Nothing. It's usually I'm one of the old.
If I have a discussion like this, it's usually I'm the
oldest witch in the group and I'm 39.
The Old Witch Podcast Welcome to the Old Witch Podcast.
Anon's actually the youngest one, but I'd like to tell people
she's older because nobody can see her.
She's the youngest. I've always loved rainbows.
I have always loved things that are bright and colorful, if you
can tell with the hair. I started incorporating color
into what I was doing in my early 20s because I wanted to
learn about what was going on with colored magic and color and
how it can affect my magic. So 14 years ago something big
happened and I came to a shop and was talking to the owner and
these two little old ladies came in said are you white witches or
black witches? I couldn't stop the intrusive
thought of no, I'm a rainbow witch that came out and it was
almost like my soul sung that whole I'm a rainbow witch
because that is I think what I am.
Colour is my happy place. I know we're all struggling a
little bit with the technology, but I wanted, I wanted to ask
you briefly about the aspect of colour and how important that is
in your work. Because I'm, I'm, I'm very much
a practitioner that really leans into my own experience with my
practice. And I do view a lot of research
in books that I view and read as a blueprint to my practice, and
it's not necessarily something that I will follow strictly as a
rule. So with colour, do you associate
them with the terminologies that we know today or do you have
your own personal experiences with the colours that you work
with? And do they change dependent on
where you are on your path? I when I write about colour,
it's always the characteristics that are usually found in books
because I think that is what everybody should know,
especially when they're first starting out is get groundwork.
Then over the years I've learned that certain colours to me
represent something a little different.
When I'm practicing is like your heart chakra, it's usually green
for me. If I'm doing internal heart
work, it's pink because that's coming from within me.
If I'm doing something externally or trying to bring
something external to me, then I'll focus on green.
It's like again with the crown chakra, it's not always purple
for me. Sometimes it is magenta,
sometimes it is white. It will depend on what I'm doing
with the spell or the magical working at the time.
I am very loose in how I practice.
It calls out to me then that must be coming to me for a
reason and I go with it. If somebody comes to me and
asks, what color would you recommend for grounding?
Classically it's black, for me it's brown and grey.
It's it's not as hard as what it's not as cutting.
So if you go with the core of earth and ground, it's softer,
pulls you down in a gentle emotion rather than just
smacking on top of the head saying, yeah, they grounded.
I also, I'm not this may be a bit of a hot tape.
I'm not a fan of using black for protection.
I will use it for binding. For me, when it comes to
protection, that is an iridescence.
When I protect myself, it's I'm in a iridescent bubble, so it's
a whole rainbow rather than just one particular colour.
I have used like multiple colours.
What is it before to create a protection spell?
I've actually gone out and bought a little spell candles
and done each colour individually.
I prefer to use things that are vibrant rather than things that
are very polarizing, like black, because they're so harsh in
terms of how they can come across.
And I know there are witches out there who who will 100% disagree
with me. Yeah, but do you have?
Nixie, that's the really important, that's the really
important factor. And that's the thing that we
like to bring to this podcast is explain the difference in
everybody's practice and how it should align to what you
personally align to. And you've really articulated.
Yeah, actually those things mean different things to you, and
it's amazing. Like black really does mean
pretend. Feels like a big bulk for me,
but that's OK because that's mine.
And what you've said about your essence is just beautiful
because that's yours. And I think that's really an
important message to say. Everybody's got their
individuality, and that's why craft works, right?
Because we can be individual in our practice.
I think you said something really important as well because
I know we all practice differently and from different
aspects and within our own personal practices.
It's you explain colour and you use colour the same way as I'll
use herbs and explain herbs. I will give somebody the ground
in, but I do then expect them to see if it works for them and
does it work for do I need to use something different?
I don't use colour huge amounts, which is weird because I'm
actually an artist. Probably because.
You are an artist, but you don't.
Yeah. That's I tend to, yeah.
I think I see it on a day-to-day basis all the time, so I don't
bring it into my practice that much.
But certainly with herbs and stuff, I'll give somebody a
grounding herb for instance, you know, this is what this means.
They're real basic broad, this is what this means, this is the
association. And then I'll go and use
something completely different because it doesn't mean that to
me. And that's really, I think for
people coming in or remembering the craft or coming in as new to
the craft, I think it's really important to know that is OK and
that's part of your development. Yes, learning what works for
you. It's much like with disability
as well. You learn what works for you.
I was a teaching assistant before my illness took over.
I was working with students with very different needs and I think
a lot of that I took that into my craft as well.
Everybody has different needs in terms of the craft.
While some people will be heavy into divination or in herbs or
into crystals colour, everybody will approach it through their
own needs, which obviously that's probably a describement
of thought. I think it that's also why I do
things. If somebody asks me what colour
will work for this or what crystal works with that, I'll
give them the framework and then tell them go and feel the
crystals, go and touch them. Go and see what you feel from
it. If it doesn't work for you, then
come back to me and we can work something else out.
You always have to be about what is written in a book is gospel
truth. Do you think that then people
who are learning, who are remembering, who are slightly
newer, however you want to put that, do you think they
overcomplicate it a little bit? 100% because the books we read
from, you can get three books by on the same topic by three
different authors and you you get 3 different perspectives and
at least one of them is going to contradict the others.
And I had that in mind when I was writing with Tutorium as
well. I get asked that question so
much, like, who do you trust? How do you listen?
What book should I read? Well, actually read everything.
Read as much as you can and then take away what works for you
because you can't. And even even with my clients,
they say look like, oh, gay. Oh, you've taught me and I love
all that feedback. It's amazing, obviously, but I
also make sure that that conversation that I am not your
practice. You are your practice.
So I can give you some information, but then you need
to work that in and question some of the things I say because
they work for me. They may not work for you.
So we shouldn't just like you say, read a book and go right,
It's the gospel there. And that's what we should find.
It should be about taking the bits and the discernment is
something we, I think that's a learned muscle as well, to be
honest, because new practitioners really struggle
with that discernment. So that's an important message.
You said like you said, every every book you pick up or
everything you read can have different versions.
And I think with obviously with the advent of the Internet and
social media, you have misinformation as well.
I had somebody ask me, is it I saw on TikTok that it's OK to
suck on malachite for toothache. I'm like, no, you are.
You're going to poison yourself. Oh.
My good grief, the stuff that goes around.
Obviously they they've never really worked crystals and they
had toothache, so they thought, hey, let's give it a go.
No, no, no. Crystals go in from out.
So what are you? What do you feel like you're
currently being challenged by in your practice?
Apart from some of the obvious things we spoke about, what's
your biggest challenge in your practice at the moment?
Organization. I used to pride myself on having
the most organized altar and organized sort of tools.
That's not happening at the minute, and I think a lot of it
is because I'm disorganized in my own head and in my own heart,
and my altar is the reflection of that.
Last year, and I know this is something that has affected my
altar. I lost a cat in October,
November and December. The the one we lost in December
he was my baby boy. Losing him felt like something
had been literally ripped out of me.
I haven't been able to figure it out.
I would look at my alter now because it's just over the room
from me and that kind of makes sense.
I something feels like it's missing from me.
So something is missing from my altar and I've let the
organization go to hell. Organization is my enemy right
now. I always think of the things
that are testing and challenges those like they're sent to,
they're sent to teach us a lesson, right?
We don't want to learn them at the time.
But whatever that disorganization is, there'll be
something magical in it for you to understand.
You just don't know what it is yet because it's disorganized.
But you know, you know the point, like there's something
there in order for you to sift through some of that in order to
find the light. And that's the way I always kind
of look at those resistant moments that are sent to go.
What are you pushing against? Of course, you've lost your cat.
That grief is heavy, isn't it? I'm so sorry as well, by the
way, Thank you. And let alone loose into several
as well. So, yeah, but it's just like how
we can how we can learn those lessons and even us which
practitioners that I've been doing it for a long time.
It's not until the outside people say like, I'm great at
giving advice, Nixie, believe me.
But do I listen to it? No.
Would I have listened to that? Might?
No. But let's just pretend for a
minute that I'm listening to my own advice.
But it is. It's all about those lessons
that we've got instead of giving ourselves a hard time about
those things. So we're all about living in a
practical way, using our practice as a lived experience,
and some of those opinions that we have are kind of unpopular.
What would you say your unpopular opinion on modern
witchcraft is generally? That's out on social media at
the moment. What's your unpopular thing?
Learn to use Google. Learn to open a book before
coming and putting a comment asking a question that you will
wait hours if not sometimes days to get an answer to.
You could have opened Google and gotten an answer or open a book
and got an answer. That is my very.
My big unpopular opinion is people very often will ask
questions on social media for a response without being willing
to do the work to learn it themselves first.
If they can't find information, fine, ask.
You can be pointed in the right direction.
I learned obviously the advent of the Internet and I live in a
very small town. We didn't have books, witchcraft
and the Internet, well, was not what it is today.
I learned by going to the library, looking through index
cards of books that could help go into a shop and asking
shopkeeper could you order me this book please?
I think people take the easy route and I am so sorry.
It's honestly it is wild. The mundane ask the mundane
questions that get asked on social media is just bonkers.
Honestly. I don't know if like some of the
questions and you're right, it's not even about Googling.
It's just like, why are you asking?
These things sometimes are really straightforward to find
out as well. It's crazy.
I I I agree it's wild. Yeah, and it's, it's one of
those things, isn't it, that I, I'd say I'd agree with that
unpopular opinion. Maybe it's because I'm the
oldest out of everybody here. And so I remember life without
the Internet. In the same token, I'm always
really open for questions. But sometimes I kind of want to
say, well, actually you do need to go and look at, look that up,
use your intuition. I can help you do that.
I'm quite happy to answer you from my perspective.
So actually, if you're going to practice this, you do need to
stand on your own to your feet a little bit.
And This is why you have said before, can anybody be a witch?
Yes. Should everybody be a witch?
Yes. Probably not.
I think that that's part, I mean, I don't want to put words
in your mouth, but I think that's part of it.
Like witchcraft isn't just about doing the spell work or asking
the questions. It's about doing the work to
understand what it means for you, educating yourself,
building up your craft. It's a practice.
So I think that, I know you've said that a few times, but
that's part of it, isn't it? Like or just ask somebody on the
Internet quickly so you can get your answer.
That's not practicing, is that? Well, that's, I mean, at the end
of the day, it's called a practice for a reason, isn't it?
It's a craft. It's a practice for a reason.
It's all individual. And we, we learn.
We learn by making mistakes, We learn by not knowing, we learn
by finding things out. We can talk to lots of people,
but it's a personal thing. You're not.
I don't think you're truly a witch until you've blown up
something that's glass as well. Hey I still do that now I'm like
this last one. Break phone, you'll be fine.
It's resistant. I was doing this burning thing
outside a few years ago in a completely.
It was meant to be flame safe glass.
Well, it's shattered. We're not witches until we've
got a bucket of sand near the altar, yes.
I had a friend send me a big pot of sand from her favorite beach
so that lives in my altar for flame mystical shape purposes.
I want, I wanted to ask I, I find it very interesting that,
you know, a bit like me as well, when I was younger, I didn't
have the full access to the Internet like what we have now.
And it was always a little bit of that, you know, trepidation
going to that librarian and asking for a certain book.
Do you feel that there's an essence there for the reasons
and the whys that you're writing the books that you are, that you
want to provide that information to people that perhaps you
didn't have when when you were younger?
That is the exact reason I wrote Wichitorium.
My fairy godchildren are starting to grow up.
My stepdaughter, my adopted daughter, they're all interested
in the craft. I wanted to give them a bare
bones of what things mean. Not necessarily what things mean
to me, but the basic definition. I didn't have this kind of
knowledge when I was 1st starting.
I I was lucky I had an amazing aunt who helped me with my
divination. She didn't do other aspects of
the craft. She was very much like a
divination only witch. So there's a lot of things she
didn't know, and I want to give people in my life and those who
are just starting out a framework from which then they
can build their craft around. And I like we, we've touched on
this a lot so far, but I think for a lot of people that may be
new or intrigued by the pathway or perhaps remembering, it's so
important to have the fundamentals.
It's so important to have those books where it's plainly
explained, it's simply explained.
And then from then on in, they can develop their craft and
their pathway to what best suits them.
And I think that's so important for people to know and
understand. Because how I kind of saw it
begin with a body cannot be held up without skeleton.
That is what I am. I wanted to give people with
Wichiturian, give them the skeleton, their bones, and what
they do with that is their choice.
They, you know, their practices, none of my business.
I'm just giving them a tool to use and hopefully grow through.
You were mentioning that your practice, your craft meanders
around your health. And again, I think it's
incredibly important that we listen to self first, because I
think when we, we try and do our rituals or work ends and we're
not with, we're not there mentally, physically,
spiritually, I think that mirrors a lot as well of, of
what sometimes we can put out that.
How have you found the writing process?
Have you found it quite an intuitive practice?
Have you found that it's flowed very easily or have you had to
be very structured and quite strict with your timing and and
when you do things? OK, how I usually write pen and
paper in bed. So where I'm sat now, there'll
be a pen and a paper and I will just get things down.
The in my first book, The Wicker, Potions, Law and Charms,
I wrote that entire book on my phone.
I didn't have a tablet at the time.
I didn't have my PC at the time. I'd actually not long before
that lobotomize the laptop kind of had to use my phone.
And when I came to writing Wichitorium, I wrote down all of
the terms that I wanted in the book first.
I didn't want to get lost in when I was structuring the book
received because of my physical limitations.
I did 2 hours a day, sat at my desk and then there were some
days I felt OK, so I did a little bit more.
But I was quite strict with myself.
It took me six weeks to get everything compiled and written
into a manuscript that was ready to be sent off.
My 1 regret about Russian's book is I didn't create the
bibliography until after I'd done it all.
So when I do the next ones, I will be copying and pasting
links or writing the name of the book and the page number down
that I get that information from as I do it.
Because I went through six weeks worth of researching links and
things and then trying to sit there and remember which book I
opened. So I think it took me about 3
1/2 four hours just trying to get the video.
So you could say that's one thing that you learned from
writing. What would you say writing your
books taught you about your own practice that you didn't know?
How varied it can be. Practices as a wish doesn't
necessarily mean sitting at an altar, doing everything Willy
nilly and silly and making everything colourful and pretty.
Sometimes it is simply staring a cup of tea.
How many times have I said that? I've said.
That I know. We've said that so often on this
path. So yes, but.
That's the big misconception, isn't it?
On social media, everybody thinks witchcraft is all of this
rituals and toil and trouble and stuff, but actually it's the
noticing of things and doing the simplistic stirring, bring in
your coffee and, you know, affirmation, all of that stuff.
If I when I when I put the toilet cleaner down the toilet,
it's like a a little affirmation of please don't block.
It's so silly. It's something I do do.
You know what I do with the toilet cleaner?
What do you do with the toilet cleaner?
I put it. Round in an anti clockwise way.
I think if I'll do that, I actually hang on, right.
You're going to work it out. I do.
I go anticlockwise. I start at 12:00.
I start at 12:00 and then go round.
Anticlockwise. I know, I realised I did that
the other day. You're banishing your toilet.
I banish the toilet, it's amazing.
But it's the it's the little we've done everyday things,
isn't it? And now we've shared with
everybody, it's literally how we.
Can how we can start a toilet? One thing that I that gets
people laugh at me with when I cleansed my house, I cleansed my
drain because it is somewhere energy can enter my home.
Oh, I love that. So yeah, I cleansed my drains.
OK so I have not work on my drains.
I've got I've got called on the water pipe lead into my house.
Yeah, I think we've maybe GAIL, do you?
Do you water in your? Drains water not on the drains
but on water pipes. Yes, I do.
See I don't because I live in a ground floor flat.
I don't have access to water pipes really.
So the drains. Trust me, that Kitchen 1 is
testing us at the moment. Maybe you haven't closed it
enough. Because I've obviously read the
book, because I was fortunate enough to have it.
Because it's not out yet either, is it?
It's not out. At the end of no, it comes out
on the 28th of April. The only thing I left out and I
wish I could have found something in the X category and
I looked for hours for something to put there, which is one that
pages to. I didn't know what to do with
it. I didn't want to leave it
because I felt sorry for the if I'd left it out of the book.
That is literally what I thought in my writing process.
I can't leave this out because it would feel lonely.
All my head is doing right now is trying to think of an XI.
Can only think of X-Files, but there's not particularly
witchcraft, that's more paranormal activity.
I'm just going crossroads. All my head is doing is going.
Crossroads, but that would come in, but that comes in the seats,
but to to. To look through someone's soul.
I The only one that kept coming into my head at the time was
xylophone. Yeah.
And it was like, it sounds like a really cool word, but and I
know musics a thing, it could be great, but pleasing.
Maybe I should have put it in now through upper xylophone.
As the sound gets higher, you're raising your vibration.
Are you able to to give us any little hints about any anything
on the horizon about what you're considering writing next?
Any little. I am working.
I can give you the names, the names I've already had in my
head. One of them is A Rainbow Witch's
Guide to Colour Magic. Oh wow.
Nice. And Vicky, you're like this one
Spoony magic. Oh, oh, that.
That's. So needed.
Because it's it won't just be
good to people who are disabled, it would be people who have
loads experience with time or energy or you know, constraints
to do with their home. As I was writing with tutorial
low impact and low energy magic for everyday practice.
Not just rituals and the odd spells, but everyday things.
Just simple everyday things that do not take up a lot of time or
energy you may not necessarily think about as being.
Magical, absolutely. I think there's a massive call
for it because I know quite a lot of the messages I get is, is
there a low impact way of doing this?
I'm going to ask you because you're a wheelchair wheelchair
user and I know that you've got certain conditions, etcetera,
etcetera. And it's sort of like how can I
in an easy, in an easy way? So I do try and make it so a lot
of the stuff, well, actually a lot of the stuff I show is sat
down. It's either accessible or it's
sat down because it has to be. But I think it is desperately
needed and it's not just for spoonies and for anybody who's
listening who doesn't know what a spoonie is, because it's a
little bit you either know or you don't know.
Yes, I don't know. I don't know what a spoonie is.
I'm just sat there going, Oh yeah, I'm just nodding alone.
A spoonie is somebody with basically a chronic health
condition. There's a whole thing about it
of why it came about the spoon theory.
And it's you have certain amount of spoons through the day and
they represent your energy and you expand that energy, you give
away that energy through the day.
So a shower may take two of your 12 spoons that you start the day
off with. It was a friend.
It was a friend trying to explain in a restaurant to
somebody else about their energy levels.
So they they took some spoons. They said we all start off with
however many apart from your shower only costs you one spoon
where my shower may cost me 3 spoons.
So by the end of the day we don't have enough spoons.
This is a really by the side thing that then got coined into
the chronic health community as this basically the spoon theory
and we all call each other or we we all know each other as
spoonies this. Morning I had a shower that took
4 spoons. I had to then have a sleep to
recuperate. Maybe one or two of those spoons
or a few of those points. I I've had to explain this in so
many different ways for people to understand.
I think that's why I just want a lot of book about it.
Even just explaining it in that way just registers differently
in my mind behind the challenges that you guys have as disabled
people. Like for me, having my shower is
1 spoon. It takes you 4 spoons.
Like it's a good analogy to have.
And I guess I just never really put it into that bucket of
understanding before because I haven't had to.
But you know, I've had moments in my life when I've had a big
surgery and I wish I said something.
It was taking me 7 spoons when it only took you one spoon.
But obviously I overcome that problem.
I've had three children and it's the same when you're a brand new
mum and you've had no sleep. You know that shower in the
morning just takes so much energy and you're so exhausted,
but you keep going, you keep going.
Smooth Theory can be used. I do think the book is needed.
Next year, I think that book is is going to be so important to
so many different people because you mentioned earlier, you know,
the analogy of new mums. You, you've mentioned the
creative process of this book is to reflect your own personal
condition and, and, and how your pathway has meandered around
that. But I think in, in today's
society, within our world, I think a lot of people are just
tired. I think a lot of people are
absolutely exhausted. I think for some people, they
really do query, do I have the time to practice?
Do I have the the time and, and the energy to get involved in
some then like magic? And as you perfectly explained
earlier, sometimes it is brushing your hair, brushing
your teeth, how we stir our tea or coffee and the words that we
put into it. And I think that is going to be
an absolute fundamental actually for a lot of people accessing,
you know, day or pathway. So thank you.
I'm glad the idea popped into my head as well.
There was There's one thing that when I was writing the book that
always came to my head was discernment.
And I think I actually wrote it in the book.
You know, I wish I could have capitalized it and highlighted
it because I think it's the one thing that a lot of people
nowadays don't have the discernment to know that
something's not right for me. It's not right for me, but they
still do it anyway. It would be like me getting up
and walking into town. I could potentially do it, but I
could dislocate my knees, my hips, my ankles while doing it.
So I use my discernment to use my wheelchair because I know
it's safe. So, and with magic, if you're
not comfortable doing hexes or painful magic, then you don't do
it. No one is holding you, you know
some weapon to your head. Say you master arrest in the
sound of a darling. Sorry, that's literally what I
heard as I was saying that. Yeah, but Anon does that to me.
Anon makes me do stuff, speaking like a darling.
Nixie, you know with your craft, do you use it as a form of some
form of healing Connect? Yes, your physical, yeah,
crystals, sound, colour, I mean the the vein of I will try
anything once just to see if it can help not be in as much pain
because when you wake up feeling pain and go to sleep feeling
pain, you will try Reiki, which was suggested by my my GP,
aromatherapy, massage, acupuncture, which is amazing.
I think a lot of terms of healing work that is directly
linked to, you know, my day-to-day troubles with pain,
if that makes sense. Yeah, it does.
Thank you. Can't believe I got 2 spoony
zebra EDS folk. We're very.
Common. It's.
Not that I was it that it's not that common though, right I.
It is. It's the thing with it is they
didn't used to think it was common.
And it's actually far more common than it.
Yeah, I think it's very, very underdiagnosed.
It is and. Misdiagnosed.
Yes, very misdiagnosed. You have to have a doctor that
you trust and believe in to fight for you to get that
diagnosis. Because I didn't know that I had
it and my thumb kept falling out of joint.
So I went to go and see a hand surgeon because that's who I got
referred to. And he he had seen it before.
I didn't had knew nothing about it.
Literally it's very lucky that the surgeon that I saw to have
my thumb repaired looked at me and said, can you do this weird
bendy thing? And I said, well, of course
everyone can do that. And do you do this?
Well, of course. Everybody does that, yes.
Or can't anybody do that? Exactly.
And actually, no, they can't. And I can't operate on you
because. And then he brought a bunch of
students in and said this patient is a textbook case for
EDS. He couldn't diagnose me, but he
then put me on the pathway for my diagnosis, which I then had
twice because I had it done. And then the new criteria came
in in 2017. They then re diagnosed me with
it, which was great. And now we're about to have
another diagnostic criteria. See, I before 2017, which is
when I got my diagnosis, it was always hyper mobility syndrome,
Hyper mobility syndrome. You're hyper mobile, you're
fine. No, because my hip comes out, my
knees pop, but tear ligaments and something else was going on.
And I had this GP who was utterly amazing and she was
like, you're a zebra. And I was like, excuse me?
Then she explained about DDS and how it hypermobility, it has a
type in there. So she helped me through that
process of having orthopaedic people say, no, you're not,
Yeah, just hyped mobile. Yeah, you do need, you do need
someone to actually fight in your corner a little bit for it.
It's very difficult at the moment.
It's even more difficult to get a diagnosis, people are finding,
but hopefully that will improve at the end of the year.
Our healthcare system is is not easy, especially if you need it
right. It's very, very broken.
Very specially for our Witchcraft 101 guest edition,
we're going to do a Keep it or Cut it section where we ask our
special guest, Nixie 5 witchy things it would cut in your
practice. So Nixie, you have to choose
that, right? This isn't you can't go, Oh no.
And I know Annon's going to be accepted by one of the choices I
haven't even shared with with Ricky either.
Those troubled scene you've got to keep or cut.
So first ones or Athamas, what would you keep and what would
you cut from your practice? Keep one cut, Athamas.
Nice choice. Keep or cut Tarot or Oracle
cards. Cut Oracle, keep tarot.
Would you keep or cut unicorns or fairies?
Don't you dare. You've got to keep and cut 1.
Don't answer, Nixie, don't answer.
A Unicorn has never stolen my engagement ring.
So keep unicorns, cut fairies. Oh, the controversy and on is a
big big if she could be a fairy witch, she would be a fairy
witch. But she also loves you to call
herbs or crystals. Cut herbs, keep crystals.
I know Vicky's not a big Crystal fan.
I've did I've I've picked these on purpose.
And then lastly, would you keep or cut moon water or rainwater
hot? Moon water keep rainwater.
See, you've upset. Vicky's upset by the herbs, I'm
upset by the Moon Moor and Annan's upset by the fairies.
Thanks. So.
So finally then, where can we find you?
OK, primarily on all of my social media things, it's either
Nixie Vale or Ramblings of a Rainbow Witch.
You're on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, yes.
If someone listening right now feels like they're not a real
witch, what would you say to them?
Whatever is making you feel like you're not a witch, put it in
the bin. Because it's our own negative
self talk that stops us being ourselves.
So if you want to you're a witch and put all your negative
thoughts about it or not feeling like you're a witch, put it in
the bin or burn. Write it down.
Burn it because you are a witch as long as you want to be a
witch. Throw it in the bin.
Throw it away. What was that?
Let it go and shake it. Let it.
Go. Let it go.
What's the title? When's the book out?
The book is called Witchatorium, a Glossary of Magic, Witchcraft
and Spirituality and it is out on the 28th of April.
Thank you for listening to Between 3 Witches Witchcraft in
Plain Sight. If this episode resonated, you
are welcome to sit with it, share it, or let it unfold in
its own time. You can find me, Vicky and Anon
on all the social media platforms.
We will tag them in the show notes, but until next time, may
your practice meet you exactly where you are.