season 1, episode 7 - birth and bread magic with maggie smith

our guest for episode 7 is maggie smith! maggie is a maker, baker, and birthworker who lives in rural midcoast maine. she runs flax & sage, a small business making bespoke linen garments for all bodies. she also spins, knits, and dreams of one day having a flock of sheep. maggie loves moss, mushrooms, and memes, and educates small children in her day job. you can find her online at flaxandsage.com and on instagram @flaxandsage.

each season we read a new book about witchcraft practices around the world with the #snortandcacklebookclub, with a book review by ash and the occasional guest helping us close out the season. this season's #snortandcacklebookclub read is witchcraft in early modern poland 1500-1800 by wanda wyporska.

take the fibre witch quiz at ashalberg.com/quiz. follow us on instagram @snortandcackle and be sure to subscribe via your favourite podcasting app so you don't miss an episode!

seasons 1-3 of snort & cackle are generously supported by the manitoba arts council.

transcript

snort & cackle - season 1, episode 7 - maggie smith

ash alberg: [Upbeat music plays.] Hello, and welcome to the Snort and Cackle podcast. I'm your host, Ash Alberg. I'm a queer fibre witch and hedge witch, and each week I interview a fellow boss witch to discuss how everyday magic helps them make their life and the wider world, a better place. Expect serious discussions about intersections of privilege and oppression, big C versus small C capitalism, rituals, sustainability, astrology, ancestral work, and a whole lot of snorts and cackles.

Each season, we read a new book about witchcraft practices around the world with the #SnortAndCackleBookClub with a book review by me and the occasional guest helping us close out the season. Our book this season is "Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland, 1500-1800" by Wanda Wyporska. [Music fades out.]

maggie smith: Okay.

ash alberg: So I am here today with Maggie Smith. Maggie is a maker, baker and birth worker who lives in rural Midcoast Maine. She runs Flax and Sage, a small business making bespoke linen garments for all bodies. She also spins, knits, and dreams of one day having a flock of sheep. Maggie loves moss, mushrooms and memes, and educates small children in her day job.

I love that so much. Hi, Maggie.
maggie smith: Hi Ash. It's so good to see you. ash alberg: It’s good to see you too!
maggie smith: ... and talk to you.
ash alberg: Yes. How are you?

maggie smith: I'm doing all right. We're just coming off a very gray and gloomy weekend. And this is our first day of sunshine in about three days. And so I'm very happy as good as the rain was for the earth.

ash alberg: Yes. Just soaking in the sunshine. [Laughs.]
maggie smith: Yeah.
ash alberg: Awesome. So tell us a bit about what you do in the world.

maggie smith: Sure. So I feel sometimes I feel like I'm not doing very much. And then sometimes I actually think about what I do and I realized that I, at times, can be wearing multiple different hats at once, as I'm sure is true of many people.

ash alberg: Yep.

maggie smith: So primarily right now I am a teacher. This spring I've actually been helping to run a little homeschooling group off in woods which has been really wonderful.

I've got a couple kids who I work one-on-one with. Of course, I know that by the time this airs that'll be in the past. But no, my, my formal education is in teaching and it's something that I love to do and feel very strongly about. In addition, as you mentioned in my intro, my small business is called Flax and Sage and I make mostly linen dresses and aprons.

Although by no means only for female bodied people or the identities that society tells us are the ones who wear dresses. I can, I consider my, my styles and my clothing to be for anyone who wants to wear them. And I make them all according to the measurements of the person who's going to wear them.

So I don't have any set sizes and everything is made to fit as perfectly as possible on the person who's going to wear it, which as someone who myself exists outside of conventional clothing measurements is, a cause near and dear my heart because it's very hard for me to find clothing that fits all the different parts of my body.

If it's, if it fits in one spot, it's too big in another spot, or if it's too small in another spot it's just right in ... it's ... bodies are annoying, but mainstream fashion norms are even more annoying. And so ...

ash alberg: Yes. Yes!

maggie smith: I try to ... I try to get around that by and subvert that through my little slow fashion business.

And it's all made out of linen, one of the oldest fibers that mankind has worked with for something like 30,000 years, which is incredible. And that's what I do with that. I also am a birth doula. Although that's been on hold a little bit during the pandemic times.

But it's something that I hope to get back to. And I am also, nominally in some ways pretty witchy. Sometimes I hesitate to call myself a witch. But I'm sure we'll get into that later. [Ash giggles.] I feel in a lot of the things I do, it's unavoidable, brushing up against that aspect of things.

It bears mentioning.
ash alberg: And you lived in witch city Salem for, for a while ...

maggie smith: I lived in Salem, Massachusetts for five years and that had a pretty heavy influence on the course I took through and with the witchier aspects of my identity, I would say. In fact that it was somewhat integral.

ash alberg: Yes.
maggie smith: It's hard to live in witch city and not get involved in those

things. Yeah, you're correct.

ash alberg: Okay, so let's get into it then. Tell me about how ritual and maybe formal magic, but also perhaps informal magic plays a part in all of ... you do so many different things, but I feel like some are a little bit more explicit than others, perhaps? I'm thinking particularly with the birth work, but all ... I've also in general, like magic and ritual could roll into any of them and also could just play a very like sideways role in others.

maggie smith: Yeah.

it's definitely more on the informal side of things. I would say, I hesitate to call myself a bad witch and not necessarily in the sense of wizard of Oz, but in the sense of, I don't really have a consistent practice. And it's something that I have played footsie with over the years, but never really managed to establish. You know what I've done kind of 30 day, tarot card a day Instagram challenges, but

then have never managed to keep up the daily card after that, when I don't have a prompt that someone else has given me, for example.

ash alberg: [Chuckles.] Yes, totally.

maggie smith: And, but I definitely, as you say, there, there are aspects of what I do that feel very imbued with ritual, even if I'm not trying to bring it there. And in particular in the birth work, but even with the, the sewing, one thing that I was thinking about before this conversation was how ... I'm sorry, I just blanked on where I was going. We can cut that pause out. I’m going to start that sentence over again.

So thinking about how to relate this and, in my ancestry, I have my primary points of ancestry are Irish, English, and Polish. And so I know even without necessarily knowing the names of every generation back in the furthest reaches of my family tree I know without a doubt that the people in the history of my bloodline sewed clothes for their family and they baked bread for their family and they helped babies get born.

And lots of people can say that. I feel it very strongly simply because those are also things that I do actively today. And so that link feels very significant when I think about it really hard. Sometimes I don't really think about it. And then sometimes I think about, wow, I am engaged in multiple different vital areas of life that have, and like ... ancient, primal connection to like the roots of humanity.

ash alberg: Yeah. Yes.

maggie smith: And that feels really powerful. Clothing people is a vital act. Feeding people is a vital act. Of course, in pandemic times I'm usually just baking bread for myself and not really sharing the food that I make. Helping people give birth to babies is like one of the most basic everyday miracles that there is.

ash alberg: Yeeesss.

maggie smith: And it is like, when I am in a space where I'm doing these things and I'm not thinking about my grocery list and not listening to a podcast or whatever, but which of course I'm not doing when I'm doing birth work anytime, but more into like kind of sewing and baking kinds of things.

And, but when I'm really putting myself present in that activity that I'm doing and really think consciously about what I'm doing, it's, there's just such a profound connection with like the ancestral thread that is connecting me with my, like, 11th century form and beyond.

And I feel like that is one of the primary places where I feel and see the magic imbued in the work that I do. And then, the, I think the birth work could be like a whole other conversation because it's literally, time moves differently when you're in a room where somebody is giving birth. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Yes!
maggie smith: It's, it's a very ... it's just a whole other form of consciousness.

And I don't necessarily bring a lot of witchiness into that because of course my clients come from. All different sectors and walks of life. And aren't necessarily, interested in that. Although it does come out sometimes through conversations, it's ... I don't personally ...

I always look up the birth charts of the babies leader, like at home. And I look up the birth charts to be like, what's this kid going to be like when they're a little bit older? [Ash chuckles.] Like, ooo triple fire sign, maybe I should warn the family!

[Both laugh.]

ash alberg: Oh my god, I love that so much. I wonder if somebody warned my mom? Probably not.

[Both laugh.]

That's so cool though. Aw man. Okay. So I am fully on board with the reality that time is not linear. And I feel like COVID has helped the general population to understand that concept.

maggie smith: I hope so.

ash alberg: I don't have that much hope for humanity, unfortunately, but ... But, although, I feel like birth work is like inherently hopeful and working with children is inherently hopeful.

That is like actually where I do focus my hope for humans. But can you maybe talk a little bit more about how time changes in, in a birthing room?

maggie smith: Sure. And I also want to acknowledge, I am not someone who has ever given birth. I hope to someday, but I know that my experience in terms of temporal fluctuation within a birthing room is very different from that of the person who was actually in labor and giving birth. So I'm speaking from that perspective as someone who has been present and been a participant, but I haven't participated in that way.

So I think that the first thing that I’ll mention is, for example, the ... the longest birth I've been present for, being the time ... between the time that I joined the family at their home and then left the hospital a couple hours after baby was born was probably about 23 hours.

ash alberg: Oof.

maggie smith: And when I think about that, and I think back on that experience and with the acknowledgement of the amount of time that I spent during that experience, I don't remember being conscious of that many hours passing. It's not ... it's not as though it's oh, wow, that just flew by, but it's ... time just moves in a different way.

There are moments of a lot of things happening at once. And then there are just moments of stillness. And I am someone who sometimes, when I'm in moments of stillness, I can get really bored. I don't feel that when I'm accompanying a family during their labor and birth experience.

And I think in some ways it's because even in a moment of stillness, unless we're all like actively resting everybody is still very much on.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah.
maggie smith: Things are still happening. ash alberg: Yes.

maggie smith: And the things that are happening are very separate and remote from the things that we're used to happening in our usual everyday lives.

And the experience is just so different. Like I'm having trouble articulating it and putting into words and explaining just how it's different. But basically I think what it comes down to is that, okay, time in that room, it contracts and it expands. And so in the repeating, in repeating how, oh, time just moves different, time just moves different ...

This is kind of a funny connection, but I'm reminded of one of my favorite novels growing up, which was The Moorchild by Eloise McGraw. Did you ever read that one?

ash alberg: I, yeah, I, it would have been one of many, so I don't remember like ...

maggie smith: So it's the main character is a changeling in a small village that's loosely Scottish but there is a line that is repeated throughout the story where some of the action takes place in a fairy mound, a fairy hall. And there's one or two characters who repeat a couple of times throughout the book, “Time moves different in the mound.”

And you think about how, in a lot of fairy stories, someone goes into the fairy hall and dances with the fairies for a single night and then they come back out and find out that 50 years have passed.

ash alberg: Yeah, exactly. maggie smith: [Laughs.] And ... ash alberg: Yeah.

maggie smith: I, it was the ... about it, in those respects about how yeah, time just moves differently. You walk in at five o'clock in the morning and you walk out at one o'clock in the morning and it's dark both times.

ash alberg: Yeah.

maggie smith: This intense, emotional, magical, primal, experience has taken place in the intervening time. And yet you're not really sure how that time passed. [Chuckles.]

ash alberg: Yeah.

maggie smith: And I will say that too, as a doula, as a birth worker for a family who is going through that experience and undergoing that transformation from a unit of ... as two people or one person, to having this new being suddenly in their midst is, I think, one of the most important things that I can do in my life.

And it's also such an incredible honor to be welcomed into that space because, for the most part, these are people who have reached out to me and I meet them for a couple hours a couple times, and they're just putting so much trust in me and in what I can bring to them and what I can do for them in this moment of intense vulnerability and emotion and pain and uncertainty.

And so to be given the responsibility of holding space for those individuals, and in some cases advocating them and supporting them advocating for them, it's just ... it's an, it ... you feel the weight of that responsibility and also just the profound honor of being allowed through that door.

ash alberg: Mhmm. That's amazing. Do you cry at every birth? Cause I feel like I even just seeing new babies makes me cry and like I have, someday I will have my own tiny spawn. I have zero desire to birth them myself or to be pregnant, but I like ... every time somebody was like, “I have a baby!” I like burst out ugly crying because kids are great. [Chuckles.] [Maggie laughs.]

maggie smith: So my relationship to crying has changed as I've gotten older. Like when I was younger, I was definitely someone who cried at the drop of a hat. Now I'm someone who kind of cries after the fact.

ash alberg: Yep. That's probably a useful thing as the doula! [Laughs.]

maggie smith: Right? Yeah. Maybe I'll tear up a little bit as the baby is crowning and slithering out into one of their parents' arms and then like I'll cry while I'm driving home, that kind of thing.

ash alberg: Yeah.
maggie smith: When just the coming down from that experience and the release, it's just that, just this like enormous out-breath like, [sighs heavily] OK. ash alberg: Yeah. Oh, that's such a good analogy of crying as an exhale. There's something really like lovely and grounding about that. [Chuckles.]

maggie smith: Yeah.

ash alberg: That's ... yeah. That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate that. I feel like I have a number of doulas and birth workers and also death doulas in my life. And the work on both ends of it just feels so enormous.

And I am always amazed at just like the level of, like empathy is just kind of part of it and just built into it, but that level of personal energy that you are giving to these other people who are often ... they begin as strangers and leave as, I guess, not strangers. It's ... you're going through very intense experiences that bring on a level of intimacy ...

maggie smith: And in some cases you've seen like literally the most vulnerable and intimate parts of them. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Yeah, totally, totally! [Laughs.] Yeah.

maggie smith: It was ... And I remember having some ... not concerns, going into it. Like, I'd never attended a birth before since my own. And so I really didn't know what it was going to be like, and I went into my first couple of births being like, am I gonna faint?

Am I gonna run away screaming? Am I going to be repulsed? Happy to say I wasn't ...

ash alberg: Good. Yes. Yeah. That sounds intense.

maggie smith: [Laughs] ... any of those things and I really enjoy it. And I really want to get back into it. And especially now that the hospitals are relaxing some of their visitor restrictions again, I'm sure that once this airs it’ll be even more open than it is now.

ash alberg: Yeah. In the States, at least.
maggie smith: But yeah. I'm really hoping that I can get, get back into it, in the

next season, the next year.

ash alberg: Yeah. That's intense. I didn't even think about the role. I do recall some Toronto area birth workers that I know, like at the beginning of the

pandemic, putting calls out because they were ... they, of course, were being restricted from taking, like joining their clients at the hospitals and ...

maggie smith: Yeah.
ash alberg: ... trying to advocate for that. I don't actually recall what the end

result was.
maggie smith: Yeah.

ash alberg: It's not a simple option of course, ‘cause you're trying to reduce the amount ...

maggie smith: Right.
ash alberg: ... of bodies in a space that is like extra vulnerable as far as

exposures.

maggie smith: No, I most of my, doula friends and colleagues are still in the Boston area and it's just been an ongoing conversation, for the past almost year and a half. And so many of them have just ended up having to do like support over FaceTime or over the phone.

ash alberg: Oh my god!
maggie smith: And then, that then comes the moment where, the birthing

person is pushing and, the clumsy nurse knocks over the phone by accident.

And then they're just, like, out.

ash alberg: That's ...

maggie smith: so I'm honestly pretty grateful that my birth work has been on hold and I haven't had to deal with those situations and ...

ash alberg: That'd be so frustrating.

maggie smith: And now I can just slide back in when things are getting back to quote unquote normal.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah. Or the new normal, whatever that looks like... That's so intense. I also cannot imagine being a pregnant person during COVID and there've been so many babies born.

maggie smith: Oh Yeah. I know. I know multiple people in my circle who have been pregnant and given birth during this. It's uncharted territory. [Sighs.]

ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. Anyway, on that happy note why don't we switch gears and maybe talk about the ritual of sewing? Although actually, before we get into that, please tell me about your sourdough adventures because you've been making some beautiful bread during lockdown.

maggie smith: [Laughs.] Not just during lockdown, okay! I did it ...

ash alberg: Oh, you’re like ... [Cackles.]

maggie smith: ... before it was cool! That sound that you've heard occasionally that you haven't been able to identify is me just like full-throated bellowing into the void that I did it BEFORE it was pandemic trendy! [Ash cackles.] Whenever someone asks me if sourdough was my lockdown hobby ... [Laughs.]

ash alberg: You’re like, “Fuck you! I was always making it!” [Both laugh.] That's so funny.

maggie smith: My sourdough starter is five years old, thank you very much.

Yeah, it's really, I self-describe myself as a baker. I'm very much a homemaker. I have ... the sourdough bread that I bake most frequently is the recipe that I learned how to bake and it's one of the only ones I've ever done. I really do want to branch out and bake more different types of breads and then I think, but what if it doesn't come out that well, and then I'll have wasted all that flour and I'm perfectly happy with the formula that I use. But yeah.

I really I love the slowness of it and I think that this can probably be linked to, in addition, my love for slow fashion, but the bread that I bake once I do the first step to actually making a loaf of bread, as opposed to just, feeding my starter, it takes about 36 hours to ... until I take the bread out of the oven.

And so that, I think that there are like very ... that there, there are people who like get really into the scientific, like, formulas and ratios of sourdough. And I read this interesting article a while ago, and of course, I can't remember where it

was or what it was called or who wrote it, but it was basically about how it's like, the start-up tech bros get really into the very precise, like this hydration and this many grams of this kind of flour and like this exact timing and how women have never ... women and non-cishet male people have never really been able to get that down and nitty gritty with their bread baking because they're trying to feed their family.

And it links to that kind of labor imbalance between, are we doing this as sustenance or are we doing it as like a cool trendy hobby?

ash alberg: Yeah. Mhmm.

maggie smith: And I also saw something interesting on Instagram recently, like the other day that I meant to save and go back to, and now I can't remember who it was or who posted it, but it had to do with as they put it, the gentrification of sourdough which I ... [audio distortion] ... which is the same concept.

It's taking something like a very basic ... Sourdough bread was how people baked bread for thousands of years. Commercial yeast, like the red label stuff that you get in a little jar or in a little packet with the grocery store, that was only invented like a 100, 150 years ago. Before that, you baked bread using yeast that you pulled out of the air in your kitchen. And that again is something that I find very magical. Science is magic. Science is magic.

ash alberg: Yes. A hundred percent.

maggie smith: Science is magic. When you're making sourdough bread, you are taking, or you are facilitating a process whereby living organisms are plucked out of the air and into this [audio distortion] mixture that sometimes feels sentient, of water and flour ...

ash alberg: Mhmm. Yep.
maggie smith: And you are transforming that into a loaf of bread. ash alberg: Yes!

maggie smith: That just seems inherently magical to me. There's no other way that I can describe it. And just the fact how the sourdough starter that I have now is the same sourdough starter that I've had for the past five years. But now

after this year that I've lived in Maine, it is different than when it was in Massachusetts.

It had the Salem organisms in it when I was feeding it and growing it in Massachusetts. And now it has the organisms from where I live in Maine and was then also different from ... I got it from a friend. I didn't grow it myself. I got it from a friend who lived in Georgetown, Massachusetts, and it had its own properties than when it lived in Georgetown and it took on new properties.

They say that like the sourdough starters that people have in San Francisco is like chemically different from the sourdough starter that people have in Seattle or that people have in Boston, or that I have in my kitchen in Maine because it takes the specific organisms and yeast beasties and whatever.

I don't know the scientific term for it. I'm just trying to feed myself! [Laughs.] ash alberg: That's ...

maggie smith: It just it takes on the qualities of the environment in which it has been grown. And that is really cool to me. And it feels just inherently magical.

ash alberg: Yeah. I love that so much. I also love the idea of ... because it immediately made me think about natural dyes because natural dyes also like, up until 100, 150 years ago, everybody used natural dyes. If you had color in your cloth, it was from a natural dye source and then chemical dyes came in and drastically shifted things.

But you were literally, it's incredibly scientific. It's very, you're talking about a chemical bond process, which is also why, like now when I'm teaching, I get really into the science and chemistry of it with my students, because understanding that then allows you to troubleshoot things better and also know how to separate out, people who know their shit versus people who are just fucking around and that's fine, but just don't be learning and basing your own practice off of people who are just fucking around, like that's not going to --

maggie smith: And don't get me wrong, like, when I say that commercial yeast has like only been around for a limited amount of time, commercial yeast doesn't mean it's a miracle --

ash alberg: Yeah, absolutely.

maggie smith: -- it allows you to have a loaf of bread in a matter of hours, rather than a matter of days. It'll ... it, you ... in a lot of ways untethered people from that ...

ash alberg: Yeah.

maggie smith: ... backbreaking task of providing bread for their family. Now it's cool. I can just do it,this morning and spend the afternoon doing something else. So it's that kind of advancement is incredible and viable for humanity. And ...

ash alberg: But there is ...
maggie smith: It also ...
ash alberg: ... a difference in magic. Like the every day, maggie smith: What was that?
ash alberg: There's a difference in the magic, right? maggie smith: Right! Yeah!

ash alberg: Like the everyday magic of what we used to do and how we used to just like naturally do things. And you just also knew and built it off of intuition. Like I find the same way that you're talking about like how the start-up bros are finding the perfect ratio and the exact blah, blah, blahs is also the way that I see a lot of natural dying go.

And I think it is useful to know those things. And especially when you are an artisan within that, to, to learn more of that just for your own general knowledge and nerdy fondness, but it, there's also something about tapping into your own intuition and practice and not needing to measure something perfectly in order to know that you're going to end up with something that is perfect for you.

maggie smith: Right, and I've been doing it for long enough at this point that I'm like, is my dough the right consistency? Cool. I can walk away. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like you don't have to check the bubbly levels or whatever, you know?

maggie smith: I don't have to overthink it, I’m just going to do it.

ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah. There's something really satisfying about that. I think that's a great connection, as you're saying with slow fashion though. Like I think a lot of, we talk about like slowing things down and there's, there is privilege in that, right? Of having the time ...

maggie smith: Definitely, of having the time to do that.
ash alberg: Yes. The time to do it, the knowledge, especially where so much of

this is now lost knowledge.

Like being able to track that knowledge down and learn it, whether it's from family members or community members or mentors or whatever, or books like there, there's absolutely inherent privilege in being able to relearn all of these skills. But there's also, I think, like a deep necessity to slowing things back down in some way.

Like maybe it doesn't mean that you do fucking everything, right? Like it's ... we don't ... that's literally impossible for us to do. And to, especially in such an individualized society nowadays, I think the community aspect of yesteryear, it ... and just the way that people deeply had to rely on each other in order to survive had a lot of really good things and a lot of really harmful ways that it could play out for people.

But there's something in that slowing down and of putting more of your own energy into something that imbues it with a lot more life. Like you were talking about how sourdough feels like a sentient being a lot of times, right? You're having a conversation and an ongoing relationship with something.

maggie smith: Sure.

And in terms of the sewing and the slow fashion that I do, one of the things that I really appreciate about my garments being custom made is that when someone orders a frock from me and gives me their measurements, even if I don't know what that person looks like, I have ... can have a sense of their proportions from the measurements that they've provided. Often I haven't seen a picture of them unless I like recognize oh, that person follows me on Instagram.

Sometimes I am able to make that connection and sometimes I do a little bit of Instagram stalking, but sometimes, it's just the person and ... but I'm still ...

because I'm making a garment specifically for an individual and not one that is just going to be ready to wear off the rack garment, I feel like when I make that garment for them, it is imbued with something, with a capital S, like I'm able to put energy into it towards that individual that I wouldn't necessarily be able to soak it with if it was as ... part of a broader collection.

ash alberg: Mhmm.

maggie smith: What it, what I really like about doing mostly bespoke custom made is that it creates this connection between me and the person who's going to ultimately wear it.

That I made it, so I feel like I'm able to like, transfer a little bit of energy and put good intentions and love into the stitches, which of course I'm able to do, regardless. I stock some garments that House Witch in Salem and obviously who knows who's going to wear those. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Right? Yep.
maggie smith: And so I'm still able to put that energy into it, but I don't

necessarily have an individual in mind. And the connection is different.

ash alberg: Mhmm. Yup. Yeah, there's something really beautiful about that. There's an article I recall reading from, I think it was from The Socialists blog years ago now. And it was a queer person talking about sewing for their partner and how their partner presented gender-wise in a way where buying clothes off the rack was just tricky.

And so sewing was very much an act of love and the writer referred to making as their love language. And I was like, oh my god, like, that is it right? I think, especially when we are running businesses that are like ... we have had to, by necessity, living under capitalism and running a business that is based off of our making, we have had to figure out how to quantify and put a dollar amount on the value of our making.

And because of that, we become hyper aware of then every other act of making that we do. And there is like the ... making as a love language is something that for me personally at least, felt so ... it's become my mantra where, because I will like sew queen-sized quilts of three inch squares when I don't actually enjoy the process of sewing, I find sewing incredibly tedious. [Maggie laughs.]

And I like, I've done that for dear ones because it is just like a thing that's enjoyable and also slightly ridiculous. But like, it's that willingness to put the time in, when somebody could say, “I'll pay you X amount of dollars.” And even if they paid you the amount that you say, “This is my fair wage,” which as far as I'm concerned is a hundred dollars an hour, because that's what I get paid when I teach, that's, that is what my knowledge at this point is worth.

And if you were to say, “I will pay you a hundred dollars an hour to piece this quilt together,” I would tell you to fuck off. [Maggie laughs.] But the idea of making it for a dear one when they haven't even requested it, it just feels like this is a thing that they will really love and make a lot of use out of and it is a thing that will bring joy to their life.

It's ... you don't even question it. And there's ... maggie smith: Right.
ash alberg: I dunno, there's something about that.

maggie smith: My mom keeps offering to pay me to make frocks for her ‘cause it's all that she wants to wear. And she has several at this point, but I will never allow her to do so because for me, like I'm ... and it's not just “oh, I can't charge my mom.” I don't want to charge my mom. Like clothing her is an act of love.

I love being able to provide that for her with, with no strings attached. And lots of strings attached because I just sewed it together! [Joking.] And if there were no strings attached then it would fall apart. [Ash snorts.] But ... but it, I feel like my relationship with my mother transcends that kind of capitalistic transit ... transaction, and I appreciate her wanting to support me, but she can support me by wearing the clothes that I make for her.

ash alberg: Yes.
maggie smith: That’s what's important to me.

ash alberg: I love that so much. And the idea of even within ... yes, we're under capitalism and yes, there are like basic things that we like ... we need money to do basic things and to cover our base needs. And there is no way around that under capitalism and under our ... the society that we live in. At

least maybe in some parts of the world it's not that way, but the ... where we live it is.

But there's something so fucking beautiful about transcending that with like love. There's ... yeah. Just like such a wonderful thing.

maggie smith: If occasionally you see those losers on the internet like “Oh, you're anti-capitalist and yet you exchange money for goods and services ...” [Ash blows a raspberry of discontent.] And yes, because I live in this society --

ash alberg: Yes. And it's like whenever people ...

maggie smith: -- and that’s what I have to do to function. [Ash scoffs.] I don't like it, but it's what I got to do. And so when I'm able to subvert that in my relationships, it feels really good.

ash alberg: Yeeesss!! Also, whenever people say that, like I say this, like having grown up, it's so funny, like doing money mindset work and being an anti-capitalist small business owner who also has dreams and goals and is actively working towards being like a multimillionaire anti-capitalist small business owner, like things about that can sound very contradictory.

But I actually think that they are inherently like subversive and going to fuck with the system. And I am very excited about that in the long-term and short-term, but as a child money was ... fun? Which is interesting. Like my, my parents both grew up like working class poor, made their way to middle class, very much aware of the value of a dollar.

And so I grew up with that. I think it's also like probably a bit of a Puritan, like Canadian and American mentality in general around it. But money was always a game still. Like it was ... I enjoyed like tipping up the coin jar and counting out the coins into piles and then rolling them.

That was fun. And then I became a young adult and moved away and suddenly was surrounded by a bunch of young anarchist queers. [Maggie chuckles.] Who, bless us, are frequently hypocritical little shits who also frequently come with a lot of privilege.

And when you're, 18, 19, 20, you don’t necessarily have the awareness or the life experience or the time yet to have gone into the nuance of how you can be both a small business owner and anti-capitalist and how you can make a lot of

money and also fuck with big C capitalism and not fall into the patterns and the negative shittiness that, that big C capitalism brings with it.

And at that age, “eat the rich” was just this very natural thing that then doesn't actually help you longer term because it stops you from then having it. Like it's like a mental block, stops you from achieving a level of financial freedom that then allows you to invest in your community and assist your community because you are stable and not constantly like on this precipice of being actually physically in danger ‘cause you can't cover your base needs. And ...

maggie smith: If you eat the rich, you only eat for a couple of meals, but if you compost the rich, [Ash cackles] you can grow a whole lot of food for the community for an extended period of time.

ash alberg: Oh my god I love that so much. But it's, it's so funny because it's like, it ... there's so much privilege to exist in our capitalist society and to remove yourself from it and to really remove yourself. So whenever people are like, “This is ... you can't do that.” I'm like, okay, so then you tell me who's paying your bills because is it your parents? In which case you've got a shit ton of generational privilege and wealth right there.

Is it a job? Great. Congratulations. You have financial job security. That's wonderful. I don't have a boss paying my wages. I am my own boss. So I have to provide that for myself. I am glad that you have financial security through your job and that you have job security. That is a wonderful thing.

That doesn't mean that nobody else is allowed to have that or that the only way that you are allowed to have that is if somebody else is providing it for you. Or, do you have none of those things and you ... are you yourself are perpetually living like precipice to precipice? There ...

maggie smith: Which is also not healthy.

ash alberg: No, it's so exhausting. And it also, I think inherently is attached to also a scarcity mindset that does none of us any good. Because if we are perpetually living in scarcity mindset with money, it also then bleeds into scarcity mindset with other parts of our lives.

And I think that it does none of us any good and all it does is keep the group as a whole down. And it keeps a very select few on top, not needing to deal with anything because everybody else is too fucking exhausted to try and move

things a different direction. Yeah, but if there is something also really nice about having an old slow skillset that you can then fuck with the system on whatever regularity you want to because ...

maggie smith: Right! And I love that I have opportunities that I can do things like for instance, my dear friend, Cheryl - @plantmagicshop on Instagram - made me a beautiful website for my doula business. And I paid her with garments. I made her like three different garments, which was about equal to what she would have charged me if I had paid money for the website.

And we were both completely happy with that with that arrangement and it was, it was able to serve both of us in a positive way. And I'm not able to do that super-duper often because again, know I have bills to pay. But I ...

ash alberg: That’s a big part of it.
maggie smith: ... do love when I'm able to find those opportunities because it

is so completely outside of the usual way of doing things.

ash alberg: Yeah, I love that so much. I also love that you put that caveat of, I can't do that all the time because I do have bills to pay. There is nothing so frustrating to me as ...

maggie smith: Barter system is wonderful. I love the barter system, but also the barter system ... I can't use the barter system to pay like my cell phone bill.

ash alberg: Exactly.
maggie smith: I can't use the barter system to buy groceries at the grocery store

--

ash alberg: -- pay the electric bill. Yes, exactly. Like I find it funny, and I put funny in a lot of ... it has a container around it, when people offer to barter and really there, it's not an offer, it's like a, it's like an almost demand of a barter. And they are offering you something that you have never indicated that you have any interest in and have no actual use for. I'm like ...

maggie smith: And is not always commensurate in value to what they are asking for.

ash alberg: Yes! I think that's also a thing where makers who are small biz owners actually do a much better job of bartering fairly because we actually are able to say I know what the value of this is. I also know how within like my heart and my soul and my body, I can swing that dollar amount one way or another, because with what you are offering me, then this trade feels fair.

It's not like automatically $40 equals $40. It depends on what that trade is, but sometimes $40 equals $40 and sometimes $40 equals $20 because the value that you place on the $20 thing is ... becomes equal to the $40 thing.

maggie smith: Exactly.

ash alberg: But the, yeah, I think there's like, when we run small businesses and it's not just like a small hobby ... like I think you can have hobby side hustles that you can put a lot of love and intention and good energy into, but particularly when it is your serious side hustle or your full hustle, there's just more of an awareness of like, me choosing to do this barter with you means that this item or this amount of energy that I'm about to put into this item is going to stop me from bringing in money that I can then use to pay these other bills.

And so is it -- maggie smith: Right.

ash alberg: ... something that is fair? And there are some people where I am ... I will forever barter with them, no matter what they offer. Like my dear one, Grace, she is a clay witch and she, she's a witch across the board. She does fucking everything. She's ... if I didn't love her so much, I would hate her because she's just like talented at everything she touches.

But she is particularly magical with her ceramic work. And anytime she is like, “I'm thinking of this.” I'm like, I will give you all the yarn to do it. And to be fair, I think a lot of it is because we are both constantly giving each other things. Like she's just perpetually gifting me more beautiful clay work that I very happily use and make use of and find use for in my life and my home ...

maggie smith: That’s wonderful.

ash alberg: But yeah, so like with her, I'm like, I will forever barter with you. And then with other people, I'm like, you know what? I would love that jar of

pickles. And I would also like six more jars of pickles. And then we will trade for this.

It's just, yeah. It's ... I think there ... I guess it's a matter of consent, right? It's, it's an offer and it's a trade and it needs to be done with consent on both sides.

maggie smith: Definitely. Definitely.
ash alberg: So tell me what is something that you wish that you'd been told

about magic or ritual or witchcraft when you were younger?

maggie smith: Suure. So thinking back, I was probably about 11 or 12 when I first learned about witchcraft and Wicca and my best friend at the time introduced me to it. And I was in a position that I find is often quite unique to my witchy peers in that when I openly told my parents that I was interested in Wicca, my mom was like, “Oh, cool. Here’s my copy of Drawing Down the Moon and Women Who Run with the Wolves for you to read.” And my dad was like, “Oh cool. Here's my copy of Spiral Dance by Starhawk for you to read.”

They were very supportive. They, they weren't necessarily witches themselves, but they had the books and read the books and knew the language. And I, I'd grown up going to church. I think by that time we went to Quaker meeting if we went at all and over the years, at this point, my father of origin is like very into various like pagan spiritualities and my mom has her own kind of relationship with that, but it was ... I was allowed to pretty much do and explore whatever I wanted.

And, had my little altar in my room and me and my friend who introduced me to it, like a couple of times we had full moon rituals on the hillside behind her house. [Ash giggles.] And both of our sets of parents were like very enthusiastic and tolerant in letting us explore how we wanted to be in the world in whatever way that we wanted to.

And most of the books that I was reading, Silver RavenWolf’s Teen Witch, The Silver Broomstick, kind of books, which I know now it's a little, it's like she's a controversial figure and, not one that I would necessarily recommend to young people interested in it at this point.

So in terms ... so in some ways I was told a lot of really good things about magic and witchy stuff when I was younger. And, when I came back to it was then dormant for awhile. I drifted away from it as a teenager and young adult.

And as I was, figuring out different parts of my identity and then nev ... didn't even, you know, intend to come back to it. But then I was living in Salem and my ... the open door to a social life was through the bi-monthly moon meditations at House Witch. And so I was just drawn into it, and not against my will because I could have walked away if I really wanted to, but I was drawn back into it not necessarily trying to.

And so in terms of what, what I really think, and what I discovered as an adult was that there are so many different kinds of witchcraft, not every witch is Wiccan. Not every witch is a member of a coven. And I think that when I was younger, because so much of what I was reading was just whatever Silver RavenWolf had written, I had this kind of like almost dogmatic view of things.

And I think that was maybe one reason that I turned away from it for a decade or two as I got older was because it, as I got older and, into my teens, it didn't feel like it fit as well as I wanted to.

And like maybe if I had actually read the books that my parents lent me instead of just stacking them by my bed and reading something else and then reading Harry Potter instead ... I think a couple of ... I still haven't read Drawing Down the Moon. [Giggles.] It's a big book. The print is very small.

ash alberg: Yeah. I feel like it's fine.
maggie smith: Yeah. And I think at this point it would be reading it more for

just like academic ...

ash alberg: Yes.

maggie smith: ... purposes as opposed to needing the knowledge necessarily. Although I'm sure I can get something out of it. I don't know. I haven't read it. [Chuckles.]

But yeah, I think that the awareness that I could really turn it into whatever I wanted it to be is something that would have been useful for me.

As a child, and this is still something that I run up against sometimes, it's that I'm really good at seeing kind of big picture gestalt whole, but when it comes down to the details, I sometimes need them pointed out to me explicitly. I don't always pick up on little things. I can listen to a song regularly for five years and have no idea what the lyrics are or know the melody.

So it didn’t necessarily occur to me at the age of 12 that what was written in this one book I was reading by this one author wasn't necessarily all that. There was ... that there were other, that there are other ways and that my way it could be completely different from any other way that was written down or not written down.

And that I think has been important for me to discover throughout my own witchy journey as an adult, because I think a lot of ... some of the reasons why I have at times hesitated to take on the label of witch is because there are aspects of the practices that I see amongst my friends or amongst the kind of common perception of what it means to be a witch that don't necessarily resonate with me.

ash alberg: Yep.

maggie smith: And yet there are other aspects that resonate so deeply and if it doesn't resonate with me, I don't have to take it on. I don't have to not call myself a witch.

ash alberg: Right. Yes. Yes.

maggie smith: I can ... a person can be a witch in their own special witchy way and that's completely valid. Like I don't ... like there's ... shouldn't be any gatekeeping about it.

And that's not to say that any white girl on Instagram in a pointy black hat ... I don't roll my eyes and be like, “Oh yeah, honey, you're a witch.”

ash alberg: Mmmmhm. Yup. Yup.

maggie smith: But also I want to allow that person grace for wherever they are on their journey and whether that journey takes them into a more serious practice or a whether that journey just has them where they are, I don't feel that

it's my place to discount or dismiss whatever it is that is drawing them towards witchcraft or the aesthetic or whatever it is.

ash alberg: Mhm. You’re a much nicer human than I am. [Cackles.] maggie smith: [Laugh-snorts.] I try. I try.

ash alberg: I think it's the triple fire sign, I don't try. [Laughs.] Maybe I should a little bit more.

maggie smith: I’m a double air sign. [Both chuckle.]
ash alberg: There you go. Yep. That could do it. [Laughs.] Oh, I love it. So

what's next for you?

maggie smith: What's next for me? That's the million dollar question, isn't it? I'm in a position where I'm like applying for jobs and it feels like I'm throwing my resume blindly into the void. Hopefully by the time this episode airs, I will bring something and know what I'm doing will be ... Hopefully the “what's next for me” will be like already under way by then.

As we go into the northern hemisphere summer months the ... it's vacation time. And so I'm hoping that I can use the next few months to figure out what post-pandemic life looks like for me. Since going to summer vacation, like I won't be teaching, so I'm hoping that I can devote some more time to sewing and building some skills that I've been hoping to get to. Like I've never sewn a buttonhole before, and this summer I wanted to learn how to sew buttonholes, basic stuff like that.

And, through that, I can, maybe take my business to the next level where I like sell garments that have buttonholes on them!

ash alberg: That feels like a lot of extra work, buttonholes, and I haven't ...

maggie smith: Yeah! And I've had this whole thing going on my Instagram this spring where I want this year to be the year of other people's patterns - capital O capital P capital P - because I'm so used to sewing the patterns that I have developed and I'm good at them because I've done them over and over and over and over again.

But it hasn't ... like doing the same bread recipe over and over and over again, I've gotten really good at that recipe, but there are certain skills within bread baking that I haven't had a chance to develop. Same thing with sewing. There are certain skills that I haven't had a chance to develop because like, all I make are loose shapeless frocks that are really easy to grade up a size or down a size because there's so much ease.

And so I would love to get a little bit more technically skilled and ... and I can do that and I don't have to reinvent the wheel. I don't have to figure out by myself how to make a buttonhole. I can follow somebody else's pattern that they have written that will teach me how to make a buttonhole. [Chuckles.]

ash alberg: Yeah. That's ... yeah, it's so true and I definitely find the same thing with my knitting. I've designed so many garment patterns at this point and I still, every time I undertake a new one, I feel so nervous about it, which is dumb, but also is just how I feel. And I love the rare time, ‘cause it is that thing of like, how do you prioritize time when you've got so much other shit to do?

But I love knitting other people's patterns and just like getting a reminder of, oh yeah, this is this type of a construction method. Or oh, they've chosen this finishing technique. And it's a really great one. It's also super fiddly. And now I remember why I choose not to do it with my own things.

And, but yeah. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. You can learn from your peers who are also just as skilled slash more skilled in lots of different areas. And in the same moment be supporting your industry by paying for people's patterns and like talking about them and like just supporting your industry and putting that shine theory into practice and ...

maggie smith: Exactly. Exactly.
ash alberg: And then meanwhile, learn new skills that you just avoid otherwise.

[Laughs.] I love it. I'm excited to see what you do with buttonholes. Thank you for this, Maggie. This has been really fun and ... maggie smith: It has been fun! Thank you.

ash alberg: I love that we've managed to cover so much and also not gone on quite as many tangents as I seem to be doing ...

maggie smith: I know! There were some unexpected tangents in there, but they were fun.

ash alberg: Yeah! [Both giggle.] I appreciate you spending your time with me. I also just appreciate you in general, you are such a lovely light in the world. [Chuckles.]

maggie smith: Thank you. So are you, I was so excited to be invited to talk to you for this project!

ash alberg: Thank you. All right. I'll make sure that all of your links and where people can find you are in the show notes and yeah, we'll be ... this'll be coming out soon.

maggie smith: Hooray!

ash alberg: You can find full episode recordings and transcripts at snortandcackle.com. Just click on Podcast in the main menu. Follow Snort and Cackle on Instagram, @snortandcackle, and join our seasonal book club with #snortandcacklebookclub. Don't forget to subscribe and review the podcast via your favorite podcasting platform.

Editing provided by Noah Gilroy. Recording and mixing by Ash Alberg music by yesable.