Today I am honored to host the most lovely guest in our Neighborhood. Author of ten books, ordained priestess, healer, Xicana witch, and mentor, Jamie Della joins me today to discuss her newest book, A Box of Magick.
Fifteen years after the passing of Jamie’s Elder Priestess and mentor, Connie DeMasters, a literal box of magick landed on her doorstep. “23 pounds of Connie’s rituals, hymns, spells, astrology, and more.” And on today’s episode of That Witch Podcast, Jamie shares with us the evolution of her journey as a mentee herself, as an author, and as a witch.
|| M O R E M A G I C K F R O M J A M I E ||
Order your copy of A Box of Magick
Visit her website and subscribe to her email newsletter at jamiedella.com
Instagram @jamiedellawrites
YouTube channel Jamie Della Writes
Apply for creative or spiritual mentorship with Jamie
★
|| T H E N E I G H B O R H O O D ||
That Witch School: thatwitchnextdoor.com/enroll
YouTube: That Witch Next Door
Instagram: @thatwitch.nextdoor
TikTok: @thatwitch.nextdoor
Pinterest: @thatwitchdani
Twitter: @danithatwitch
Contact: thatwitchnextdoor.com/conjurethatwitch
Today I am honored to host the most lovely guest in our Neighborhood. Author of ten books, ordained priestess, healer, Xicana witch, and mentor, Jamie Della joins me today to discuss her newest book, A Box of Magick.
Fifteen years after the passing of Jamie’s Elder Priestess and mentor, Connie DeMasters, a literal box of magick landed on her doorstep. “23 pounds of Connie’s rituals, hymns, spells, astrology, and more.” And on today’s episode of That Witch Podcast, Jamie shares with us the evolution of her journey as a mentee herself, as an author, and as a witch.
|| M O R E M A G I C K F R O M J A M I E ||
Order your copy of A Box of Magick
Visit her website and subscribe to her email newsletter at jamiedella.com
Instagram @jamiedellawrites
YouTube channel Jamie Della Writes
Apply for creative or spiritual mentorship with Jamie
★
|| T H E N E I G H B O R H O O D ||
That Witch School: thatwitchnextdoor.com/enroll
YouTube: That Witch Next Door
Instagram: @thatwitch.nextdoor
TikTok: @thatwitch.nextdoor
Pinterest: @thatwitchdani
Twitter: @danithatwitch
Contact: thatwitchnextdoor.com/conjurethatwitch
Hey, do you want to come over and make a pot of tea? Bring your favorite crystals. You know we could talk about our birth charts, spirits, the latest house spells we've been doing. Welcome to the neighborhood. I'm that witch next door. Hello, my wonderful magical neighbor. Welcome back to another episode of that witch podcast. I am so happy to have you here. If this is your first time meeting with me, welcome, I'm so happy to have you. I'm Dianne and I'm that witch next door, and today I am incredibly excited and honored to get to introduce you to the lovely Jamie Della, author of many books, Chicana Witch, who I am so excited to get to ask some questions today about her newest book, A Box of Magic. Jamie, would you go ahead and say hello for all of our listeners today.
Speaker 2:Hello, my pretty, so are you, so thank you for having me here. I'm so excited. I love your energy, dany. Have been listening to your podcast. So honored to be here.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you so much. I am very, very excited. I was just telling Jamie right before we started recording I have started reading her book. I am absolutely in love with your writing style and everything that you have to say. I'm not quite finished yet. As many of you know around here my little ADHD self, I've got about maybe 12 books I'm reading right now.
Speaker 2:But that's Absolutely, I love it. I think I have four, so I guess I'm a little less, not much.
Speaker 1:I love it, though I never, ever, have just one book that I'm reading at one time. I can never, ever commit. No, jamie, the first way I always start off with every single guest on the show is could you tell us first your big three, if you know, your big three in astrology, and your chart, and a little bit about you as a witch, so any branches of magic that you're most drawn to or practice the most and have the most experience in?
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, I'm a triple earth sign, so I'm a double Capricorn sun and ascendant and the Virgo moon. So when I tell people usually my three signs are like ooh, like they just watched a car accident happen. You know, I'm like I know that's called like a plus plus student with a little bit of, with a lot of self deprecation in there. But the bitching thing about Capricorns is we're the Benjamin button of the Zodiac, so we age backwards. I love that. So we loosen up, we start off. I couldn't, I could not be teased. I could not. Oh my gosh, I hated to be teased and you know I was in junior high school with Van Halen, came out with Jamie's crying and people love to do that.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, exactly, but earlier the bionic woman had come out and her name was Jamie. When I was in, when I we were like in second grade and I was able to convince the boys that I could kick their butt because I could hear them talking about me. I love that and seven year old boys believed me and I'm like, okay, well, that's your fault. So I was, my grandmother was a, a terro psychic reader. So I grew up with this as very much this lifestyle, astrology, numerology, manifestation, just all big part of my life. It was all very inherent, not necessarily witchcraft, but all these different elements of it. So I had, right before I was born, my grandmother died the month before I was born. So she, her, her death day was Tuesday and my birthday is in five weeks. So and my Leo mom was very young and didn't know how to really deal with that. So for me, my second, then my other grandmother, would say well, honey, yes, of course you were late, you were going to be a Sagittarius, but you had to be a Capricorn to deal with her. I'm like I know and I say that because it was like I was the structure to her fluidity, kind of a little bit of what you were talking about with this upcoming weekend, having this total party vibe, you know, and needing a little bit of the Shiva to the Shakti. And so so I had those two big influences a grandmother who was on the other side, who I spoke with all the time. A grandmother who was a psychic to reader, who was teaching me about portals at 1111. And we'll hunt, you know, telling me that my light was so bright and the spirits could, could hear me, because we lived in a, in a part of Orange County, california, where our ancestors had lived for over 200 years. So I was hearing the ancestors at eight years old and not knowing what that, what that, what that was, what that meant. I just thought I was going crazy, honestly, you know, until my grandmother explained to me well, you're, you're hearing 10 generations of ancestors because you're the awake one and you're right here and so so that was part of it.
Speaker 2:And then I was raised Christian scientist and people always get us confused with the Scientology. I'm like, no, no, no, we're the ones that people think that we don't believe in doctors. Like, of course, I believe they exist, but I, you know, I just don't, I just don't call them very often. Yeah, you know I would. I would rather. I would rather look at like we're talking about a cold, with things that come on when, when you're emotionally distraught. Or I remember the first time where you'd have like a big school event and you'd feel a cold coming on and you'd pray and you'd do your thing with a Christian science until you could, and then you would get through to your great event and then the next day you would get sick, and so then people would think, well then, how do you think that we don't have power? If we can delay it past one day, past prom, then we have power, you know, oh, yeah, so, and then it was just, you know your own tendencies.
Speaker 2:So I was all really a barefoot person hugging trees and then I was introduced to Wicca. Well, actually, first I was introduced to the, to the subots. I was. I was invited to the subots in late 19, or, like I don't know, 1990s, late 1990s. I went to my first pagan subots and of course I think the first one was Beltane, which was always my favorite.
Speaker 2:And so, going to to the subots back then, that's how we were introduced to it. I mean, it was so secret you, the accessibility that we have now is a thousandfold more than the accessibility that we had then, where you would have, you know, a correspondence school that you could like right away for and then they would send you information. That was that's how it would be. Or maybe you'd find the witch shops and you would go into a couple and there. So for me that's how it began.
Speaker 2:And then I took classes at Eye of the Cat in Long Beach, california, and that's kind of an iconic place out here in Southern California for witches and has been in business for decades. So that's how I began. I was eclectic, the Celtic, because the the Wicca cookbook was my first book in 2000. And it couldn't necessarily. It wasn't easy to go to a Barnes and Noble, it wasn't easy to get like there wasn't a whole bunch of witch shops, so the best way to let people know was by going to Celtic festivals. Okay, so because the Celts are either Pagans or Catholic, yes.
Speaker 2:That's a virus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly. I have a big section, a big quadrant of myself that's Irish, and so you pull up those roots and you tap into that part of you because, with that Capricorn nature, authenticity, transparency, honesty, integrity are really high, high, high, high. So I'm not going to enter into a tradition or something without invitation or in some way feeling the community in my heart, you know. And so so, yeah, it was Scottish Highland Games and Irish Bears, and that's where I would sell my books next to in the shop called Tea and Sympathy, and my other authors that were next to me. I was, you know, the only witchcraft author, the only one introducing Wicca to this community, because the other ones next to me were writing historical romance, just like the Highlander, not Highlander. What is it called? Oh, I know, it's a yes, yes, yes, I know what you're talking about drafts.
Speaker 2:Sorry, everybody.
Speaker 1:People are like I know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:The listeners are like, are you kidding me? They're like, why don't you know this? But in any case we're going to have to come up with that. So I would be signing so next to that. So just, it was really introducing people. I felt also at the time, in the early 2000s, it was the farm to table movement that was just really starting and really this idea how important it is to each other, really this idea how important it is to eat seasonally, how the food is more vibrant, how it has more life force, and that's why we're eating, it is to keep ourselves alive. And so just this idea of eating seasonally and moving with nature, which, to me, has always been my draw for witchcraft is how do we, how do we live it?
Speaker 1:Right what's?
Speaker 2:happening with the moons, the astrology, what's you know? In fall we let go. In winter, we rest. In spring, we birth. In summer we bloom over and over every year. What does that look like? Each turning of the wheel of the?
Speaker 2:Or, as my priest, high priest, is called it, the mandala of nature. And I really liked it as the mandala of nature because it's about studying how the seasons live through you and how you live through them. It's not just us in nature, it's nature within us as well, going through those cycles and changes. And so for me, that's always been the witchcraft that's been the most appealing to me. So, whether you call it cream or hedge or you know whatever, I'm not. I'm not maybe because I know I can be stoic and get stuck. I don't tend to stay away from labels, just like I never want, because, like back in the day when I wanted to smoke cloves but I thought, oh, it would keep me from smoking cigarettes because they were so unacceptable publicly and it was like my way of monitoring myself is the same way with the, with the labels. Sometimes, that way I can stay a little more fluid. But yeah, so so that's how I came to the craft that that's wicca.
Speaker 2:Celtic and fairy and eclectic are really, you know, for me to again, it's a time of the, the time that I was in is that you have to be more. There was a lot of native spirituality too, a lot of, you know. The accessibility was different 25 years ago the, the, the opportunities to go in deep and quiet and find a mentor within that community. I was able to do that as well. So, just all these ways of incorporating so many different things I mean the wicca that I learned has some roots with the cabala, with the golden dawn, with nights of the Templars so there's just so much that we're constantly incorporating into our practice and finding ways to do that in the most respectful ways, especially if we find out that something was like taboo or something we didn't realize like, like sage, for example, you know, yeah, so I always. There's a sage bush that I visit every year to get my supply.
Speaker 2:And that's that's where I go and it's on the land that my family's lived on for 260 years. So there's songs and there's blessings and there's ways to do things that are just have been part of my practice for so long now. Sometimes it's hard to differentiate and how to you know when people say, well, what do you mean? Live the magic. I'm like I don't know how to describe it. Can I show you my office? Can I show you all the alters?
Speaker 1:Yes, this is so my motto, my tagline, what I live by in my life and in my business, is real magic for real life, Because you're speaking my language totally, jamie. You're speaking my language because this is exactly why I never ask people what kind of which are you? Because it is this beautiful, always developing spectrum of these things that we are drawn to and we learn about, and some of those things are in our life for a season. Sometimes they last for our entire lifetime. But that is exactly one of the most sacred parts of spirituality. Magic, witchcraft is the ebb and the flow, that organic, growing nature of it. It's never, ever a stagnant practice in nature. It's never, ever, ever stagnant. I love that so, so much.
Speaker 1:I always tell people, accurately speaking, I'm an eclectic witch, because that's just the most accurate label for it, but I definitely have these things throughout my practice that I was really strongly drawn to for periods of time, or maybe I let go of and found something else. Astrology came into my life and I always say it filled in all the cracks. It was like the glue that just brought everything together. It's the language I totally understand our universe through.
Speaker 1:So you are our first published author on the show and I'm very honored and very excited to have you, because that is a longstanding, very big dream of mine I am a writer in my heart and that's probably been on my bucket list since I was like five years old is to become a published author, and so I first wanted to ask how did you first enter into the world of writing spiritual books? And I have to ask, I am also so specifically intrigued by your books for teenagers because they are kind of very glossed over in the spiritual and witchcraft industry, and I love that you had more than one book for teens. So how did you get into writing and becoming an author? Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2:I love, I always love. I love the writing questions because the witchcraft questions and others, so they're always so specific and, like you say, what kind of which are you? I'd literally be answering for this hour.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I could go on for hours and hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, yeah, and then you'll be like, oh, moon changed, ok, now I'm. So. I've always been a writer. You know, when I was seven years old, I remember writing this story. It was a really cool thing. You, I wrote it like a comic strip. So I cut a piece of paper in half lengthways and I made this long comic strip and I wrote my story in sections and then I tape. Then I taped it to a pencil that I stuck through a shoebox Another pencil on the other side and you could roll the story through the shoebox. So I just came up with that all by myself. Apparently, I taught myself how to read. Both my mom and I kindergarten teacher were like, well, that was so great, you got her to read. But they both looked at each other like I didn't teach her.
Speaker 2:So I think words and stories have always held a special place in my life, because I find to, as you know, with I'm Mexican and with my grandmother dying before I was born, it was Grandma Coco right away. So there was always this ability to to recognize that stories change. You know, everyone had a different story about my grandmother, everyone had a different way of interpreting her and I learned very early on that your perspective is how you shape the reader, like it's where you put the blinders on. So you're like look this direction. And so I thought, I thought that and as a young Capricorn I'm like that would make me very powerful. That was my eight year old thought, and so I always wanted to write stories.
Speaker 2:Originally, my first desire was to write children's stories for Highlights magazine. Wow, that was, that was my top. If you had told me that I was going to have 10 books under my belt, I would not have believed you. I just wanted to write stories for children to help them recognize that their enthusiasm because I was always called a spaz and so hyper and all those things you know that their enthusiasm and their connection to nature, to be able to really feel that the tree's aliveness that you feel as a child. Or Rudolph Steiner calls it the Garden of Spirits, where you really listen to the ladybug and you and you hear the sound of the river and you and you feel the conversation going around you.
Speaker 2:And I wanted to really emphasize to kids don't let that go, because every adult goes back, tries to crawl back into the womb. Every adult, most adults, will try. I'm sorry, there's not, that's not true. There'll be some adults that will just keep trying to gain and gain, and gain. But many of us do return to this original innocence, our innate loveability, our divine right to co-create with the universe. We try to find that wonder as a child that we had so that we can apply that to our life today with that excitement.
Speaker 2:And so that's where I started and I wrote. The first article I ever had published was about my best friend was Bulimic, and it was about writing about the experience of being next to somebody whom you couldn't help but wanted to help. Wow, and that from there I was going to a correspondent school. I found a job for working for a literary agent. And you know, like when the universe sends you a sign and it doesn't matter, like the print was tiny, it was like maybe an inch by a half an inch, the ad and the paper, but it jumped out at me. It was my job. I went for that job. So I had been making you know five, like I think I had made $40,000 in 1996. And then I left the job to become a literary agent assistant for $7 an hour because I wanted to get into the industry I wanted.
Speaker 2:I was like I'm young enough that I really don't have the bills that I, you know at this point. So I might as well do the hard work now and learn the industry as a business, because, as writers, it's our passion, right, it's, it's the story we have to tell, it's the perspective that we want to share, it's some right or truth that we want out there in the world and to the publishing world. It's a business and you're a widget. It's, it's something to sell. You have a platform, you have a product and you have to realize that you are the product and your platform is the product and your books are the product.
Speaker 2:And that's a really hard place when something, when the thing you're writing about is about your deep spirituality and your deeper truths and connections and and so learning to, to really put that line in between. That hat on. But as a writer, I've taught writing classes before and I'll say you know, the critic and the creator don't belong in the same room, they don't need to be in the same room together. You can put one and as, as neurodivergent you know we could do this we can put on our creative hat and then go oh no, I'm in it. Now I'm in the critical mood. You know now I'm going to put on my editor's hat, because if you wake up and you sit at the page and the blank page is just staring back at you taunting you, then then the best thing to do is pull out what you've already written and edit that go with the flow of the mood that you're in. And so that's kind of just been how I've written.
Speaker 2:And so I was working for this literary agent for a couple of years as her assistant and I had just had my first child and I remember circling this tree with my baby saying, praying to the goddess please give me a way to make a living. I can't stay at home because just to stay at home, mom, I've got too much work horse in me to do that. And within a week a publisher, an editor, called my agent and said do you know someone who could write the Wicca cookbook? Because they saw the market in 1999 that Wicca was becoming popular. So that's that's how. I'm not sure if that's how it's still done in the world of publishing, but basically editors have to keep their job and they're seeing down the road Just kind of like devils were proud. The devil was proud of which talks about that color blue has been in the system for two years. So the same thing is true of publishing.
Speaker 2:By the time you wanted to write a vampire book, it was already. The market was flooded. You know this kind of a thing right now, and so you. So they saw Wicca coming early on and it was gaining in strength until 9 11 happened and then it went underground again and then it lost a lot of momentum because it was a lot scarier. I mean, if you just we were because of Matthew Perry crossing, we were just watching repeats of friends and you know, phoebe is just was all about the aura and the super new agey spirituality stuff. So all that was cool. So witchcraft was kind of like on the coattails Of that for a long time.
Speaker 2:And then if you could say, say, oh, it's about spirituality and astrology and seasonal living, then it wasn't as scary as spellwork, right, you know.
Speaker 2:So you just for me, I always had to find those inroads, because I find people.
Speaker 2:Today I saw meme where someone was making fun of a muggle for not being able to pronounce someone properly and I thought, you know, if I dissed every person that dissed me first, then witchcraft wouldn't be where it is today, and I'm not just saying me myself brought that together, but all of us who were early out there in the public in the early 2000s, educating, not ridiculing, and that's just so important because, whether we like it or not, you know the, the mainstream has the power right now. Yeah, so you know, for us to be off putting it doesn't help. It's kind of like when you're a woman and standing up for yourself and if you do it too much, then you, then you're a bitch. If you do it too little, you're too like you've got to. It's the same thing with witchcraft Finding that way. That's why I tell people spells or prayers in 3D and you thought, oh no, wow, you're using a Christian word Like oh, come on, really we do a lot of that debunking around here I'll tell you that there's more than one path to God.
Speaker 1:And if you say God, spirit creator, universe, you know we all speak our spiritual language and that's the beauty of spirituality and being souls having a earth experience. Yeah, yeah, Exactly.
Speaker 2:So, so I really enjoy. So that was my path into into writing. So what happened was that publisher and I thought this was really fun, because this is a this is such a universal thing, like you know I see you do this too like where the universe has such such a great sense of humor, right?
Speaker 1:Such a great sense of humor. So that's where Gemini comes from, so they asked.
Speaker 2:So this publisher asked that and my agent said absolutely, I know who could write that. So she recommended me and I teamed up with my sister-in-law, who was an early modern European historian, because I wanted to bring in the medieval aspect to talk about how long we've been doing this. Cool, you know. So you had the seasonals, so you had the, the current moment, movement, then the, then the the power of our history and the past to to be our foundation. And then that publisher as soon as I turned into the book, that publisher went bankrupt. Then, the next month later, I gave birth to my second son. So you know how it is after you have a baby, you don't have all your brains. But what happened was we were able to get the, the, the book, out of litigation and resold to another publisher, but it took nine months and I feel like that nine month of gestation after writing the book and waiting to see if it could actually be born was the universe's way of testing my metal. Are you going to be able to do this? Can you stand up and say you are a witch, a wick in? Can you? Are you willing?
Speaker 2:You know, at the PTA meeting at, you know, one time I was at at a university and they were going through the HR where you where you find out like how you can't discriminate people and this, that and the other thing. This was in like 2005 and they were talking about all our rights and I said, okay, well, I'm wick and so I just want to make sure that you know that, I know I'm protected. And this was like in a room of like 20 people and they're all just looking at me. But I thought, you know, we get one life and I'm just, I'm just that person that just likes to throw it out there and then I'll deal with it. And part of it, I think too, is because of that long history in California I count my family ancestors were the California dons and donas of the early Ranchero period, and so there's an arrogant streak in me that it just will look down at you with such disdain. So I can go out there and say, yes, I am protected, and they can look at me like I have, like I have just grown, you know horns, and I can look right back at them like I am the most regal person ever, and they just stop and just being able to do that, and then you come home and go, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. You pour yourself a glass of wine and you're like that was scary, you know, but you do it anyways.
Speaker 2:Fear, fear to me is a companion who says look ahead, there's something here you might need to look out for. Yeah, fear isn't saying you have to stop. It's fear is just saying keep your eyes open. Oh, I like that, and so for me that's kind of the early days of Witchcraft. It was hard. I mean, there was definitely comments that were made, things that were said in public 20 years ago it was radio interviews, not podcast interviews, you know, yeah, and they would ask questions like oh, do you still fly around on brooms?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, they still ask that. Are you kidding me? Do you have any people who said that to me? Oh, I have a great answer for you, Danny. I have a great answer. Oh, I would love it.
Speaker 2:Okay, this is what my other double Capricorn Virgo moon friend said to me, because she knew how pissed off I was getting and she knew that I was going to like my Latina was going to come out and things were going to happen and it wasn't going to be good for me or anybody else. So she would say, uh, brooms, that is so passe. We use vacuum cleaners now and dust busters for short trips. We've got the family carpet in case we need to go far. There's a lot of us. Oh, I love it. And just, you know, that's what I found.
Speaker 2:The thing that opens up people the most is to joke right back. I have a new friend in her seventies and she keeps sending me all these kind of I'm not sure, uh, which memes, very, which aesthetic, not very, which like, and and I just keep sending her back the ones back that I like, and she, and then she will say something about being weird. I'm like weird, and then I just go on this whole thing about the Anglo Saxon. Weird means that it is spated and disconnected. She goes I'm learning something new every day and you, just you keep finding those inroads where you can soften, because what we want us to live, our practice Exactly.
Speaker 1:We just want to live the way we live. Acceptance, yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and, and. Not only that, but I'll tell you what. Right now, we're all earth activists as witches. We're all resource activists because we appreciate and venerate earth, water, air, fire. We're going to protect it more. So we're actually far less dangerous to our society than the people who are accusing us.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, very, very, very much. So. There's so many good points there. It's very hard for beginner and intermediate, which is it's so normal, to get frustrated by those questions when people joke at you and poke at you.
Speaker 2:It's very, very normal. This is 25 years later that I'm calm.
Speaker 1:Exactly, it takes. It takes some time. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:It takes some time. It takes some time to not be personally offended about someone ridiculing something that is so sacred to you. Yes, it feels like you are not standing up for yourself if you don't retaliate.
Speaker 1:Right. And it's so hard because when you discover or maybe then rediscover witchcraft depending on how you look at it in this life you finally feel understood, you feel so vowed. That's how I felt the first time I opened a book about Wicca and witchcraft. The first time I started reading these words, I felt understood in ways that I had always felt so different, so misunderstood. And so when you're greeted with that misunderstanding again, it is hard not to react to it.
Speaker 2:It is hard not to react to it and the fact that we live in. We trust the mystery, we trust the nebulous, we trust the unformed, and so those that are accusing us, that's the biggest thing that they're afraid of, exactly.
Speaker 2:As we are saying well, what is witchcraft? And they're looking for these definitive rules. I know, I agree, just like they do with climate change and science, and science can only disprove. It's not necessarily the way that they have the scientific method set up. And so for witchcraft to be able to say, well, we are all our own best teachers, and they're like wait what? What are your rules? I'm none For everyone, most of us but then I say that you can say are there evil women and kind men and stingy Catholics and generous Jewish people and whatever?
Speaker 2:Every color, every creed, every religion. That has a stereotype. You can break it and you can be the good and the bad and the ugly. Does it matter where you are? Yes, and it's just being able to describe things like even the pentacle. You know, it's elements with spirit and a circle of life. Oh, that's it. Yes, and it does get exhausting and at the same time, I feel like that's also why it was always called the nameless arts, because of this fact that, you know, first of all, we couldn't name it for the longest time. Right, we had to be secret.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:And then you realize all these things. I remember that one of the radio interview I had this one time and we were in the station and the other guy was with me because she raised bats. So she, you know bats and witches, of course we go together so cool, yes, of course, of course. So she had a bat with her and after I was describing what Wicca is and from my perspective, my version, my practice, she goes I think I have a witch and I'm like that happens.
Speaker 1:Yes, all right, neighbors, let's take a brief moment to thank today's small business and episode sponsor. Today's show is brought to you by one of my all time favorite witchy brands, cystriaro. Owned and operated by one of our fellow earth witches, one of my very dear friends, madeline Reeson, cystriaro offers freaking amazing handmade jewelry, home goods, accessories for any style, any decor. I personally have many pieces from Cystriaro myself that I absolutely adore. I swear every single pair of earrings that I've gotten from Cystriaro goes with every outfit, every style that I wear. Everywhere I go I'm stopped and I get compliments on my earrings or my necklaces.
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Speaker 2:Okay, let's see how has being an author? Well, I think I studied more, because I studied more practices and more ways of getting To that same story like so, for example, in one of my books. I was going through the tarot, so I asked four different. Personally, I didn't want to refer to books. I had the teachings from my grandmother about what each of the archetypes meant, and I had a couple of friends that were readers, so I asked individual people how they interpreted the strength card, how do you interpret the hermit, all those different things.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't have done that study, I don't think, if I wasn't an author. I think I just would have kept a few of the things that I knew and I wouldn't have pushed myself to know more and challenge that rigidity that comes with being a Capricorn. And so, as an author, I was challenged because when we think something and you hold it, you feel like I can't let it be flexible, otherwise I'll lose the truth. And so I feel like that was something that was very much a part of who I was in my 20s and my 30s that as soon as I held on to a truth, it was the white knuckle, just like you were describing earlier in your podcast for this week or your Moon report for this week that holding on to something so much and I think we do that, and so, as an author, it expanded my witchcraft knowledge and therefore practice. So that's that direction. And then, how has being a witch influenced my writing? Well, there's a story I've been trying to write about my ancestors for 30 years, but I just keep writing witchcraft books. So that's one of the ways. But the funny thing is is that had I written the book about my ancestors 20 years ago that I started, I would have been canceled by now because of the information that was available. It would have.
Speaker 2:I would have come off so, oh, just bad, just bad in so many ways, of not knowing so much about the colonization of the indigenous people and so much. I would go to powwows and still be proud of my Spanish ancestors. Like I was so split and not even realizing that here I was embracing an indigenous culture, at the same time embracing the people that reduce their population by 90%. So in Southern California, in Orange County, where I was an LA, and so. So that kind of dichotomy that takes time, and witchcraft has taught me that it means one thing to say you're a witch when you're 20. And it's another thing at 30, another thing at 40, a different 50, 60, 70, 80. It means something different each time, and so I feel like that allowance of the growth through this season has helped me gain a better perspective on this very intricate story that I want to tell about this novel that I keep researching.
Speaker 2:That would begin in 1848 in early California, and I have all these records. I mean I've studied so much of my family history. I have, I have the notes of the, of the sea captain that brought my you know, that brought one of my ancestors over here, so there's so much there and then tempering it with what I know today and allowing that growth and that maturity and also this idea of polarity. You were, you were. Again I keep referencing. I loved your. This morning I was getting ready listening to your Monday around here.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that, gosh, I was loving it, but just allowing that idea of you're going to evolve and you're going to change and the thing that you thought had to be true, otherwise you would die if you didn't get that thing and allowing it to evolve is something you learned through witchcraft.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is. Yes, it is, and that's something that when you have a story and you want to tell it from a certain perspective, and then you realize that every good guy has a has some nasty side and every nasty guy has some good, and there isn't this polar opposite, there's really just this movement, and that was really important, because all my you know, all my bad guys were horrible and all my good guys were amazing. And so learning how to sprinkle a little bit of a little bit of both sides into everybody so that, so that there's more reality, versus again creating a polar opposite world, like moving more into that fifth dimension through recognizing our ability to include all of it the life and the death. I have a huge, a huge painting over here of Kali and she's talking to me. Oh, I love that.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. So, so, so much. This all connects so much to what you said about. We trust the unformed, and that's what. That's what witchcraft is in so many ways, and it is what scares a lot of people, because we have been very conditioned for a very, very, very long time. Our brains are very naturally hardwired to fear what we can't see or feel, or smell or touch, write any of those triple earth sign.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you understand that a lot.
Speaker 1:And witchcraft, challenges, all of that, especially through seasonal living, through archetypal work and practice, through divination, through shadow work, this trust that you almost inevitably have to build in that which you can't see, because I always tell people it's just like you know, we're very brought up under the sun in our modern society. We're very brought up under the sun and under the light, and it's those of us that reconnect with our relationship with the moon that realize in the dark it's a different kind of illumination. Even though you can't necessarily quote unquote, see, I love that. So, so, so much. I want to ask you especially it. Just again, you're connecting all my questions perfectly to each other and we are in very good sync.
Speaker 1:So I felt very moved by your chapter on divination and this is an area that with clients and students that I work with. From what I see and who I interact with on social media, but even just people in my daily life, there is so much misconception around psychic and being psychic and a psychic reading and I really want to ask you personally, because you've had experience in the spiritual industry through these past decades before, right now, which again we're so blessed so many of us having getting our introduction to witchcraft now is a blessing because it is so acceptable, it is so accessible compared comparatively, but I think the idea of a psychic and a psychic reading has morphed, but I also think it's been so misunderstood for very, very, very long. Can you share with us a little bit about how you came to understand and work with divination?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I. So, like I said, I had a grandmother who lived. She lived with us, my Nana lived with us and she, she was loved Tetramansi, which is, I believe I'm saying it right which is having someone's necklace or earrings or keys or something of that nature, and she would work with that energy to access information. So you know, my, I thought she was weird, right, like, not in the good way, weird, like she scared me. You know, she was this big woman, she, you know she was always crazy. War, what did I say? Animal skin, leopard skin, whatever, like looking silk, mumus and chunky jewelry, and she was a really big woman and I just always thought she was crazy and it was embarrassing to me and it was, it was.
Speaker 2:I thought she was making it up, I thought she was making it up and because she was a showboat, she would literally, in the 80s she was on the princess cruise line as a psychic tarot reader. Like my family has not been shy about their, their involvement in in these spiritual arts, but the one time that I, when I was convinced, I remember my turning point. I was 11 years old and we had a foreign exchange student who had come to stay with us and my Nana sat down with her to give her a reading and she also loved past life readings and how past lives and soul families were affecting your life today. Oh well, you know. So she was explaining to Paloma Isn't a past life? They had been brothers in a war and she was going on this whole story about what happened to them in a particular battle and it was very specific and Jamie, pause, if you can hear me pause for a second.
Speaker 1:Hello, oh, can you hear me now? There you are, I can hear you now. Perfect, perfect, the last thing. I heard was Paloma Paloma.
Speaker 2:Okay, I was like, oh, we lost it. My Nana sat down to give a reading to Paloma, our foreign exchange student, and she explained to her how her relationship with her sister was so tense because in a past life they had been brothers in a war together, and she went on to describe this battle scene and it made so much sense to Paloma. You could just see her going, oh my gosh, that, that I get that. And then she described the outside of her house. Because then I'm like, then I'm still thinking maybe that's still quackery, I'm not really sure. But then Nana described the outside of this foreign exchange student's home in Spain, in Barcelona, and it was perfectly exactly how her house was. And then I thought, oh, she's really getting visions, this is really happening, and it was.
Speaker 2:And then after that, then we started talking about what's called psychic hits. That would be the. That was the terminology we used a lot back in the day. It's a psychic hit. And so it was this idea of developing a muscle that you would have to learn to trust your psychic ability.
Speaker 2:And then I actually worked with in terms of deciding whether or not that divination, thought, is something from the divine or the spirit world of the collective consciousness or whether it's your ego. I remember asking that question of all things in Christian Science Sunday School and the response came back is when it's true divination. They wouldn't call it divination, but it's the same thing. Listening to the divine, you know it's a quiet, still insistent, calm, confident voice. The ego is fear, is screaming, is yelling, is tense, and there's no time. With spirit there's plenty of time. So, just in terms of one's own, accessing one's own divinations, that, to me, is the cornerstone, is this idea of time. Because we know, in the world of spirit sometimes you'll say, oh, I, you know, I chose. You know my grandmother used to say, oh, you chose your parents. Like, don't get mad at your mom, you chose her.
Speaker 1:You know, I believe that too. I believe we all volunteer yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah and so. So, in terms of you know, we might think of it as crazy at first because it's so different. It's so, like you said, it's not part of what society is telling us. And so to recognize that you can develop these, and I know there's people that actually don't see pictures. They don't. They don't start rolling in their head when someone does the guided meditation, or if they're reading, I don't, the movie doesn't start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so sentence and claircognizance for me. It just comes, it's just in me, I just understand it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just knowing that, and knowing that the knowing is confident and the opposite feeling, it will tell you that there's no time. You have to do this right now. And and spirit works in ways that time it's not the same. It's the fourth dimension, it can, it's a accordion.
Speaker 1:It certainly doesn't abide by our human construct of time.
Speaker 2:No no, no, no, no, no. Like it's like when Mother Teresa said I know that God only gives you what you could handle, but I just wish God didn't trust me so much. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. That's really, really, really powerful, because I just think that a lot of people, first of all, a lot of our listeners I think one of the biggest challenges is in these conversations with muggles that I do believe not everybody likes to hear this, but I do believe deep down, when they say lashing out comments like that, I think they're actually very interested and very intrigued and they don't and they're held back by their own fears and that's how it comes out.
Speaker 2:Oh, and knowing you'll be ostracized because you're leaving the fold. You're saying that you believe you've just left the fold.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and that's terrifying for most people and you got it, Even if even if you've made that fearful step, you have to respect why it's so scary for so many other people who haven't yet, and and I think that they, as humans, we feel this need to explain, to prove right and and true divination and that communication with the divine in so many ways comes down to that belief and that trust in, in what you're hearing and what you're receiving, because I do believe everyone, everyone has the ability and capability to speak with source.
Speaker 2:Every 100%.
Speaker 1:That's why I don't think there are only. Some people are empaths and other people. I think we're all born with different sensitivities because I think we choose different gifts based on the life paths that we also choose and volunteer for. But I think that they're all muscles that you can work with and strengthen and practice with some maybe you know, just like different arts or skills or talents that we're all born with. I have to practice a lot more visual art than other people. I have to work way harder to get something to look pretty, but when it comes to writing and words flows out of me, flows easy, that's. It's just, it comes to me. But that doesn't mean you can't learn how to write. That doesn't mean you can't strengthen your writing skills with learning and education and practice and it could be different things.
Speaker 2:Yes, it could be. It could be like you could start with like, for example, I don't think in this lifetime I will ever understand the minor arcana. I just don't think I'm ever going to get it. I study the minor arcana and I'm just like six of swords of all. Okay, look it up again and I will try. I'll be like, okay, it's this element and six means this, and it still just doesn't work out for me.
Speaker 2:But I love my Oracle cards. I love you know the, even just the flipping of the coin or the pendulum or the. You know all the little different ones that you know the magic eight ball. You know, yes, yes, yeah, like you know all these different ways. I mean, when I went to list them I was like I had to cut all the different ways of that.
Speaker 2:We have worked to divine. We are always asking the divine. There were so many different ways all across the world that we've done divination with with bones or rocks or runes or colors or whatever it is, and and it's and it's just. And I do believe too. I want to go back to this idea of trusting the unformed, because I believe this was the work of trusting the goddess. Yes, I believe that is what Wicca in witchcraft really have have moved forward. I feel like it's not as strong as it was 20 years ago. The goddess work, you know, was so powerful then, but I think that was in part because the goddess is the realm of the darkness, is the realm of the mystery and the unformed in the womb space. And trusting that is trusting the goddess, which is trusting our own innate, divine, feminine within everybody. Yes, regardless of how it comes into the world or they, you know, but however the body comes into the world, and so loving that that part of ourselves is and that allowing information to bubble to the surface, a lot of times we're so, like you said, sun wise, sun centered, centric, centric that we're about the action and the going and getting and figuring it out, versus being still and allowing it to bubble up. Exactly. And that's the same kind of thing with into, with divination.
Speaker 2:And I feel one of the ways that I tell people about testing or or developing their intuition is begin simple. Begin in moments where it's not chaos, right, like you don't wait until someone's in danger to go. What's my intuition? Like you do it in the easy, you do it like at the grocery store. You know easy places and. But the one of the ways I think about it is when you into a room. Let's just say, for example, you into a room and there's a lot of tension in that room.
Speaker 2:Well, where does it resonate in your body? Does it? Does your stomach clench? Do you get chills on the back of your arm? Do your toes go cold? Does your hair tingle? You know what part of you was, what part of your body with somatic response. Do you have to tension, fear, disharmony, register that, recognize it. And then, when you enter a place that makes you feel joyful, where does that register in your body? Do you feel a lightheartedness? Do you feel a tingling sensation? Where do? Where in your body are you registering positive response? And then, if you know, this is my negative response, this is my positive response when you go to ask the divine a question in times of need. You'll know, based on how your body feels.
Speaker 1:So that is classic triple earth sign advice. I love this and that's what I love. I've got a lot of earth in my chart. So, I speak the practical language, but that's what I love, so so so much about it, because you do have to unanchor from earth and trust so many of these concepts Absolutely, but there are concrete, tangible ways to bring that into our life that are really not as complicated as most people probably think that they are.
Speaker 2:Honestly, yeah, and you know, I mean we all have different things in our chart, but we all have the elements in us for the earth, our body, water, our blood, air, our breath, fire, our spirit. We all have it. Yes.
Speaker 1:We all have it.
Speaker 2:And so we can tap into whatever you think. You don't have enough of yes, you can still find a way to tap into it. Yes, I know Very triple earth sign.
Speaker 1:I love that. So, jamie, I love how you said it's so true, and I have been practicing which for less than 10 years, in reflection of my childhood. In my past, I was an unpracticing witch that whole entire time. But you're so right. That term, your practice, your view of witchcraft, spirituality, the universe, it changes and it morphs over time. So my question for you is how does your newest book, a Box of Magic, differ, then, from your previous books and some of your earliest writings on Wicca and witchcraft?
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I love your questions, thank you.
Speaker 2:I love it Well, because they're so thoughtful and they're just very thoughtful. Thank you, thank you so much. I didn't have confidence. 23 years ago I was writing this is what I believe with that kind of like I hope that's okay, kind of feeling, mm-hmm, you know, and really I had no ambition of where my writing would take me. I didn't know I was going to get a book called the Wicca Cookbook and of course I put it together very practically. I'm like, okay, there's eight holidays and we're going to have a main dish and two trip side dishes and a drink and dessert and there has to be bread every holiday, just because and I just structured it in that way that I kept with the structure. And I think what helped carry the vibe through is that I was pregnant with my second son, with the Pisces, so he held that, the lyricism that's in the book. That was the pregnant mama that trusted the Unformed to write that part. So that's how I usually create is I create, I have a structure and then I play within the structure. So it's like if you would put up the scaffolding and before you know, before even the walls are up, I'm already deciding on the paint. You know, like that's to me how I'm creating, and so I feel like the Wicca Cookbook was raw and honest and I had no idea if it would ever go anywhere or do anything or reach anybody you know.
Speaker 2:And then, a year after the cookbook came out, the sci-fi channel called me and asked me if I wanted to host my own cooking show and we filmed that in August of 2001. And then a couple weeks later, 9-11 happened and I I had in my contract and this is in 2001, it said I would make $5,000 a week. I was like, oh hell, yeah, I'm going to be a witch and rich. I just thought that was the greatest thing ever. And then, and then it didn't happen because 9-11 happened and so many things were canceled. But I kept trying. I kept trying to reach that level of influence National TV. At the time there was a gentleman, a psychic called John I want to say John Williams, but he was a psychic that was on the sci-fi channel. I'm like we're going to be like Happy Days in Laverde and Shirley. I was just ready for this. Then it didn't happen. I have held onto it for a very long time, thinking this was going to happen.
Speaker 2:I realized now, instead of me being out there cooking and talking about witchcraft and talking about the seasons and having this TV show or whatnot, and bringing on board a lot of new witches. That's not what happened. What happened was I put out several I think nine books, or eight books, year after year. Then I got tired and I had to set it down.
Speaker 2:Witchcraft had gone underground, had gone into social media and Instagram and Facebook started teaching people, not that books weren't, but going to festivals and going to pagan prides and going to different Celtic festivals and book signing events. That wasn't happening as much. It was becoming an internal growth process for our society, for us. Then. Now I'm the elder, I thought I was going to be the young 30-year-old teaching people and coming from the mother perspective. Now I'm writing from an elder perspective, at 55, almost 56, and I didn't think that was going to happen. Now, the thing in a box of magic that's the most important is really the relationship with my mentor. Yeah, is really about putting her first and us first and the relationship that you have with your fellow witches, what we're teaching each other just in this conversation of solidarity around our eclectic nature.
Speaker 2:That's kind of a bizarre thing. You usually have solidarity around because we all believe in the Pledge of Allegiance, for example, or something like this.
Speaker 2:That's where the solidarity is, but this is a solidarity in. I honor the witch in you. I honor your yumminess, your eclecticness. I feel that that's a lot of what came out in a box of magic. I always believed that we are owned as teachers, but I feel like now I'm honoring it and honoring the sisterhood and honoring the community that holds us together, and so that arising tidaliffs all boats and so that it's not going to be me writing the wick a cookbook. Even with my sister-in-law, you know, shared that with experience with her. This is an even more shared experience and that I'm sharing our story.
Speaker 2:It was the reason I ended up having to leave. The publisher that has been publishing me for had been publishing me for 19 years moved over to another publisher because I want to include memoir this time. I want to include sitting at a teacher, sitting at someone's knee and saying, okay, but how does this work? You talked about having your clients. I'm meeting a client tomorrow for the first time who wants to be mentored in witchcraft. So really valuing the relationships in the practice as not more important, but that's the focus of this book. The focus of this book is the relationships that we have with a drum with a feather, with a statue of Nike. I'm sorry, I'm like looking around all my room. I'm pulling out all the symbols I see here. You know, as our relationship is where the magic is, I don't think I understood that as well 23 years ago.
Speaker 1:That's what has me. That is why the hooks of your book are just in me, because I have devoured many titles and I've learned so much from them and I continue recommending these titles. But it's these in-between stories of you and your mentor and these conversations that give me chills and goosebumps while I'm reading this, and it reminds me.
Speaker 2:Well, it makes me so happy, it's true, it makes it really I almost got misty.
Speaker 1:I'd reading it Because I haven't felt that. Oh man, this is like reading my soul and nothing else has before since probably some of those earlier, earliest, earliest books that I very, very first picked up and was like holy cow. This is talking about things that I've always believed but I've never told anybody and nobody ever told me. But I'm reading them and somebody wrote them years ago. That is mind-blowing and this relationship and this dialogue between the two of you, it's powerful, it's so powerful. And what's funny is the first book I ever read was Spells for the Solitary Witch. So it's the opposite. It was about.
Speaker 1:It was by Ion Holland, it was specifically about self, because we were coming out of an era of covens. There was a very you know this was that was very, very big, and we were entering and emerging into what. I agree with you. I think that we had to come into the individual, which I think that it was very meant for the pendulum to swing that way and to really go inward, especially when it comes to healing our generational witch wound, absolutely. But now we're starting to see the pendulum slowly swing the other way and bring us back to other and bring us back to relationships, and it's really what makes, in my opinion, it's what makes your book really really stand out Among many others.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because otherwise it's. I mean a lot of us say some of the same things. You know what I mean In terms of that. You're gonna have allies in the plant world and the cosmic world, your sister stars, you know. Whatever it is your those relationships that you have, but showing someone and what was important for me too is the vulnerability Showing that, even at in my early 30s, when I was the and that's the funny thing is, I'm the same age as Connie was. You know, I am now as she was then.
Speaker 1:How full circle. So Saturnian, I love that.
Speaker 2:It's exactly, and I was 33 when I met her, so I was at the end of my Saturn's return.
Speaker 1:I just turned 33. Like two weeks ago.
Speaker 2:Happy birthday. Yeah, so I was 33 out of my Saturn's return. Okay, I made it through the eye of the flaming eye of the needle, you know.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm on the other side in my mastery here, and then I meet my mentor. It was, and or as my son recently sent me a meme that said when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. When the student is really ready, the teacher will disappear.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that yes.
Speaker 2:I thought that was really sweet. But then I'm like, yeah, well, mine did. And then she came back from beyond the grave. You know, yes, they literally did. And that's to me.
Speaker 2:What I want to show people is that, first of all, that basic understanding that no one is really ever gone. Their energy is always with us, but also that even after at 33, I had two books under my belt. I was you know all the things that you would say. I was married, I had a college degree, I had by a couple of kids, I had owned a home All the things that should innately give you confidence. Didn't, but she helped me find it. And I think it's that individual approach that will help you get to those horizons that you might not shoot for without a teacher or a mentor or a guide or someone who believes in you or can even hear your stories of like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:I went to a Barnes and Noble and someone laughed and said, ah, how to cook witches. When they saw my Wicca cookbook. And I'm scared, I thought something would happen. I didn't know, and I you know where my kids at the public school and what will happen when they find out I'm a witch will their friends ostracize them, like how will this be? And to have someone who can calm you down and be with you and help you focus and bring your energy back to yourself. That's what Connie taught me. Instead of worrying about how I'm gonna protect myself from other's fears, she taught me how to focus on my own light, on my own energy, my dark and my light energy, and that allowing that to protect me versus finding a shield and getting all these things again to allow the power to bubble up, the knowledge, the knowing to bubble up within, because tools are just that. You know, the feather representing air is really just representing our intellect. So we can have a collection of feathers just to remind us of our own intellect, remind us of all this collection of knowledge that we get. But to me it's like I played soccer. So you do drills, like you memorize correspondences. You're like, okay, the color pink means this, the tourmaline means that you know, you go through the whole thing, and then you get in the game of life, yeah, and then it just has to be innate and you find out.
Speaker 2:Like I was, I went 20 years without ever having an atomy Like it. Just, I never needed one, I didn't want one. I had my two fingers, I was good. That worked for me and I just I find that those having that mentor, having someone, and I wanted to tell people that you can be unnot confident and still move forward. You can be scared and still follow this practice and it's okay, you're not supposed to, it doesn't make you a good witch if you suddenly don't have a, if you're suddenly not afraid, because I'll still do that. People will ask me what my books are about. If I'm in a work environment or something like this, I'm always. You know, I used to do the jewelry check if they were wearing like turquoise and you know the sheen on the gig, I was like, oh, I'm safe with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but if they're wearing the Christian cross, I'm like it's a seasonal cookbook. Yeah, tell people that About now. I just say it's witchcraft and just let them deal with their own emotions. Yeah, because it's not my responsibility to help them. They have to meet me if they want to ask me questions. Oh, my goodness, I will sit with someone for a very long time as long as they're asking respectful questions.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Jamie, I am going to treasure this conversation for a very long time. I mean, this has been very special.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm hooked up on Mondays. I mean that, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Will you please tell us where can we find you, how can we follow you, how can we support you? Where can we get a box of magic? Because I bet there are a lot of people listening that are just as absolutely chomping at the bit as I am. Oh yay.
Speaker 2:A box of magic is available. Where are books are sold? You can get it on Amazon and Barnes Noble Bookshop is an independent online bookstore that helps independent booksellers. You can order it from your own independent bookseller and you can find me at jamiedellacom. I have a free newsletter that I send out twice a month which includes moon rituals according to this astrology and again through my lens, and always a ritual because again, being the earth sign I'm like, then you can do something with it. And let's see Instagram, twitter, facebook, all of the Yemies. I'm there sharing as much of myself as possible and connecting with you all, connecting to elevate the witch, to elevate our wild archetype, who is so deeply connected to nature. And I also have three mentorship programs as well two, wicca and one on writing, writing with the elements, so you sing, working with all the elements as a way to activate your creative self.
Speaker 1:So I love that All of this information is in the show notes below. Jamie, thank you truly for your time and your energy today. This has been special.
Speaker 2:Really really has. Thank you, I enjoyed it very, very, very much.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you so much, and everybody, thank you for your time here with all of us today. This has been such a wonderful episode. Don't hesitate to reach out with any questions. Reach out to Jamie directly. Again, everything that you need will be in the show notes below and my neighbor. I hope, of course, that you have a wonderful rest of your week. Make sure you stay safe and, of course, stay magical out there. Did you get something valuable out of today's show? First, you can head over to Apple or Spotify and leave a five star rating and review. You can also share a shout out on your social media page and make sure you tag me at thatwitchnet store and, of course, you can just tell a friend that you think would enjoy the show and send them a link to the episode. Thank you so much, neighbor, for your support. I'll see you next time.