Welcome back to two real witches.
Hello, and blessed be I'm Oak. And I'm Danny.
We're just a couple of practicing witches seeking
initiation into a Gardenarian tradition of Wicca, every full
moon and New moon. We're discussing things we're
learning and researching. Sharing magical discourse.
And hold space for other witches to do the same.
We're two real witches shooting the shit and nerding out on
magical topics. So if you're into the occult,
the esoteric, or the otherworldly, come hang out with
us in the liminal space of Sound.
In today's episode, we're going to take a trip through the Blue
Ridge Mountains, slash the Appalachian Mountains, learning
about Appalachian folk magic from both my experience and kind
of the agglamation of resources out there that approach this
topic from their regional areas, so.
Go ahead and put on your hiking boots and and let's find our
roots. So why are we talking about this
today? Again, kind of as Oak and I are
exploring topics and kind of getting more familiar with
things that are interesting to us.
This is very near and dear to my heart.
My family is from the Blue Ridge Mountains up kind of in the
Virginia, West Virginia border. And so this is something I've
kind of experienced throughout my life and probably didn't
realize until. I was maybe a teenager that
these are not things other families and people are doing.
And so this is kind of just been one of those things that is
really important to me and an important to kind of keep alive.
Because so much is it of it, as we'll talk about later is kind
of falling by the wayside as time goes on and so wanting to
to really fledge that out and kind of keep these practices
alive. And then, as far as my
qualifications, let's give the disclaimer, Okay.
I love that. Wait, let me let me disclaim
your disclaimer. I.
I just want to point out that there's, I think, a common
feeling that I have when I try to talk about any topic that I
actually feel like I know something about, whether that's
experiential or because I've researched the topic.
I think it's very easy for me to shy away from sharing what I
know because I don't maybe have the botifications to say that
I'm an expert. Or maybe I think we sometimes
feel like we have to be an expert in order to share
information. I don't know if that's just
because, you know, we lack the white male confidence. 100%.
Absolutely. So Danny, I'm really excited for
you to talk about this and I think you're absolutely
qualified based in the fact that this is years of you
experiencing it firsthand. Also this is something that you
have, you know, researched, found books, spent time thinking
about discussing challenging. So I'm really excited for you to
talk about it and I think you're absolutely qualified, at least
in, yeah, like this very casual podcast formula.
You're not trying to write a book and just regurgitate things
that other people have researched.
So let me just hype you up and say I'm very excited to hear
what you're. Such a good hype woman.
Yes. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. I mean, I'm really just
scratching the surface here and really sharing things that
either I know firsthand or that when I read about them, I was
like, oh, yeah, that that lines up.
That makes a lot of sense. But Appalachia is also
humongous. I mean it's it's stretching from
way up high to way down low. So there are definitely things
that are converse to what I know, definitely things that are
very different than what I've experienced.
And so if you're listening to this and you're like this is
completely different from what I'm used to, if you're from
Mississippi, you have a very different experience and that's
super cool. Would love to hear about it, but
you're probably not going to hear about it here.
Fair. I think that's very fair to say.
But before we get into that, what you up to, Oak?
Tell me what's going on with you?
What are you doing? Well, thanks for asking.
Yeah, well, I think we have spent almost every weekend
together for the last couple of weekends, so I think I'm just
living my best magical life with you.
Most recently, we attended what seems to be the second annual
Magic Summerfest in Orlando, FL, and we spent two days taking
information, signed things we said we wouldn't buy for the
last episode. But, you know, mostly taking in
information. I think we, I think we both
showed restraint. Yeah.
So tell me about, you know, what were your biggest takeaways?
Obviously we could spend the whole podcast kind of
highlighting our experiences and giving like best practices or
maybe things that we've done like awkwardly leave a session
that wasn't vibing with you and letting the door slam that was
so awkward. It felt so bad.
Yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh.
I don't know, but other than that.
Explore that. That was my low light.
So what are your highlights? So I think there were, I think
we both got like different things out of it, which was
great. It's really nice when a bunch of
different people can come together and like really like
handpick, like what really spoke to them made a lot of sense for
me. We had an Ancestral Healing
group that was actually really great for me.
I got some really good highlights from that that I
think will hopefully bring a lot of peace to my grandmother and
approached it in a different way that I'm not sure I would have
come across kind of on my own. So really appreciated that.
And then also from Stacy Williams in.
I think that's the correct pronunciation of her second last
name, but. She really had something to say
about iconography and things that your ancestors would and
wouldn't know and talking about. If you are looking to connect
with your ancestors, probably using tarot isn't your best bet.
Especially for talking like the Ryderweight Smith deck.
Probably not your best bet because they didn't study that.
Probably they they don't have like the knowledge of what those
cards mean. So maybe choosing decks or
choosing methods that are familiar to them have have
familiar pictures or iconography that they can more accurately
kind of commune with you. It is better, so I did not
attend. That a little later, yeah, I did
not attend that session, so. It was so good.
She was so great. She's a graphic designer and
just had a lot of really. She wasn't really just trying
to, like, push her product. She really was trying to, like,
talk to us about. Like what makes an alphabet
versus what makes a pictorial alphabet versus, you know, all
of those things that, as someone not inside of the graphic design
field, was super interesting to me.
Love that. Yeah, what about you?
I know you had some some really fun things.
Yes, there were a couple of sessions that I think we're
bringing up some novel ideas for me.
The one that I think was most aligned to my current interest
and maybe gave me some some new ideas was the Thelima and
Gardnerian Witchcraft Workshop. It was a a working relationship
was the subtitle and that was by Joanne McCombs and she is also
based out of Florida. This is obviously a Florida
event so mostly Florida presenters.
So it was really cool for me to hear about the Thelima kind of
overlaps and how she has integrated the Lima and the
Gardenarian practice. I don't know if she really kind
of went into her personal approaches and how she I don't
think there's any integration. I think she just like practices
those things side by side. But she did a good job, I think,
having a comparative analysis of the two and showing the
similarities and showing potentially the differences.
And you know, I know about the OTOI know Golden Dawn.
I haven't. I've gone too deep in my
research about those topics, although it is becoming more and
more interesting to me as I learn more about ceremonial
witchcraft. But it was interesting to hear
about the differences. I think she did a good job
presenting. She's a teacher by day of little
humans. I think she said little
gangsters, which I thought was amazing.
Yeah, Yeah. So she clearly is really great
at presenting. I would absolutely give feedback
to the organizers of the event that she was a highlight.
So that was really great. We both attended the Astrology
Workshop by Joseph. He goes by Stars by Joseph on
Instagram. We can link him as well in our
show notes, and I got a couple of novel ideas out of that.
I I think you know astrology so interesting because it's like I
probably could have heard those same ideas previously, but I
just wasn't ready to integrate the information.
Or maybe like, I didn't even know what they were talking
about. But so being able to hear things
like houses are reflections of each other across, you know,
across from each other. So they're kind of the
opposites, but the same like those were.
There's some a couple of novel ideas around transits and chart
interpretation that I really appreciate hearing.
And I just was like loving how he was presenting information.
And not just like a love and light way, but like a oh girl
that's going to happen or like. Oh, you had something great.
You know, like actually having. I know that bedside banner is
something that's really a sensitive topic in astrology.
And I have in I've had interactions with astrologers
where I'm like, will you just tell me what's happening?
Because I feel like you're not actually telling me what's
happening. I feel like you're afraid to
tell me, which makes it even worse, you know, they're like,
well, this time could be a real wild card.
I'm like, what the fuck does that mean?
What do you mean, wild card? So I appreciated he had for me
the right amount of edge and shadow and real talk.
So I really liked his his style and and to be totally frank, I
just haven't heard that many people go through like many
readings and seeing their chart. So I thought that was really
interesting. Now that I do have more
information and base knowledge and familiarity with all of
these terms, I could really follow along and understand and
see how he's thinking about things differently than I am.
So, yeah, thoroughly enjoyed that.
And yeah, I think, I mean, those are the big highlights for me.
We could go, like I said, we could keep going here.
But Danny, tell me, let's transition into our fire
updates. What are you?
What irons do you have burning in your fire?
Or coming up on the summer solstice.
So I'm starting to kind of. Craft the ideas for my oil.
Summer's always like one of those harder times for me to
like pick a theme because there's so many themes kind of
going on. It's like the height of all the
things, right. It's the height of all the the
berries and the the things and the like.
So much is going on where like may I feel like it's very, you
know, Beltane, levee, right. All the things are coming to be
and then August like height is summer is very like.
Everything's coming to fruition, but this is like that in between
growing time where I feel like it's really hard to like make a
cent for that. So I'm kind of working on
crafting that and then getting ready to do my next wine.
So love it. Sticking with your consistency,
you're being consistent. With consistency, I am in the
throes of a little craft project myself.
I am making astrology board and astrology.
Board I'm so excited. I need to know more about this.
I'm very excited. So there's a couple of different
versions. I'll put a link in the show
notes here of an Etsy shop and them selling it, and essentially
a Zodiac representation is placed on a board and it really
cannot unless it has kind of like a buy wheel that spins on
the outside and changes shape. It really couldn't represent
like your houses necessarily, but what is astrology boards are
generally used for is just in a more 3D way articulating the
placements of the planets in their zodiacal placement.
And so one way would be to, as you're doing it, consultation
for another person. You know, being able to
physically hold a rock or a disc of wood that has, you know, the
sign for that planet. Like being able to actually
place that on a wheel and show them, I don't know, there's
something more tactile and easier to understand for me.
I'm going to be using it because I'm not doing readings for
people, because that would be irresponsible and actually just
really boring. But for me, I'm going to be
using it to just mirror the transits that are currently
happening and represent where planets currently are, just so I
have a deeper connection to that, like on a daily basis.
Not that they change on a daily basis.
Some of them do, But yeah. And I, and I think this is going
to just help me continue to build my familiarity with the
order of the Zodiac. I mean, there's so much to
memorize when it comes to astrology, right?
So there's some things I'm like, oh, wait, what comes after
Capricorn? You know, So just having in a
physical tool that helps me build my familiarity, I think
I'm, I'm really excited about and it's literally just going to
be like, I mean, I can show you here.
It's like a disk of wood that's like 12 inches.
I just got this like off in a craft store and then I painted
it. Isn't it cute?
I painted it black. And then I created this kind of
like little acrylic paint on top of that to kind of create these
like, nebulous forms. And then I'm going to go through
and make the little pie charts, Zodiac placements and kind of
use like little white paint pens to like draw out that Zodiac,
the major kind of stars that make up that Zodiac.
And then this black paint that I put on the actual wood itself is
magnetic cool. And this is an inspiration that
I got from this other content creator.
I'm forgetting her name, and I definitely will bring it up when
I go into my presentation on astrology, because she's super
cool. But I have these little magnets
and so I'm going to put on the bottom of my planets, which are
going to be different crystal orbs.
I'm going to put this on the bottom of them so that can like
actually stick to the board and not move around so much and not.
Like, roll off. It's brilliant.
Yeah. I mean, it's her.
I just stole it off of her. I'm just ripping her off.
So I'll definitely. No, but they're brilliant,
whoever they are. That was brilliant because in my
mind I was like, how are you going to do the like move?
Are you going to make little notches for to sit in or like
how that's so smart? Yeah, that is so smart.
Magnetic paint. We're living in the future.
What is happening other than that?
Yeah. I mean that's that's really, I
mean with all the other things that we have going on within our
outer court that's all I'm doing.
How are you feeling? What are you up to?
Are you overwhelmed by the by the amount of things that we're
doing in our in our occult life and and this is a busy time work
wise, right. Yeah.
Yeah, well, I feel like the universe was like, okay, listen.
She's not going to be able to enjoy all the things that are
going on if we don't pump the brakes on something because we
had a major setback at work that I am so happy about and I'm
trying to like contain my excitement.
They're definitely huge drawbacks to it, but I'm trying
to contain my excitement because it kind of gave me like an extra
month or so to play with and it is giving me all the time that I
need to like really focus on being present and not just
constantly on or like. Planning the next thing or
thinking about the next thing I can really like.
Like this weekend was probably the first time.
I haven't taken my work phone with me everywhere in, I don't
know, maybe since December. So I I literally left it at home
while we went to Summer Magic Fest and just let it be.
And nobody was constantly like following up with me.
It was glorious. I came home anticipating that,
like. I was going to have to play an
hour playing catch up with everybody and everything and I
really just had to like follow up on some emails.
It was amazing. That's that's awesome.
And I'm sure it's actually going to be better in the long run for
the business for that pick up. So it's not, I'm sure you're not
just being selfish. I'm sure there's also business
benefits to that slow down for sure.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, with our water updates,
I am dealing with some family drama where I am unexpectedly
having to financially have some burden that I wasn't expecting.
And you know, I'm processing that.
I think that this has a lot to do with my Chiron placement.
And so it's really for me, honestly, I have been dealing
with the stress using, you know, meditation, and that's been
really useful to help me gain perspective, to not be reactive
but define the lessons and the meanings and the situation.
I'll give you an example so I, you know, at work, I'm, I love
my job. I really love the work that I
do. But I'm such like a Scorpio,
likes, like not Sabotager. But like I reinvent myself so
often that I'm like, OK, what's next?
What's next? Am I supposed to be doing this
job or should I just like, go leave this job and and focus
full time on being an astrologer to then make money that way,
Right. Like, I don't know, like I'm
just, you know, I'm so like down for whatever and like
reinventing myself. And so I had been at this kind
of place where I'm like, do I, you know, keep committing and
keep focusing on making money or not?
And when this thing presented itself and it was like, Oh yeah,
bitch. Like we need you to make money
and you need to be the, you know, help people financially.
Like it gave me clarity around like, got got it.
Cool Okay. So I don't have to wonder if I'm
supposed to be doing something else with my life if I'm not,
you know, following my will, so to speak, because this gave me
clarity. So, you know, just finding like
the lessons in that and then also leveraging astrology to
again find the lessons, find the messages that should be clear to
me, give me some guidance around when things may be more intense
or less intense. But yeah, I mean, I'm going
through it in a way that I had not expected.
So yeah, so I'm. I'm feeling I'm in my feelings.
Yeah, which is totally fine I it is one of the things I really
appreciate, like most people would be afraid of like
reinventing themselves or like. Giving up something that for a
period of time has held so much importance to them.
And that is one of the things I appreciate so much about you is
like, yeah, no, I'm just going to jump in feet first into
something that may or may not work out.
We'll kind of see how it goes. And I, I feel like you're
getting that that itch to like jump to the next thing.
And the universe was like, wait a whole second, just maybe take
a breath, Let's, let's recalibrate and think about this
for a minute. Yeah.
You know I'm, I'm glad to have clarity.
So thanks for seeing me Danny. I appreciate you.
All right. And then jumping into earth
stuff challenges and purchases. So also Stacy Williams Inc just
really she makes an Oracle deck. I've never been a big Oracle
deck person. Right.
And she could totally called us on that.
She's like, a lot of people are like, I don't really like or the
cool decks because they're like so love and light and whatever.
And she's like, but it's kind of like when people say to me like,
oh, I can't do art, they're like, she's like, OK, did you
just try like drawing or have you tried painting?
Have you tried sculpting? Have you tried?
She was like, there are that many kinds of Oracle decks out
there. And so I'm really inspired by
what she was talking about. I started looking at Oracle
decks and she actually helped Cocreate 1 on the Southern
Gothic Oracle that has a lot of iconography that is very
familiar to my family and so I've I've decided I'm going to
take that on as like a a means of communing with ancestors as
opposed to like trying to use methods that just haven't been
super great for me, trying to use tarot or trying to use
something else like that and just struggling.
So I have purchased that. I also purchased another damn
book. That damn book.
I mean, I said it was going to happen, so it's not as if, like
I told you so, but like you, girl, give yourself grace at
this point. Don't judge yourself. 23 is not
24 is not that many. Well, it's still 23.
I did read one of them. So yeah.
So I'm really just back to where I'm back to baseline, which is
totally fine. Yeah.
What if we're like a one in, one out kind of place?
What? What if that's where you're at
and and I guess we'll see. I guess we'll see if I actually
make the headway. Because the other problem is
like as time goes on new things become important.
Pick up different books and I'm like, oh, I have to read this by
X deadline. So you know it's it's finding
the time to make these books that I have put on the back
burner. Not because they're not great.
They just haven't been kind of front of mine for me making the
time for those so. OK, I thought of a very be a
lucky number. I thought of a very good excuse.
Tell me. What if all these books get
banned? What if in our crazy DeSantis
future apocalyptic version of handmaidens tale, that seems to
be a option of our future? What if these books are banned
and so you're actually just creating this amazing occult
library that people are going to ask you to borrow books and
stuff like that? Can you use that justification?
Does that feel good? I I accept that mission.
I I am volunteers tribute like I will.
That's yes, That's what I'll do. I only have approximately
another 150 books on my list to purchase before I can officially
say I have completed my library. But absolutely.
Listen, you're just going to be like the Library of Alexandria,
but you're not going to get burned down.
I love it. Thank you.
I appreciate that. I have been totally inspired by.
The palmstone process that you were describing.
And so I purchased at the festival some palm stones, which
I'm really excited about. I need to, you know, do some
cleansing, all that good stuff. But did you see me get these I
well is this the same place that not to out you, but that you
went back to multiple days in a row?
Yes, but I didn't buy the first day Okay.
I was inventorying. My process is first take
inventory and then you're able to make decisions, Okay.
So no, I haven't seen the palm stones.
This is very this makes my heart so happy.
So I got like this moth I get which is beautiful.
This is for I'm giving. This is giving me north vibes.
So this is for my like directional N representation.
And then I have this lab, right, which is I already connect to
like mental considerations and you know, meditations around
just the the mental aspects. And then I have read Jasper,
which I'm living for, for South. And then yeah, just amethyst for
Oh no, no shit, this is fluorite.
Just kidding. This is fluorite for the West.
So I'm excited to be inspired by your palmstone meditations and
I'm going to, I'm going to give myself a little, a little try
and that see, try out my hand. And that is that the same
literally, I mean, they're palm stones, literally trying your
hand. Try your hand out.
That's what it is. Yeah, yeah.
And I also, you know, since I moved into this new house, I
haven't. Previously I had this.
Very crafty little tree that I would place ornaments on, like
the glass ornaments that you would see around, like on
Christmas. Trees that are like very cheesy.
I had glass ornaments for each Sabbath and I would decorate the
tree, you know, because it's like a skeleton of a tree.
And I had that set up at my last house, but I have not yet gone
through all of my holiday decor and set it up yet.
So I. There was a lady that was
selling, like, Sabbat altar cloths.
And so I got a set of Sabbat altar cloths, like all eight of
them, and she's going to send them to me.
And because I didn't want to take all of her floor models,
whoops. And so she's going to send them
to me. And yeah, and I'm excited to get
my altar, Sabbat altar set up with all of my.
Echo that I currently have and then adding a little new IT does
say like Mabon and Ostara. I was thinking about messaging
her and saying like, hey, can we not because like Mabon's made-up
and like Ustara was like, maybe I got it.
I feel strongly about this. Yeah.
It's why I have never bought a Wheel of the Year for that same
reason is because again, it's here or there.
I I don't that doesn't hold specific meaning to me, but I do
prefer the other names for some of them and so I'm like.
Yeah, could could someone make me one with the names that I
want on it? Can we just do Spring Equinox?
It's we don't need to make it like, yeah, star equinox is a
great word at hello. I like that one.
Well, we have to change that up. Why am I saying equinox?
Yeah, it's equinox, Equinox. Equinox.
Yeah. Because solstice is the the
summer and winter. Yes.
Equinox. Yes.
OK, I get this. Make my lovely.
Dyslexia strikes again. Yeah.
Cool. All right.
Well, see, I think we did good. I don't think we spent too much.
I don't think we did too many consumering behaviors.
We spent way more on food, which hey, in my opinion was
necessary. Hell yeah.
We had a really lovely dinner at
A at Tori Tori. I don't know if anybody's in
Orlando. They should go there.
It's Tori. Tori.
They had some Michelin like recognition on the on the front.
Yeah, it was, it was great. Great cocktails.
There was a lot of gluten free options for you, Danny, and that
was glorious because I never really, really know what I'm
walking into unless like someone has their like menu really
clear, really posted online. And so it was so nice just to be
able to kind of like pick really from pretty limitless options,
which is great. Yeah, and it was Asian too.
So you're. The fact that there wasn't soy
and everything because it's like tapas style Asian stuff.
And yeah, that was actually quite surprising.
When I I'd been there before and I'm like, Oh yeah, it's so
great, there's rice. But then I was like, oh shit,
yeah, like Soy actually will also kill you.
Not just pasta. Yeah, like what?
Depending on, yeah, what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's
the trick. It's all that hidden gluten.
It's not just the bread, the pasta that they get you in, you
know? Yeah.
Awesome. Well, thanks for catching up.
And I think next time we do a large event like that, we should
probably do like a full episode reviewing it and maybe giving
like some tips of things that we've learned or maybe some do's
and don'ts of attending like a magic festival.
This one was indoors. So I think a lot of the tips I
would normally give have more to do also with navigating the
elements, because normally. Taken events or outdoors.
So this was a little unique, but yeah, I think that that would
make it really interesting topic as well.
Yeah, for sure. All right, so I want to traverse
into Appalachian Folk magic. I I'm just loving you're like
put on your hiking boots. Let's find our roots.
Let's traverse the topics let's climb that hill.
I'm, I'm, I'm living for all of the I'm.
I'm trying to steep you guys in it a little bit, you know, like
trying to like dip you into it. There is something, and I always
say this to people and I'm sure it sounds hokey, but there is
something about that area that is so energetically different
than anywhere I've been in my life.
And the practical side of me is always like, yeah, it's because
you it feels like going home because you have lots of good
happy memories there. Like, of course it feels
different. I'm sure that feels the same way
to everyone's favorite place, like childhood place, but people
often describe the same thing, particularly about where I'm
from, from the Blue Ridge Mountains, that that area just
feels magical. And we'll talk about later how
like even people who maybe avoid witchcraft or witch still very
much recognize magic and and that it exists.
There isn't kind of the push away of magic as a concept, but
there is this intentional avoidance of witchcraft as a
concept. And so but people often describe
the magic of that area and they don't just mean the beauty that
they really mean. Like when you go into the woods,
there's something different there.
When you stand on a mountain, there's something different
there and it's quite a lovely place to be.
So it it is somewhere that kind of has my heart and that I
really enjoy talking about. Yeah, I I've really only had a
couple of experiences in the mountains.
There like in Tennessee. And yeah, I would, I would
agree, like a Creek, just like flowing.
There's like waterfalls. There's so many really
interesting nature occurrences. You know, I always feel like
when I'm in the Appalachia Mountains that I'm always like
waiting to see a gnome pop out of somewhere.
I'm like, if I saw it, I'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, there they
are. I knew they were that track.
Yeah, like you. Like, almost expect something
amazing to happen. So it's that's, I think, why it
has a reputation for that. Is it magic?
Doesn't seem out of place there. Yeah, it seems very of place
there. So you're gonna do the same kind
of format that we've done for the other deep dive.
So we're gonna do like. The whole air being about like
information terminologies books people can reference, we're
going to do the fire. So that being like actions and
different practices that people can, people in that area would
recognize or people could potentially consider an adopt if
that's something that's calling to them and then getting into
the water aspects which is you know what are the history
historical. Aspects of the topic that you
have been able to find and you know what are your personal
feelings? And then finally we'll finish up
with, you know, as like integration, what challenges
have you experienced continuing to leverage more and more of
these practices into your life. Obviously, I have nothing to
contribute in these ways. I mean, you know, I grew up
country Y'all and my people were in that area, but I definitely
was Florida, Georgia more so than.
Mountains. So I'm going to hopefully just
help you highlight some things and give you some prompts.
That way you feel like you're not talking the whole time.
Give yourself an opportunity to grab some water.
But really, you're running the show here, Danny.
So, so yeah, let's jump into the air.
Topics I think you have here, like the ideas of, it's probably
useful for us to create some definitions, certainly when
you're describing things. These are terms that I'm
familiar with, but I don't. Know if someone said well what
is that I could really answer. So I'm so, yeah, like take us
into some definitions that you think would be helpful for us to
know. Yeah.
So I think First off, when, So when people really say
Appalachia, like people are like, OK, Appalachian Mountains
or if you're not from anywhere near there, you say Appalachian
Mountains and like, where is that exactly?
Well, it is kind of a conglomeration of a few
different mountain ranges. The one I'm most familiar with
where my family's from is the Blue Ridge Mountains.
But it really extends from Southern New York.
You'll hear places that say from Pennsylvania.
But if you really look at the mountain range, it goes all the
way into southern New York, all the way down to Mississippi,
kind of northeastern Mississippi.
And because of, you know, when you think about those States and
and the things you probably kind of know or maybe stereotype
about those states, those are very different places.
When I say New York and Mississippi, you're like what?
Like those two places don't probably seem very familiar to
you. I know if you talk to certain
parts of Virginia, West Virginia, they would say they
are nothing alike. And so it is a very wide area
that has many different kind of factions and regions of
especially of belief. And that's part of why it's
really difficult to get any real like point to a body of work
that's like that's Appalachian folklore, that's Appalachian
folk magic because it really runs so far and things have kind
of evolved from place to place and kind of the natural
migration of people. So it's very hard to point to
anything and say that's Appalachian because that can run
really the gamut of all of it. Yeah, I mean, I think that
happens with most cultures. Over time, people unfortunately
move around and make it complicated for us to define
them. You'll see that with like
Celtic, that culture and traditions and like, yeah, yeah,
I think that's that's quite common.
So that makes sense, right? And then I want to get into the
other piece of that word, folk magic, right?
What does that mean? And I think it's a little bit of
a misnomer, the definition itself, right?
So it's nontraditional in the sense that it isn't codified or
initiatory. But I think if you told people
from there that it was nontraditional, that would seem
very converse to them because most people are taught by family
members and the practices are developed and evolving overtime
to meet the needs of the folks, right?
So we say folk magic. It was developed by the folks.
I passed along to the folk by each other.
So for them they would say that is traditional, right?
It was passed down for my grandmother, it was passed down
from my grandparents. But it is nontraditional in the
sense that it isn't codified. It is an initiatory.
It's not like Wicca, right? I have a.
Really bad joke, please tell me. Folk Magic is the FUBU of the
magic world for us. By us, Yeah.
No, I love that and I think we should maybe coped it.
I think FUBU is maybe going through a downturn at this
moment. So perhaps, okay, perhaps we
could like, you know, change up our marketing scheme.
I think, yeah, no, I think it's funny, like folk magic of the
folks. It's like saying like people
magic. It's funny.
Literally, Yeah, Y'all means all, y'all, all of that.
So then we want to talk about granny magic.
And this has kind of had a recent resurgence.
And I think people who may be new to Appalachian magic,
Appalachian folklore, might think that this has been like a
longstanding, and I see it all the time.
Facebook groups, they're like, does anyone have like a bona
fide granny magic? And I'm like, yeah, we all have
grandparents. Like, I don't understand the
question because it is kind of illogical in and of itself.
It's a really relatively new term.
It is highly sought after in a lot of Appalachian groups.
But really I think it likely originates from knowing that
your grandmother, typically the matriarch of the family, maybe a
great grandmother. A lot of families had had
children very young. So many generations are alive.
So insert your local name. If that's Ma mall, me mall,
granny Grammy, that person held a lot, a massive amount of
Appalachian folk knowledge because they like have been here
the whole Dang time, right. And so these people I think
became kind of the heads of the knowledge, the holders of the
knowledge kind of logistically. But I think coming from the
outside a lot of people think that that it is a style of magic
or and I think there's like this movement to like make that a
thing and and it's fetch. You're you're not going to make
it fetch. We're not going to do that.
So it's become kind of this funny thing to me to see because
I think people what they're asking for is history.
They're asking for knowledge. But what they're really getting
is like, well my grandmother used to make this S like.
And again, it's so far and wide that I think to say like
anything is bona fide or codified would be a misstep.
But it's funny to me to see this like Rise of Granny Magic,
because I also just picture like a bunch of old ladies like
knitting and like speaking incantation.
So it just has a very funny like picture in my brain.
I hope we're future of the Granny Magic image in your head.
Yeah, please. Like I I'm gonna imprint our
unusually young looking faces for Granny's onto that image.
#Goals. Granny, Granny, gangster goals.
I love it. And then conjure.
So we'll talk a lot about conjure magic.
And when I'm talking conjure, I think that has a lot of
different common connotations for people depending on where
you're from and what you know about conjure.
So when I'm talking about conjure, I'm calling about
people who literally call on spirit or entity.
So conjurers and Appalachian folk magic often use either the
Bible to call out certain Christian entity like Saints or
the Holy Ghost to aid in workings however some too many.
Again, it's hard to to quantify these things, but some too many
conjurers don't use the Bible. So if they came for more of a
background like mine that was not kind of so steeped in
Christianity, they may use or call upon land spirits or
ancestral spirits. So where we would maybe use the
term invocation, they would use the term conjuring and then a
crossroads. So I think a lot of us are
familiar with the concepts of the crossroads and meeting at
the crossroads, leaving things at the crossroads.
And they do hold a special place in Appalachian folklore and
Appalachian folk magic. And it's it's literally where
two roads intersect. So it might be a fourway stop
that might be a stop light. If you have a fourway stop light
in your town you're really killing it out in Appalachia
that's amazing but it's often where parts of a working.
And again when I say a working I mean a spell a a a something you
have made so a working to dispose of it at the cross roads
and it usually is in a with a purpose to either confuse the
spirit or entity that you're trying to get rid of.
So it's often a disposal of, if not a directional thing because
sometimes it'll say like at the southernmost point of the
crossroad or something like that.
And sometimes that is intentional based on what you're
trying to do, but also kind of mean spiritedly.
It is also to pass it on to the next person that picks it up.
So I will highly suggest to you that if you are at a crossroad,
particularly in Appalachia, and there was a very interesting
shiny or bag of something on the ground, may haps don't touch it.
Maybe just don't. Because often the purpose is the
person is trying to get rid of something and transfer it to
another person, and we'll talk later about some practices
around this, but you don't want warts, y'all, so just don't do
that. I that's really I'm glad that
you brought that up and it that this is clarifying because I did
always wonder like what's I get the idea of dropping something
off at a frequently? Traveled spot, which a crossroad
clearly would be because you know it's two roads
intersecting. But the idea that you would be
disposing of things not just to pass it on to somebody else but
potentially confuse spirits that that makes sense.
OKOKI love that. Thank you.
That's good, yeah. And there's a lot of like pieces
of that depending on where you're from, where it's like
you're supposed to dispose of it and not look back.
And the reason is to like not make contact like you want.
If it's a spirit or entity that you're working with, you don't
want them to follow you. You don't want them to know
which direction you went in. So the likelihood that it will
somehow make it back to you has at least been multiplied by
four, right. So that's kind of the the goal.
What about running in AZ pattern?
Does that help to like alligators?
I think that's only if you're trying to avoid a school
shooter. I think that's the only.
And alligators, They tell you to do that too, yes.
Because apparently I didn't grow up in Florida.
So this is what we were literally told in Virginia.
I I don't know if you guys remember the DC sniper thing.
This is what we were literally told in Virginia because we were
near ish to DC. We were told to run in his exact
pattern. Oh my gosh, my parents were
like, is this really the best advice?
Okay. Well, this is the dystopian
future of of our dreams, Yeah. And then last thing is kind of
around the term which if you go to Appalachia and you stop at a
convenience store and you say, hey, I'm looking for a local
witch or someone who practices who do or I'm looking for
someone who practices voodoo, that convenience store clerk is
probably going to usher you out as quickly as possible and may
haps call the police on you because you seem like a crazy
person. We that those terms just aren't
often used there. Maybe originally like I've heard
of like hill folks who do but often those practitioners are
actually not even call themselves that.
We will use a lot of other terms.
I think often it is to kind of maybe intentionally palletize
those terms to not create friction between Christian
beliefs and kind of integrating those beliefs.
But you will very rarely hear anyone call themselves directly
a witch. Now that is becoming more
popular I think as witchcraft kind of becomes more mainstream.
But at least growing up my grandmother never outwardly
called herself a witch. That would be to bring kind of
condemnation on the family and or at least to bring
superstition and and kind of things you don't want associated
with your family. One of my aunts would never call
herself a witch but she still spits in her mop water.
So like what you doing right what's going on there And then
another one of my aunts I would say only within the past maybe
10 years has started calling herself a witch and again not
outwardly not like you know proudly out on Facebook
announcing she's a witch. It it's just she is known to do
workings right we we talk very kind of around the thing and so
if if we're talking about practitioners you'll often find
that they have very different names kind of to obfuscate I
think what they actually do. Yeah, I think.
I mean, I don't. I'm not in a closet by any
means. But I also don't even feel like
I I understand why people wouldn't feel completely
comfortable referring to themselves in that way.
I think we joke about even the title of our podcast being like,
too real witches. It's kind of like.
Making fun of the fact that even real, which is like, it's a
fallacy in itself that like what the fuck is real anyways?
Yeah, but it's really just for the algorithm because I feel
like which is such an umbrella term, it almost means nothing.
I mean if it means everything. So people being resistant to
identify in that way. Like also people don't.
Like if you don't live in the South, you don't understand how.
Judged potentially you can be and how dangerous that can be.
I mean, Danny, we didn't bring it up when we in The Witcher up
to updates about the snubbing. About the event, about the
event, OK you guys, so there we it was an indoor event at a
hotel. We had like a ballroom space for
the vendors and then there were two really nice size breakout
rooms and beside one of the breakout rooms.
The hotel thought it would be a good idea to rent out that
space, or maybe they were first, or I don't know.
But the fact of the matter is we ended up with a Ministry of
something which was clearly Christian in nature.
I'm not sure you know what exactly their belief is, but I'm
fairly confident they were not living for our event based on
how many nasty looks and literal scoffs I got.
By walking past people in the hallway and it's like I'm I I
was not in a full pointy hat at that point so and I'm smiling.
Y'all I'm like I'm doing ministry for Caradwin and her
and I'm out here just you know like we're living our best life
and and they were not having it, but no.
All in all, to say that like the word which can be really
dangerous even in America. And very much in the South.
So no shame, no shame in in in not using that term and not
claiming that term. Like if it makes it easier for
people to hate on you and you don't feel comfortable doing
that and you don't have the privilege of, you know, not
worrying about what other people think because that's a
privilege, then like, don't fucking use it.
I I that totally makes sense. Awesome.
Well, thank you so much for all of those definitions that that
was certainly I got some good clarification there.
We're going to give you some books, so you have a list of
books here. Is it possible for you to give
me, like if I was to read one book that had a the best
overview, do any of them really fall into that category for you
or they all kind of like speaking to their own strengths?
Yeah, I don't. I could give you some highlights
of each book and why I kind of have listed it because these
aren't all the books that I've read.
These are just the ones that I've like picked up and been
like Yep, this feels familiar or yeah, this makes makes a lot of
sense to me. I I probably want to lead with I
think when you read a lot of the reviews on wherever you purchase
your books online about Appalachian folklore and
Appalachian folk magic books, they'll often be like oh I
didn't really get like a list of recipes I didn't really get like
I wanted. I wanted structure I wanted
spells I wanted. But in order to understand this
group of people, you really need to understand where they come
from. So a lot of these books feel a
lot like a history lesson. A lot of them are are explaining
like where did these practices come from, where did these
people come from? What's kind of the logistics
behind why this is a thing? Because some of them do have
very practical applications and so a lot of these books are like
that. So I can kind of skip ahead a
little bit and say if you're looking for something that gives
you specifics, like tells you what to put in your tea, how to
make a sash it, how to like all of those kind of things, I would
point to Granny Bucks, Dibs and Dabs, Appalachian Traditions and
Magical Ways by Katherine Buck. So again, Katherine Buck.
Granny Buck, Right, That's that granny magic thing people are
looking for. But it's it's all of that.
So it really is just like a by concept.
Here are a list of herbs. Here are a list of ways to use
them. They've got a really great
section on like teas that are really like.
More importantly, because she doesn't refer to the mess tea,
she refers them as gargles. And that's what I'm familiar
with. I didn't drink a lot of tea.
Coming up, we didn't we didn't drink a lot of tea.
I we didn't have a tea kettle. What was that?
And so we. But I did do a lot of gargles.
If you were sick, Listen, we gargled everything, all the
things. I have never put so much salt in
the back of my throat at the moment.
You were like, my throat hurts. You're gargling some salt water
depending on what was wrong with you.
You're doing a gargle. And I think a lot of that comes
from the belief that the throat holds a lot of insight into the
health of a person. So if you think about your
mouth, your dentist can tell a lot about what's going on with
your heart from your mouth. And so there I think there's
just belief that like the mouth and the throat tell you a lot
about the general health of a person and overall.
And so we did a lot of gargling. I would.
I probably didn't get into teas until I was an adult.
So I ducks and dabs love that. I.
Never even questioned Gargles. I mean, like, I totally, I still
do that. Yeah.
Is that a thing? Is that not medically proven?
I don't know. I've never even thought of it.
So so that's a lot of folk magic is that it's very practical in
nature. It's not like we're just out
here doing an abstract something.
We're doing a logistical, mundane thing to achieve a goal.
And so we're gargling because that helps clear infection out
of the throat, right. But also, let's throw some herbs
in there that are known to help with whatever ailment that you
have, maybe from a medicinal purpose, but also maybe from
kind of a word of mouth purpose, right.
Or maybe, you know, this root or whatever grows close to the
ground. And so therefore, if you're
having problems with your feet, this root's really great for
that. So we're going to have you
gargle with that, like. Stuff like that.
I never, I never had a gargle with anything other than.
Salt hot water. I honestly don't even know if
that actually. I mean, I think it does
something because the amount of salinity would kill some amount
of bacteria, but it certainly isn't going to have a viral
impact. And sorry, I can go on my
biological I'm with you. Yeah, we we salted everything.
Yeah, all of that. I don't know.
I I still ended up with antibiotics sometimes, but.
Yeah, cool. I love that, yeah.
And then if you're looking for something more along the lines
of conjure, so maybe you're more in tune with hoodoo practices.
A lot of those hoodoo practices came from kind of the the
forming together of a lot of these African people enslaved
people's voodoo practices, kind of converging with Christianity
and those in creating this kind of who do practice that is both
working with roots and and working with branches and all of
those things. But then also combining kind of
the Christian, I'm going to not super lightly use the word
manipulation of people and kind of conversion to Christianity
and trying to find a way to marry those things in a way that
was at least publicly, societally, not against the
grain. And so we'll talk more about
kind of using the Bible as a spell book, but that is also a
really good book. So that I would say that one is
doctoring the devil. We've talked about this book
before, Notebooks of an Appalachian Conjure Man by Jake
Richards. He also makes another book
called Backwoods, Witchcraft Conjure and Folk Magic from
Appalachia. I enjoyed.
For me, I enjoyed that book more than doctoring the Devil because
it talked a lot about, like, Appalachia in general, and like,
it approached it from the way I think a lot of witchcraft books
approach magic. Like here are your tools, here
are your basics. And then he went into that with
very much a like, yeah, we don't need to use any real tools.
They're all mundane things. Yeah, there's no basic spells.
Here's some shit. I know, and I just appreciated
that. I appreciated kind of turning
that concept upside down on its head.
Whether that was intentional or not, I don't know, but it was
great. And then there's a book I stuck
in here that some people who have read it will probably be
like, that's not an Appalachian folk magic book.
But when I read it, I immediately I knew where some of
those practices were from. I've done those practices.
And so there is a book called by Rust of Nail and Prick of Thorn,
The Theory and Practice of Effective Home Warding by Althea
Sebastiani. So it's not explicitly about
Appalachian practice, but almost everything in there is about
creating your home as a sanctuary, essentially, and in
controlling the energy that you let in your house by also
essentially putting of yourself and of your attention into your
house. So there were some definitely
some new concepts in there, most notably like creating sigils to
put on tape on the upside of your fans so that people can't
see them. But as it spins, depending on
which way your fans spin and you can actually reset which way
your fans spin. But depending on which way your
fans spin, either encouraging good luck and fortune into the
house or the other way. So that one was new for me, but
there was a lot about mop water. There's a whole section about
mop water, and she talked about putting herbs and stuff in
there, but then she also touched on like that some people have
the practice of putting their own urine in there.
That goes just a look farther than I'm familiar with.
Nobody was peeing our mop water, but we were spitting in it.
Absolutely. But maybe.
Like, just a drop of pee? Maybe not like, yeah.
Oh yeah, like not a full bladder.
No, no, no. That would be converse to what
you're trying to do, I think. OK.
I just want to borrow this book, Danny.
This is so interesting. Rest of nail prick of thorn.
Oh it's so good. It's such a great home warning
book. And she also talks to things
like I never thought of like in your vents.
Obviously not anything that would get like sucked into your
thing, but just like the proper cleaning of those vents and how
to not clean them would be like in and of itself to not cleanse
your body and write how how you build up spiritual dirt in the
same way that you build up physical dirt.
Like it just it was a very cool book and I I appreciated kind of
their approach to it, but so much of it was so familiar.
The next book we've got is Appalachian Folklore Omen Signs
and Superstitions by Nancy Richmond and Misty Murray walk
up. So I like this book because it's
not actually about magic, it's about the folklore.
So it's a lot about how have things kind of come to be
overtime. It gives you a lot of
superstitions. So you'll often heard magic, or
like magical practices called superstitions.
But like, if you're doing a thing because of a superstition,
that's magic, homie. But we don't.
We don't like to say that. So then we also have roots,
branches, and spirits. The Folkways and Witchery of
Appalachia by H Brian Ballard, who also writes another really
good book called Stops and Ditch Water, a friendly and useful
introduction to hill folks who do, again, also by H Brian
Ballard. So Ballard, So if you are
interested in hoodoo, and again, what I really appreciate about H
Byron Ballard is that they just say right off the bat they're
like, hey, we call it Hill folks, hoodoo.
I know not everybody does, I know not everybody who lives
here even calls it that. But here's some stuff that we're
doing. So that's a really cool book as
well. But those two have a lot of
practical applications. So they'll they'll tell you how
to do the thing, they'll they'll give you a theory, give you the
concept, make sure you understand like the concept
behind what you're doing and that history that's behind it.
And then they'll they'll tell you how to do the thing.
Again, only with so much detail as those practices kind of vary
region to region, but really appreciate those books as well,
really kind of change some of my concepts of protection and
protection from what which we'll talk about in a little bit and
then I think those are all of my favorites.
There are tons of books out there do.
You know what favorite means? You're like, here's my 20 top
books. They're my all best friends.
All of them are best. Best.
That was great. That was really.
I can see now though why you couldn't just point to one or
two books because they're all so different and how they approach
the topic. Yeah, yeah.
And it's really just like a what I found to be best.
I think some of the books that I've picked up and maybe haven't
really connected with was mostly because those are not practices
I'm familiar with. So if you're from somewhere
else, this is not to say these are the end all.
Be all books, pick up all the books, read all the books.
There's lots out there, just not all of them had practices that
were super familiar to me. Right.
Which is kind of part of the idea of learning that new.
So that's cool. Yeah.
All right. So we're going to transition
still kind of staying within this air realm of just
information and kind of the logical consideration of it.
I think you wanted to transition into potentially, like, what is
the motivation? Why do people practice folk
magic? So take us through some of your
thoughts there. Yeah.
So when we talk about folk magic, these things didn't arise
because people wanted to join a magic tradition.
These things arose because the people needed things, right?
It wasn't to achieve just their wants.
It was because these people had really practical needs, some of
them base level needs that needed to be met.
And we'll talk a little bit about, you know, control and
those things. But for a group of people that
by and large were not a lot of means, some of the best ways of
getting what they want is from now we would call it manifesting
or really putting their spiritual intention into
something they didn't really have a lot of mundane control
over. So one of the first things up is
safety. So.
Having kind of keen attention paid to patterns and omens,
often again called superstitions, really saved many
a life and kept a lot of bellies full.
So if you knew what you were looking for, if you had seen
that in times past, this had turned out this way.
If you were better able to recognize those patterns, they
probably kept you more safe. They probably made sure that you
got food on your table. They probably made sure that you
didn't fall into any accidents or been too far away from home
when that next storm hit, Or got all the animals or livestock put
away before some natural disaster hit, if you knew what
you were looking for before it showed up.
Yeah, no, I mean, I the one that clearly comes to my mind is
like, don't walk under a ladder because it's bad luck.
It's like, that's just a good sense.
Yeah, that just right. That's just called safety.
But sure. Yeah, Bad luck.
Bad luck too. And every time I walk under a
really wobbly ladder with somebody on it who's not being
supported, I get dead. That's so superstitious.
Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah, same thing.
I think the Black Cats thing, I'm one, you know, Black Cats
get a bad name and all that stuff, but if you're out in the
woods and you just see a random cat, probably flea ridden,
probably ill, you don't want to take that stuff home, right?
So it was kind of just good practice to stay away from
unfamiliar animals that. Is that is not my life.
I'm like unfamiliar animals. Let's go.
Also Black Cats. If you wear a lot of black, you
should get a black cat because white cats and black clothes
nightmare. Actual nightmare.
But I will say I have gotten scabies from a from a stray cat.
Maybe that was just like bad luck all you had listened to
Appalachian folk magic when it said stop messing with unknown
animals. Oh my God, you're a mess.
And then the next one's protection, right?
So kind of in that same vein of safety, but because of lack of
resources really in these rural areas, when you think about
these areas, these weren't like heavily populated areas.
Many of the families were spread out by miles, if not way more
than that. And so in a rural area, it
really means most people are one accident or illness away from
death and or devastation. Because again, if you die and
you're the primary breadwinner, well your family's just been
left destitute. Or if you die and your family
now has to give all of their life savings to bury you, that's
a really terrible thing for your family.
Not so different than this dystopian life that we're living
right now. However, it really meant that
like people needed to find a way to protect themselves, maybe
also just from an anxiety ridden place to make sure that nothing
horrible happened to them. Because if something horrible
happened to them, for many people, even the luckiest
people, that would ruin their lives.
So. That's that.
That makes a lot of sense. Just it's like almost
therapeutic to be optimistic. And the only way you can be
optimistic is by doing some kind of working.
Yeah, that totally resonates with me.
Feeling like you have control over something, even if you
don't, right? You can at least say, well, I
did everything that I could to prevent this thing from
happening, right? And then when we talk about
protection, like from what? Right.
So from the known. So we're talking illness,
natural disaster. If you're running a farm, you
need to be prepared for those kind of things and feel like
you've kind of done everything both mundanely and from a
practitioner standpoint to protect your assets, injury and
then lack or loss of opportunity.
So if someone's looking for a job, or if there is a job but
100 people have applied to it and they're only taking two
people, you, you want to make sure that, like, you've kind of
set yourself up for success there.
But we also have from the unknown, so this would be from
your jinxes, your hexes. Again, nobody likes to use the
word witchcraft there, but they're very familiar with bane
forms of magic. So protection from jinxes,
hexes, Hanes, which is really just a play on the word hot.
It really means any spirit that would potentially, not
necessarily try to harm you, but probably, but also like just try
to hang out with you. So this could be anything from
like fairies to ghosts to negative spirits to anything.
So when we say haint, we just literally means anything that
can haunt you. I've never heard that term,
yeah. I have not.
You're saying that the last check paint HAINT.
I hate never heard that. That's not new.
Okay. Wait, so that's like a ghost?
Yeah. Or anything that would do a
haunting of some kind, right. So we could be talking about
spirits. We could be talking about.
I've seen like fairies included in this category, something that
is unseen or unknowable but that could like, potentially cause
you harm. And that includes maybe another
one you're not familiar with. Plat eyes.
You're like, how what? Bless you, Excuse you.
What are you saying? Plat eyes.
PLAT. Usually like a hyphen eyes.
And that one, It specifically comes from African culture, but
it's it. This is a more tangible mythical
creature. So this is typically a monster
or a visible ghost of some form. Again, the term comes from like
sunken eyes. So something that is kind of
really scary to look at, but but you have to be able to see it,
right, To know that it's scary. So something with sunken eyes.
This would potentially be like, if you look into a Bush in the
night and you see like, scary eyes, that'd be a plot eye.
And then then things we're more familiar with, right the devil,
Satan, evil, and general creatures of the woods.
We'll talk a little bit about how to protect yourself from the
the creatures of the woods. And I don't mean the deer and
the bear. I mean, like the things that are
coming to get you for for real from the spiritual realm.
Nowadays that includes ticks, right?
Does those things are awful. You just have to.
If you live in the South, there's just a really lot better
chance that Lyme's disease is just hanging out.
There's a new disease that's caused by ticks.
Yeah, I cannot. While you keep talking, I
cannot. To give you a new thing to fear.
Really great. I love that.
Well, then let's talk about the unknown.
But the good things that we want to protect us and that would be
kind of wanting favor from the unknown.
So this would be your land spirits, right?
Wanting them to be on your side, working with you particularly if
you're doing something agricultural, you want those
land spirits to like provide you favor and help you prosper.
The Holy Ghost, right. All the Christians want the Holy
Ghost on their side because if if it's not on your side and
then the devil's on your side and you lost, you lost that
battle. So I don't want that.
And then your ancestors, right. So they are also the intangible.
So wanting those to be on your side to to have their favor,
which kind of by familial relations, that's that's just
kind of expected. But there's always things you
can do, you know, to butter up your ancestors, you know, please
refer back to our podcast on an ancestral veneration.
All right. And then I'm going to jump into
health will be, which will be the perfect time for you to come
back with your pic information. When we talk about health, we're
talking about little access to mundane medical practice.
And because of that kind of plant magic and and medicinal
magic really came to the forefront because a lot of these
people had the one, there's an abundance of plant life.
I don't know the numbers. I just know there is a wild
amount of plant life that exists in Appalachia from like top to
bottom. And so there's a ton of stuff
out there. But on top of that, there's all
these people who have all of this really arcane knowledge
about these plants. They know how to use every
little bit of it. They know what it's good for.
They know what it's worked for. They know what it doesn't work
for. And so that really led to a lot
of people kind of rejecting maybe modern Western medicine in
those areas. One, because they didn't have
access to it too, because they didn't have the money to afford
it. But three, because there's a guy
down the street who can make a gargle that works just as well
as any antibiotic. I don't want to take those
pills. I don't even know what's in
those pills. That's just, you know, the
pharmaceutical version of these St. drugs that are out here,
right? Very, very familiar conversation
I think I've had with several people who live out there when
I'm just like, no, but please take your antibiotics.
But they really are the best way for you to not actually end up
with scarlet fever. So please take your antibiotics
and then we get into kind of the use of food as medicine, So
feeding the body and in a way that would maybe create
prosperity, but for the most part, keep people healthy and
well, right there because of what was grown there.
Depending on where you're from, you maybe had some nutritional
deficiencies, you maybe didn't have access to the best foods.
And so using food with intent for the body to keep it well was
definitely kind of a main focus of of food, not just as physical
sustenance but as spiritual sustenance as well.
And then we get into midwives, one of my favorite topics of
witchcraft because it 100% was midwifery, especially in the
times before modern medicine kind of became available to many
rural places in Appalachia. Those those people are witches.
They were witches and the public absolutely didn't want to call
them witches. So we called the midwives wife,
which I'm just saying very similar etymology and and mid as
in they are communing between the place before and after
birth, right. So they are bringing lives
across that precipice into physical existence.
And so they were often seen as kind of, again, this granny
magic. It is kind of having this
knowing and and being able to tell from the way that a person
was laboring, being able to tell like what was going on and what
needed to happen and whether things were going well or not.
Because when you. I mean, it's not like there are
a whole bunch of men lining up to be midwives, right?
Many of them were in the living room, like smoking some
cigarettes, cracking jokes with their friends, while their wives
were often dying in their literal bedroom, like literally
dying of hemorrhages. And so midwives were and are
still in many places practitioners of magic.
And they are are using forms of meditation.
If you think about breath work and stuff that we've talked
about before with meditation, they were really using these
practices to help aid people through labor, to help ensure
the next generation survived. So just saying, midwives, really
amazing, really amazing stuff. Have I looked into becoming a
midwife? Absolutely.
Yes, I was like ooh, I think I hear a new career, except that
in this wonderful healthcare system that we have here, I
would probably immediately be sued and destitute because yeah,
it it is now seen as unsafe to labor at home, which in many
cases I agree for the average person, I think it's a great,
wonderful thing to do it at home.
But I think midwives carry a lot of responsibility and and
liability in today's healthcare world.
That I I don't know about that. I don't know.
I don't know if I take that on. Big props, big respects to our
midwives and doulas out there, but that's that's a little
outside of my scope of practice I think.
Yeah. I'm like, I can go on a tangent
there about the safety of birth and hospitals.
Truly. Truly.
Yeah. Okay.
So just breaking that up. Fun fact, we got the babiosis.
That's the new tick disease. What happened?
The CDC okay. So March 2023 CDC report shows
that babbiosis now has a foothold in 10 states, but this
is in the Northeast and Midwest, so that would fall into the
Appalachian area. Yeah.
It's it's it's a fatal you know moment that's happening
response. I don't know too much about it,
but definitely you know if you're.
If you have the Constitution to learn about yet another disease.
But yeah, ticks. Let's do some spells against
them, because that's terrifying. Yeah, I listen.
I know that there's this belief that everything has its place in
the ecosystem. Why would the mosquitoes and the
ticks? I don't What are they doing for
the world that is beneficial. Well, I could tell you about the
biggest threat to humanity, which is humans, and they're
trying to regulate the human population, but that's a whole
nother tangent. Yeah, we probably are worse for
the world than mosquitoes and ticks, but for me personally,
I'm like, where do they fit in the ecosystem that they are so
important? Because it kind of seems like
there's too many of them and that they are causing havoc.
No, I I literally think that they're the response to our
treatment of our resources. So that's how they fit in.
They're really the warriors in this and probably the the, the
superheroes in this whole narrative of human existence.
Next topic, Danny. Next topic.
I'm feeling very dark today. I'm loving this.
Yeah, Okay, you stop over there with your Scorpio energy, cut it
out. So then we want to get into kind
of money and opportunity. So if again I have this belief
go with go with me on a on a journey real quick, right
through kind of money and opportunity in Appalachia.
So a lot of these people moved into the mountains because land
was super cheap up there, right. It's rocky soil.
It's often hard to farm. It was super cheap and so a lot
of people immigrated to these areas and or were enslaved and
forced to come to these areas and then ended up in the
mountains because it's the only place they could afford land.
Some people end up in the mountains because they were
trying to avoid. The law, getting in jail for
their debts, whatever. So there are a lot of people up
there who, and when I say a lot, were really spread out and far
apart. And because of that, it wasn't
like there was really a capitalistic economy up there.
A lot of people were very much hand to mouth just trying to get
by and a lot of people were operating in, in a form of a
gift economy. So hey, if you will will pull
this tooth for me, then I'll give you X amount of food,
right. And that's kind of how things
were operating up there. Still transactional, but
sometimes in kind of a gift economy where you helped your
neighbor out because you had a surplus and they didn't have any
and you made it work. So we had this lack of jobs and
opportunity and then in comes coal mining.
And as a coal miner's granddaughter, it absolutely
probably led to me being here because those opportunities were
there to supply a life for five children.
And in the same way it has absolutely devastated the people
and the natural resources there. So we went from no jobs and
opportunity to a burst of jobs and opportunity where
everybody's working in the coal mines, everybody who's anybody's
working the coal mines. And they're good jobs, but still
to this day they're good jobs. You make really good money.
You maybe don't see your family as often as you like to, but you
make good money. You might have some lung cancer
later. Yeah, but and and still, I mean,
I still know people who live up there who are coal miners and
they're not wearing their masks. They're coming home and their
faces are fully black. And I'm like, that's it.
Your lungs. Like, you know what I mean?
It's awful, but. I really appreciate when you
said the cool minds. My mind instantly went Dun Dun
Dun. But then you're like, it's the
reason I'm here. And I was like, oh that's yeah,
right. Everything has its shadow and
its light side. So, yeah, and it's it's one of
those things and it's why we, when we're having these
discussions about coal mining and the devastation it really
has created an Appalachia. And I can really only speak for
the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's so easy to say, well, well,
they shouldn't have done that. Well, what else were they were
supposed to do, what they had resources and these resources
were able to keep their families from dying.
So what that's the logistical path of least resistance, right.
Is it right or wrong? I think that's the wrong
question. I think the question is what do
we do about it now. But I it created money and
opportunity but also devastated the land.
So now we're coming back into the the birth, death, rebirth
cycle where we're getting back to the where there is a lack of
opportunity because we're not hiring as many coal miners that
that has slowed down. It still exists.
There's still plenty of people who are coal mining families and
all of that up there. But it it has really reached the
slowdown. So now there's this loss of jobs
and opportunity, and what has swooped in to replace it is the
opioid crisis, whether you are a dealer, a seller, a doctor with
a script pad filling that out. And and now, now there's this
resurgence of what people need to make ends meet, if they can
sell some of their prescription pills to do that.
Totally. You know, Right, wrong or
indifferent it. It is what it is.
Yeah. And so in in the same way that I
feel like nature is neither right or wrong, it also has no
sense of judgment in a lot of ways in that things are going to
be hunted, things are going to be preyed upon, lives are going
to start and lives are going to end.
And and in the same way, Appalachia has experienced that
in in opportunities. And so when we talk about magic
in this area, a lot of it is accepting the good with the bad,
right. So I'm willing to do this
working to get this job that I know will probably kill me in
the long run, but it will keep my family and others safe and
give them security. And and a lot of the magic
there, which we'll talk about a little bit later is is about
sacrifice and is about the the mundane practical part of of
giving it your all. We'll talk a little bit about
bootstrap theory because that's that's the thing that's the
theory, that's where it comes from.
And so when we talk about money and opportunity, a lot of the
workings for this are to stay alive like literally to stay
alive. Again, it's it's not about your
your morality of it it it's just to make those ends meet.
Danny, we're going into a sociological exploration of
class and through the lens of magic, I am here for this.
Your Appalachia is really like a microcosm of society as a
greater whole. And I think if we wanted to
explore the the again, this is just me nerding out for a
second. But if we wanted to explore
America's fetishizing of capitalism.
Appalachia is the exact place to mark that because it is
literally Appalachia's downfall. But we can't stop buying into
it, because to stop buying into it means to kill ourselves.
And it's it is. It is the perfect microcosm of
what is happening in America, in my opinion.
Super interesting. So then we move towards control.
Ooh, and I'm going to ruffle some feathers with this one, but
y'all stick with me. Okay, I promise.
I have some good points to make here.
So when I'm say control, I literally mean that.
I mean that from a societal, individualist perspective.
So control within our lives. This has kind of changed as time
has gone on. But your home and your hearth
was a sacred place. It was the place that you
created. It was a place of all of your
possessions in the world. Nobody had summer homes, so it's
not like you had important things stored elsewhere.
You had storage spaces like it was your life was at home.
Everything that you had both physically, tangibly acquired
and everything that meant something to you was in your
home. And so it was very much a sacred
place and is still a sacred place for people.
If you have noticed the obsession with what is that
target brand of home decor? And everyone's obsession.
You know I'm talking about it. Joanna Gaines Oh Oh yeah,
Magnolia. Something like that, and the way
like Southerners snatched that ish up.
It's because this idea of of creating a space that is both
beautiful but yet practical, still within me, still very much
part of my design style, is so important it it is creating your
own sanctuary. And so these people also had so
little mundane control over their lives in general and what
jobs they had available to them, what kind of health concerns
were kind of going around access again to all these resources.
And so again, if you could do something to increase your odds
of success, you would. Right.
That so it was creating control, probably lessening of just
general anxiety that when something didn't work out, you
could confidently say I did everything that I could, right?
And if you hadn't then you say shit, I should have done that
working, damn it, I knew I should have done that.
And then listen, follow me. Y'all within society, right?
So when you think about Appalachia and that these people
were very spread out both culturally and.
Geographically, really from each other, there needs to be
something that unites these people towards a common goal.
And Christianity decided that, listen, we're not going to talk
about witchcraft, but we're definitely going to put our
influence into it and tell people create superstitions that
will force the kind of behavior we're looking for.
And so we'll have some examples of this later, but it was really
creating standards of resolutions of concerns.
So we don't like to involve the law y'all if we can avoid it.
We do. And people get there.
Just desserts just deserves is where that comes from.
They don't like to involve the law because often the government
has shown. Again, microcosm of American
Society, that they do not serve justice in the way that most
people in Appalachia believe justice should be served.
And so the people would take justice in their own hands in
the form of witchcraft, but again in the form of mundane
sacrifice to create the world that they needed to live in and
be safe in. And then there's also assurance
of the perpetuation of Christianity.
So we'll talk about some practices, but if people are
being born and you need people to come into the church and you
need people to keep coming into the church, there are
superstitions that would help that kind of happen and keep
moving along. There's also, you know, the
insurance of power balances or imbalances and making sure
they're they are maintained, the maintenance of gender norms,
protection of the nuclear family, again, kind of all
falling under these Christian values thing.
And we'll talk about some of those later.
And I think if I said that to somebody from Appalachia who is
Christian, they'd be like, they're not doing that.
No, they're not. Yeah, you are.
I need you to follow me here.
But yes, you did. And I'm going to highlight it
for you so that you can maybe see it a little more clearly.
All right. And then let's jump into
actions, ma'am. This is already an hour and 30
minutes. Whatever.
I listen to Chris Brennan's, you know, podcast and he had a four
and a half hour long podcast. So, UGE player like, OK, you
know, All right, yeah. I hope.
I hope you guys are loving this and getting something out of it
and it's not. How do I pop to?
The other you know how in the future, right, I'm supposed to
cover astrology. What do you think that's going
to be like? You have to.
Split that up. You think you don't have to
split that up? I think that's OK.
Should we split this up? I don't know.
Nah, let's keep going. So getting into actions.
So when we talk about the active witchcraft, there is absolutely
this belief that mundane work created value and that
heightened the effectiveness of the working.
So we often say, right, you have to put the practical work into
the spell work, right? If you're like, I want a job,
but you're not applying any jobs, you're not going to get a
damn job, right? So you have to put the mundane
work into it. And that is very true.
In Appalachia, there is this bootstrap theory, right, that
well, if you do the work, the good things will come.
And I feel like it's a very circular argument that.
Yeah, a lot of times when you do the work, it is more likely that
the thing will happen for you, Sure.
But some people can't do the work because of disability or
whatever. And those people are just damned
to no opportunity like that doesn't you know, it it it's a
very circular argument to say everyone is able to do the work
and therefore they should. And if you do, then look at all
these great things that happen. Great.
But we're forgetting that the initial component of like, what
if you can't do the work right. But within witchcraft, it's kind
of that same thing if you, if you want something to work,
you're going to have to put in the work to make it happen.
And so a good example of this was when my mom was in her
teens. And I know this because it's
very specifically of what happened.
Their house burned down like to the ground burned down.
And my grandfather rebuilt the house himself, built the whole
damn thing. And this happened when my mom
was going to soon be graduating. Her graduation robes were in the
house and he went back in to save her graduation robes
because he didn't want her to like not have what she needed
for graduation. And so then he rebuilt that that
house because of the belief that if he built it and then my
grandmother. Put her stuff into it to keep it
safe that it would not burn down again, right.
Nothing bad would happen to this place again if we build it and
make it ourselves. And so that kind of falls in
line with, you know, what we're doing.
So next I'm going to kind of keep that same format of like
why we do the witchcraft, so safety and protection and money
and opportunity and just kind of talk through.
Some things, some practices a little, a little bit, just a a
surface glimpse of the things that I'm familiar with that I
want to pass to you guys. So when we talk about safety,
we're talking about those patterns, right, those patterns
of things that we see. So we're talking about weather,
so noticing the patterns and weather and when it's good to
plant and all of those things. One of those is rain on your
wedding day is a good sign. And it rained on my wedding day.
It has rained on every important day of my life.
Water is very important to me. It rained out my first outdoor
circle. It that has always been a sign
that gave me chills, Okay. It rained on my wedding day.
It rained on my graduation day. Our graduation had to be then
moved indoors because it had rained.
It rained on some of the experiences you and I have had.
With our outer court and those were all great experiences.
So that's kind of been just a constant thing in my life is
that rain is a good thing and and this is where it holds true
for me, is that right on your wedding day is a good sign for
the marriage animal behavior. So if a crow flies, depending on
which direction it's flying, it can kind of define.
Whether your answer is in the past or in the future, in the
present. So let's say you're walking down
the street and the crow flies behind you, meaning it's coming
from in front of you to behind you.
It can mean that the answer is is actually in your past.
So whatever you're working through, whatever your problem
you're dealing with, the answer is actually in your past and you
need to to go back to that or draw from that.
The crow flies in front of you from the back of your head to
your front of your head. That your answer is actually in
the future, so maybe don't dwell on it right now because you just
don't have the answer right now, but just know that it's coming
and then and and this is those two things were verified for me
in the stops and ditch water book.
But additionally for me. So this isn't just a forward and
back thing. This is also a present thing
that I'm aware of is if a crow flies to your left, so your left
hand side, it means that. You are going to receive the
answer and you're receiving receptive hand.
You're going to receive the answer soon.
So in this present and then if it flies to your right hand side
that it means that you already have the answer, you just need
to apply it. So sometimes this can be like
saying. Bitch, do the thing.
You know what the fuck you need to do?
Just fucking do it. You're waiting for a sign or
answer. Just do the damn thing, Okay.
All right, well, let me ask you this.
Walking this morning, my dog walking.
My dog, Crow electrocuted on the ground from the power lines.
What does that mean? I think it means something's
wrong with your crow. No, I was very like, where is my
Why don't I have my pocket knife on me?
I feel like they're a tune to that kind of thing.
I want to take this foot. Oh my gosh.
Probably would not. Well, I guess the bones would be
good, but I was gonna say if it got electrified, it's probably
like smoldering or like destroyed.
I mean, I didn't see it get electrocuted.
It was just like round electrocuted actually in this
area. I've seen this happen a number
of times. Yeah, I love that.
So you actually use that, that crow.
Divination, Aviation, divination.
I love that aviation divination I think is.
If it's not called that, it should be.
And then when we get into people behavior.
So if someone for instance makes a toast at A at a wedding, at an
event and then you've also heard of people like clinking the
glass. If you break the glass while
clinking, you should not give the toast.
You have given up your right to give toast.
You're not allowed to give the toast.
Now put it down. Stop it.
But if you've made the toast and then you go to toast people and
you break your glass or shatter your glass.
Whatever you have toasted to is now reversed.
So if you are toasting to the good health and wealth of this
couple, you've just ruined their wedding.
Thank you so much for attending. You're such a great guest.
I'm so glad we paid for your plate.
OK, yeah, no glass at the wedding.
Heard all plastic cups. Truly, it like I I feel like
very anxious when someone clinks the glass with a knife.
Because I'm just like, OK, just maybe don't.
What if you just didn't? And then there's some that I'm
sure people are familiar with. So like your ears tingling,
Sometimes ringing, although ringing has a different
connotation for me. But ears tingling means that
somebody's talking about you, right?
But you take that a step further.
Left ear, if you're if you're tingling is only in your left
ear, it means that someone's gossiping about you.
But if it's in your right ear, it means that people are saying
good things about you. So hopefully only right ear
tingling. I definitely, yeah.
I definitely grew up with the tingling ear one.
I hadn't heard the left and right thing.
I I'm not reading it forward in your notes.
Did you have the itchy hand? I didn't put it in here, but
yeah, left left hand is receiving money.
Right hand is you about to lose a whole bunch of money, friend?
Yeah, yeah. And I think it doesn't apply to
your feet because maybe it just means you have athletes foot.
It's. Not they're actually going
anywhere. There are things in the book
about itchy feet, and I'm like, that's just hygiene.
Yeah, probably. There's something.
I read something about putting like a short nail into someone's
heel to see something. And I was like, that's just
tetanus. Yeah, You're like don't get
locked up by using this technique.
And then there's if a baby gets teeth too early, it's a son.
The mother will soon become pregnant again, right?
And think about it like the baby has teeth and the mom's like,
you're not biting my nipples off.
Absolutely no. So she's probably going to stop
nursing that baby. So this is one of those
practical ones where I'm like, she's probably going to stop
nursing her baby. Her baby's no longer baby
anymore. You miss having a little baby to
care for in the house, or probably toddlering, and so now
you're going to have another baby soon.
I wonder if there's something physiologically like if you're
not nursing then you start ovulation.
I think I've heard of that too. Yeah.
I don't know how the women's
body works, apparently. I I don't know this vessel I'm
occupying. Who knows?
And. Then we have the seasons, right?
So making sure that you can kind of gauge the seasons.
Farmer Farmer's Almanac is really famous for being used not
just for planting and plotting and all of those things, but
also from a witchcraft perspective, knowing how the
seasons were going to change or kind of anticipating how the
seasons were going to change. Could really define when you do
workings right. So if you're like I'm going to
sew when it says here the Farmers Almanac that March is a
good time to sew, then that's also when I'm going to do these
workings for prosperity and and for growth and for new
beginnings and those kind of things.
Then if we jump into protection, so sewing red string into
clothing to prevent any evil or misfortune from crossing that
person's path. So we talked in a previous
episode. About the versions of this I'm
familiar with. So putting your initials or your
name and red thread, followed up by my mom's method of just using
a red sharpie because who has time for modern sewing so.
Practical. Yes.
That's a great adaptation. Love it.
And then that coal miners should not return to the mine until a
deceased miner is laid to rest, rest, or they risk the same
fate. So especially if they died in a
coal mining accident, no one was to return to the mine until that
person was laid to rest. And that's just safety.
That's that makes sense. Yeah.
Yeah, but often what came from this, right?
Because from a capitalist perspective, if you own the coal
mine, you're like, these people need to get back to work.
Often the coal mine would pay for the person's funeral because
we want to get everybody back. To work as quickly as possible,
right? So we talk about control and
manipulation. That's what I'm talking about.
Sorry, we're superstitious. Everybody's actually not
striking right now. They're just being
superstitious. So until you pay ooh, I love
that. Mirrors being covered after the
death of a person To not I, I don't know spell that but to
alarm or confuse the leading spirit.
I've talked about with you guys that like mirrors had a
different connotation. In my house, mirrors were
generally avoided at all times for the potential of being kind
of put portals of the soul, but also portals for for spirit
visitation. But this is that same concept,
so that as the spirit is living the body, we don't want it to
see itself in a mirror. And become alarmed.
Maybe they don't realize that they're dead or confused and try
to go towards the mirror and in their leave.
So we cover those mirrors that they can easily find their way
in and out. It's very similar with some of
the constructs of like leaving the back and the front door open
during these times to allow the spirit to leave.
Also, again, practical magic, if there's a dead person in there
and we're not embalming them, they're going to start to smell.
So you better open some windows and open the doors.
And this is kind of gone a little bit by the wayside now
that. Families often depend on like
funeral homes and things like that to come get their loved
ones to prepare them for burial. Where before you used to do
those practices in home, you would you would start the
process of bathing, of cleaning, of of dressing, of caring for
that person. And if you didn't live near
cemetery, you buried them on the land itself.
So families often took over those burial rights and so there
are a lot of. Different superstitions,
different workings and practices that are having to do with kind
of taking care of your dead. This one is my favorite one
because it is absolutely true, and I feel like it kind of made
a resurgence online recently and I didn't realize how many people
thought that this was a bizarre concept.
I've always looked by these concepts in the woods.
I don't know why everyone does, but if you hear your name in the
woods, no, you didn't. No, you didn't.
Don't follow your name in the woods.
Who is calling your name in the woods?
Who knows your name and is calling it in the woods?
No, you didn't. No, you didn't.
And you keep walking. You don't.
You don't even turn or make recognition to where you thought
you heard your name. You just keep going.
So don't do that. You know, there would have been
far less fatalities and horror movies had they just had that
bit of knowledge. Right.
What? I thought that was just common
knowledge. People were like, yeah, if you
hear your names in the woods, if you're hearing your name in the
woods, no, it's a no. You need to leave immediately.
Same thing if you hear something particularly behind you that
does not sound like an animal. You don't acknowledge it.
You don't make eye contact with it.
You don't check to see what it is.
You just keep going. You be undisturbed as possible.
You are not scared. We don't even start running.
You just continue on your path as though there's actually not a
hint behind you. No, there's not.
You're just going to walk your happy ass out of the woods?
There's never been an alien abduction in Appalachia because
they just won't acknowledge it. They never slowed down to look.
This is why only the cows are being abducted is because
they're dumb cows are. Unbelievably dumb in my opinion.
Other people tell you they're so bright and brilliant, they pick
their nose with their tongues. Like, I y'all there's a reason
you have to herd cows and it's because they're not very smart.
They're not that smart and that's why they aliens keep
taking them. I don't know what to tell you.
And then some of you might be familiar with a bottle trees.
I've known them called haint bottles.
So those blue cobalt bottles that are like upside down on
like a wire, usually wire like tree thing and it its purpose is
to catch the haints, right. So as the wind blows, again,
these are spirits, right? They're kind of like moving
through the air or fairies. They love that blue.
That's a very alerting color, right?
That's. Why?
I don't like blue. See, I knew it.
You're like, I'm not a haint, so there's that.
But yeah, the idea is that it captures those spirits and
because the bottles are kind of turned down that they can't get
their way back out. So those are kind of all along
the lines of protection, protection from the scene and
the unseen. I hope that that has helped you
guys navigate the woods a lot better because some of y'all be
showing up missing and off the wait.
Let me, Let me go through some of my the ones I'm taking away.
Don't don't take any stray animals, because then you'll get
scabies. Don't listen.
If if your name is called, keep walking.
If you something is doesn't sound like an animal but doesn't
sound like something you know, keep walking.
There's a lot of just keep walking.
If you go to a crossroad, just keep walking.
We are a big fan of of a fans of the mind your fucking business
club. Huge fans, huge fans.
So then we get into health. So this is one I I probably up
until the last two years, just kept to myself.
Because people look at you funny when you say this, but spit in
your damn mop water. Spit in your mop water.
Just just try it just one time. Listen, just try it just one
time. And then tell me that it doesn't
keep everyone in your house safe from harm.
That nobody gets sick, nobody gets sick when you spit in your
mop water. I don't know what to tell you.
It just works. What if you have a virus?
Yeah. So when did my whole house get
the flu? When I didn't spit in my mop
water. Correlation, causation,
Superstition says causation 100%.
Yeah, I don't. I don't tell you guys.
Anytime I have become unbelievably ill or or sick or
needed surgery, I had some last mop water.
I don't know what to tell you. It's a thing.
Some people will pee in their mop water.
I feel like that's. Actually, more sanitary.
Your urine is actually not sterile.
That is a common misconception, particularly if you're an ill
person. Your urine is not sterile in any
way shape or form. The salts of salinity, if you
are absorbing enough sodium and all of that will keep it from
being out of control, but it is not in any way shape or form.
What about your tea? Sterile.
Can you cry into your I'm I'm sure many a woman in Appalachia
has done such a thing. I cannot attest to its magical
powers. But you sure felt good after
crying into your mop water, I'm sure.
And then just aggressively mopping the floor.
I'm sure you felt better. Yeah.
So yeah, spin your mop water. Just try it.
OK? Are we doing witchcraft or not?
All right, get on board. As Jalen Cross would say, spin
the damn pee in the damn jar. Just are we doing witchcraft or
not? Get on board.
Okay small white pebbles being rubbed again against warts or
like blisters or legions of any kind, and then placed in a bag
and left at the crossroads for someone to pick them up so that
your warts go away and you give them to somebody else.
Again, that transference. That transference.
Again, I don't know how long wart juice.
That's not the technical term, but let's go with it.
I don't know how long wart juice can stay alive on a thing, but
that might literally just be because you guys are spreading
warts to each other through literal physical transference.
I don't know how that works. Don't you dare pick up a rocket
across. Well, it'll be in a bag, and
that's the thing, right? People are.
It's not just like a Pebble. People will be like, oh, what's
this cool bag? Weird.
It just has pebbles in it. And I'm like, and you just got
your little warts. That's unfortunate for me.
Again, mind your fucking business.
It's so simple. It's such a simple concept.
Just don't do it right. Let's see the use of different
dirts and waters to heal maladies.
So graveyard dirt. So say say someone is
essentially in Hospice right there.
There is no turn in the ship around.
They are heading toward death. Use of graveyard dirt in your
workings to help them kind of ease their suffering across that
boundary would be a common practice, as well as moon water
to soothe night terrors. Yeah, so then we get into money
and opportunity. So again, taking that spitting
in your your mop water thing to your shop to help you know get
you some more prosperity. Urine is often used in this.
For some reason. Urine is related to prosperity.
I just can't imagine people really love being in your place
if it smells like pee. But you sure you know?
It's, it's gold. Maybe the color association.
Yeah, I mean, hopefully it's not gold.
Hopefully we're hydrated, but it could be gold and then carrying
a sashet of green, any green stone and cinnamon to attract
prosperity. So you're going that job
interview, stick it in your pocket.
I'm sticking your little breast pocket.
It's often that things shirts that have a breast pocket, that
there's a good luck Talisman or omen of some kind in that
pocket. Similar kind of things with
carrying lucky coins. So this is where I get the use
of uncommon denomination for my Owen Altar is that that's a
common thing of luck for where I'm from is carrying uncommon
types of currency and using them in those things.
Same thing with hobo, hobo coins, are you familiar with
those? So they were kinds of currency
that were often give by people running the railroads, right.
So we often came in contact with hobos, but they they would
essentially make coins to trade that they created their own damn
currency. It was very cool.
But you can they they design them themselves.
They have like really interesting artwork on them, so
if you got a hold of a hobo coin that you didn't have to like,
use it for something, People often kept those and.
Use them. Let's So there's a lot of
terminate terminology that can be offensive, right?
Oh, for sure. Hobo.
But Hobo was like, actually like a culture of people who for sure
houseless and would travel. And there's It's not just like
a. Flip it word for someone who is
houseless. It's literally like a identity
and a personnel. A person would say and identify
in that way. And it wasn't necessarily
derogatory. I mean, it certainly wasn't
like, oh yay, you're brilliant and super well off, but it was
also not a derogatory term. I think that's, yeah.
And I think we came up with different versions of like maybe
more palatable uses, words to use like carpetbaggers or things
like that, but often by choice, right?
These people didn't see a lot of opportunity where they were.
And so they would jump onto railroads and and jump on to
open cars and go wherever they wanted to.
I mean, when you think about during that time, travel was
often determined by railroads. So people could go anywhere they
wanted, live out their travel dreams a lot of times for free
because you're just hopping in an empty cart or hopping in like
maybe someone would allow you passage because they're like, I
don't have anything in this cart anyways, yeah, you can hop on,
just don't steal anything. And then they would go wherever
they wanted to go. And I mean it's.
Where they wanted times. In the times of like Great
Depression, that happened to a lot of people.
So it wasn't necessarily uncommon for people to navigate
their lives in that way and hopefully they didn't have a
family that they left. Hopefully.
You know, fingers crossed they were just explorers.
Reese Spirits is that's right. That's right.
That's what we'll believe, yeah. But yeah, hobo coins, and
they're still called that to this day.
They were, they were literally designed by people who maybe
didn't have currency but maybe had, you know, that maybe they
worked at a scrap metal yard or something.
They had a scrap of metal and so they'd like chisel it and and
they would draw these like pieces of art on them and some
of them are quite funny and so they would they would use those
as like good luck charms. If a bee lands on you and
doesn't sting, you'll receive money and opportunity soon.
There are a lot of things about bees in the South about like
what what if a hive is failing what does that mean And all of
those kind of things. But that one's I I know that one
to be something that I I've heard and that I I know to be a
common concept. The horseshoe.
Lots of people are familiar with the horseshoe and horseshoe be
associated with good luck. So much so that Lucky Charms
took it, put on their box and all that stuff.
But a horse? A horseshoe being turned up
above the door. So depending on where you're
from, this is one of those that changes depending on where
you're from. I always knew horseshoes to be
upright above the door because it was capturing the luck and
like keeping it in the home, ensuring it doesn't run out.
But depending on where you're from, it may be turned downward
above a door. Because it is, it is losing its
luck, but it's sprinkling the luck on the people going through
the door. Again, both associations with
luck, but literally the opposite converse of each other.
Yeah, I I've also been confused about that.
Maybe it's like in a public place you would want it to be
up, and then maybe in your home you'd want it to be down.
I don't know. Yeah, I I don't know.
I I I've only seen them up until the first time I saw one down I
was like I hung your horseshoe wrong and and it's a it's a
common thing in some places so control.
So after having a baby, a mother must go to the church first, you
know, because after when you're postpartum and you're just
bleeding down your legs, the first thing you should be
thinking about is going to the church, because you obviously
need to be cleansed of your sin. I don't know what your sin is.
I don't know what you did. You hopefully had a baby, not
out of wedlock I guess, or whatever, but you need to go to
be cleansed of your sin and and give thanks for the traumatic
experience you just went through.
That's not enraging at all. Yeah, I will give you one guess
where that one came from. The Christian Church, right?
That that one we can directly divine back.
Because it was called churching. It was called churching.
And again, it's it's a it's a witchcraft practice.
It's a practice that many people believe and still believe to
this day that that's the first place you should go.
And anywhere else that you go brings misfortune to everyone
else, right? So nobody wants you to come to
their house because if you come to their house, they're likely
to be the next to be pregnant. And again, for a lot of people,
pregnancy was not a positive thing all the time because it it
was literally putting your life on the line.
It was a safety thing. And so if you already have a
household of kids, don't you dare come to my house after
having a baby. You better go to the church and
get yourself cleanse first, right?
So again, setting up the superstition that if you nobody
in the community wants you to come to their house first, but
the church welcomes you and wants you to come in to their
house, same thing. Crossing of legs toward off
evil, right? Don't want the devil entering
your vagina, so you better keep your legs crossed.
Again, it's it's manipulating control over people,
perpetuating gender norms, perpetuating Christianity, all
of those things. You don't have to like it or
agree with it, but it is historically true, I'm going to
tell you. And then there's family gifts.
So the belief that certain talents or aptitudes are spread
down family lines, sometimes by gender, right.
So all the females in our family have this gift but sometimes by
birth order. So like all of the seventh sons
of a family have this gift and then they would range really
from like blood stopping. So being able to if someone is
hemorrhaging blood or there is a wound being able to stifle that
that bleeding. Again, often used by midwives.
Often used during probably not the cleanliest of surgeries, but
necessary surgeries after a farming accident or something
like that. Wart removers, people who were
very tuned to removing this warts, sometimes through the
means of these pebbles, but sometimes through the means of
things like a cloth soaked in some kind of typically alcohol.
Again dry it out. Very practical application, but
other times in like herbal tinctures and things to then
take it off of the person and and remove it from them.
Having the site or second site as it's often called and this
this one I'm familiar with. So it can be knowing that
someone is pregnant. My mom knows when everyone is
pregnant and she has never been wrong.
She knew when I was pregnant with both of my kids.
At times when I was very unlikely to be pregnant, she
knew that I was pregnant. So I had my daughter very young.
She called me up and she was like, are you pregnant?
And I was like, no. And then sure enough, 3 weeks
later I found out I was pregnant and I was like.
How does she know that? How does she know that she ran a
daycare for a really long time and she would knew, She would
know people were pregnant. And it became a running joke
that she always knew when people were pregnant, when they would
drop their kids off before they were showing, before, she just
could tell that people were pregnant, anticipating danger
before it happens. Kind of that's a Raven style,
you know what I mean? Or she's like, oh, don't touch
that. And then something cataclysmic
happens and they're like, Oh my God, Raven just saved somebody
from imminent danger, knowing when someone's health is
failing. So being able to look at a
healthy person who's maybe not symptomatic and being able to be
like are you feeling well like is everything okay with you
something seems off and knowing that something is is going on
there and being able to treat them having a green thumb.
So farmers again probably just practical but being able farmers
kind of spreading this knowledge and and their superstitions and
their patterns of thought to children and it kind of being a
thing that like these families were known for being really good
farmers are really good kind of green thumb people, dreamwalking
so prophetic dreaming sometimes sleepwalking or sleeptalking
often it was believed that these were not disorders of sleeping
these were gifts of sleeping And as a prophetic sleepwalker.
No it's not. No it's not.
It's terrible because you wake
up and you disturb everyone and you don't get good sleep.
But I do have very vivid dreams where like I will remember them
forever because my my brain on a sleep pattern scale doesn't
enter the the realm of sleep where it's kind of like not
remembering where you where you like to wake up from like a
trance state and you just don't really remember what happened.
It's My brain remembers these things because I am more
conscious in these phases of sleep than I should be when
dreaming. I feel like we should do a whole
episode on On Dreams and sleep. You would have a lot to say.
I would have so many thoughts. I am very good at sleeping, so I
don't know that I have a lot to say, but I'm a huge fan.
And then we get into cooking, right?
Cooking's a big part of Appalachian culture.
One because now that we have maybe gotten some prosperity and
have some more resources, we love to make things taste good,
right? We got some access to some
seasonings, love good food. We also like gathering and
sharing that food with each other and sharing that
prosperity in a very physical sense but also in a spiritual
sense. And so you're often expected
anytime there's a gathering to bring some kind of covered dish.
And often those dishes were associated with the the event
itself. So I think a lot of people are
now familiar with like funeral potatoes and that those that
that dish, what? Oh, OK, so you're not familiar
with potatoes. So it's potatoes now, it's
cooked in a lot of like cheese and and stuff, but back then you
only made them for funerals because cheese and milk and all
of those things. Butter, unless you were someone
who was a farmer, was very expensive.
And so you would only make them essentially as an offering to
the dead as sustenance for the family to lift their spirits.
It was very rich food, so lots of butter.
Let's salt let's. So would you say that the
potatoes were giving life literally, or maybe just easing
the life of the people who are mourning?
But yeah, it's that same concept so often, those food, the food
was cooked with intention or feeling.
You were thinking about that person while your stuff was kind
of on the stove top, thinking about their life and what
they've been through, feeling sorrow for their families, that
kind of thing. Or maybe it's a joyous thing and
you're you're thinking about that as you're cooking it.
And then there's certain teas and gargles, right?
So gargles being the one I'm most familiar with.
So this belief that we can kind of take certain things that we
know to be either medicinally or spiritually related to the
element that somebody's having, mix them up in a tea, put them
in a gargle, and then we will make that person better by by
cooking, by making something for them.
And then we're going to jump into something that I don't see
enough of in books. And it makes me so sad because
we kind of they talk around it a lot of times, but nobody really
specifically talks to it. But the idea of language and
sound and music as in and of itself in the South being really
a spiritual thing. So whether we're talking about
music from the bluegrass perspective or we're talking
about the music in a Baptist Church or those sounds are very
familiar to people. They're like oh, that's
bluegrass or oh that that's like Baptist Church choir music.
But those those are those are magical.
They create an atmosphere. They create a a certain feeling
when you hear those, when you're at a festival, listening to
those that people tangibly feel and recognize.
But we often don't think about them in in a spiritual sense.
So it it was often in workings that people would play music or
make music. If you had a banjo, if you had a
fiddle, that people would make music to aid in that working.
But also if we just get down really to the basics, everyone's
heard a southern accent. So many people have made fun of
Southern accents, right? But when we think from.
What do you want? All that from a communication
standpoint. If we think about the language
phonetically, the South has a twang and a sound.
That one has many different dialects, right?
Mississippi to Louisiana to Virginia to Tennessee.
Those accents are very different, but they all have a
couple things in common. And one of those things is that
we drop the consonants a lot of times at the end of words.
Right. So I haven't.
I just said times times I accentuated the.
I really dropped the M like didn't make that M hard.
We dropped the end of that word and so it connects to the next
word and almost like the sing songy pattern.
So when we're talking real fast, it really sounds like there's a
lot of things going on. You don't really know what
someone's saying because they're talking so fast and they're just
kind of linking the words together and it gives this kind
of sing songy rhythm. But if you're from a dialect who
speaks very slowly, and Northerners will say this so
often that, like, my God, it took them forever to get to the
point, they often draw out those sounds.
They don't. They don't accentuate the
consonant. There's not this hard stop at
the consonant. They draw out that sound into
the next one so that when they're talking, the cadence of
speech almost gives this, like rhythmic kind of sound to it.
And then when you think about bluegrass music, it's a lot of
the storytelling, but a lot of it almost is like spoken word.
A lot of times they're not, they're not singing.
They're not using, like the full volume of this verse.
This is not an opera. They're not using vocal range.
They're just kind of stringing their words together along with
the music, right? And we're setting a rhythm or
setting a pace. And so it can often sound like
spoken word almost, but to the backdrop of like a Ding, Ding,
Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, right to the backdrop of a fiddle or a
banjo. And so the sound of the language
itself is kind of magical, and it really lends itself well to
magic. I don't know.
My partner was telling me about. He really is obsessed.
He speaks like 4 languages but he is obsessed with accents and
like how people do impressions of accents and like how you get
you take one kind of accent and then you make it more like this
and then it makes you get to another accent.
Right. Apparently there's some dialect
in British Isle somewhere that is like if you just change a
couple of things instantly. Sounds like you're in Tennessee.
Interesting. So that's all, Yeah.
Also like this idea of accent representing, representing the,
you know, migration patterns of people and how you just slightly
change some things and you can see oh that's where those people
came from. They.
Yeah, when you think about like Welsh language, right, Welsh, a
lot of it has that same and that's where a lot of that came
from. It was, it was the turning of
that into English into into the harshness.
English is a very harsh language.
It's very like and so and that. Was a really good impression.
That's actually exactly where Charlie Brown's teacher got her
voice from us, like, but anyways, so it comes from that.
But then you think you bring in all these other influences from
all all these other, you know, African people and like their
languages. And then you bring in the
indigenous people and their languages that they already had
a like established here. And when you meld these things
together, this is kind of what we came up with.
But you also see it based on where people settled, settled in
Appalachia, that really created the dialects.
So we all kind of have this same thing where we chop off the
consonants at the end of the words and we kind of string them
together, some of us faster and some of us slower.
It's all the same thing. But the specific dialect really
depends on who settled there and why they settled there, how the
language kind of changed. And then if we talk about the
actual phrases that we use, it's like being from the South is
like a whole different language in a lot of places there.
There are a lot of places where if you are not someone who's
familiar with the Southern dialect and then you come on
down, you don't know what the fuck they're saying.
You don't know what we're talking about.
Not just because of the speech and and where they hold that
speech in their mouth and sometimes they put ours and
words that don't have ours and all kinds of stuff, but because
the literal words that they're using, If you don't know that
connotation already, you're like, I don't, I don't even know
what we're talking about anymore.
So some examples of that are saying, like, well, he lives by
the bottle instead of saying he's an alcoholic.
Right. So we say this in kind of these
fanciful ways with these idioms and similes that convey a
message sometimes in a nicer way.
Right. He lives by the bottle, sounds a
lot nicer than saying he's a raging alcoholic.
It sounds nicer to say that they live by the bottle.
Same thing, just a Peck and a pinch.
That's a really nice way for saying I didn't measure that.
And I just, like, took some and sprinkled it on there.
It just means a little bit. So if you just take a Peck and a
pinch of salt and put it on there, that's that's what we're
talking about. But if you don't know what a
Peck and a pinch is, maybe you didn't get it from just a pinch,
which is where that phrase comes from.
Just a pinch of it's from a Peck and a pinch, then you might be
like, I don't, I don't know how much salt to add to this thing,
so I'm just not going to and then your food's going to be
bad. Or if we talk about a lick at AM
Sense, right, I think most of us can say a lick at AM Sense.
That means they don't have any sense, but it really means the
smallest drop, right? A lick, a little bit of saliva.
It's not having a drop of intelligence.
So he doesn't have a look at Damn Sense.
So yeah, all of those things I think kind of culminate into
almost setting the stage or setting the environment for
there to be a lot of whimsy in this place because everybody's
kind of speaking in this way. The land is very magical and
expressive. The way we deal with things as a
society is in a certain way. And so it really like sets the
stage for there to be kind of a rich cultural history of magic
there. And that's that's where we're at
with the fire stuff. Love it?
Awesome. So we're going to break here
before we get into the water and the Earth aspects, and we'll
include those conversations in our next episode.
Yeah. Thanks, Danny.
This has been so interesting. I feel like there's so many
things that I resonated with and I have practiced being someone
who lives in the South and grew up here.
And there's other things that I had no idea, like a Hank who
knew? You got to watch out.
You got to watch out for the Hanks.
You got to be careful. All right, guys.
Well, we will catch you up next time with the water and the
earth integrations of this topic.
We at first were like we're going to go full force for it,
but the more we're like talking about or like we might need to
break this up so that people actually, you know, hear it and
understand it. So as always, which is blessed,
be and be well.