season 1, episode 3 - real life witching with winifred costello

our guest for episode 3 is winifred costello! winifred is an visionary healer, reiki master teacher, tarot reader, mentor and witch. she is the founder and facilitator of the witching well, an online magickal community for earth-centered seekers who are ready to grow their spiritual practice in sustainable, accessible and authentic ways. she is the proprietress of awentree, an online witch shop, that was originally founded as a brick & mortar back in 2006 and recently transitioned to be fully online during the pandemic.

she views witching as a mystical path and craft that facilitates deep healing and transformation through direct encounter and embodiment practices. winifred identifies as an earth witch. she has experience and training in goddess traditions, old world witchcraft, faery seership, folk magick and tarot. she is a national guild certified hypnotherapist, past life regression facilitator and is currently studying nlp. winifred is an avid outdoors-person active in hiking, camping and organic gardening. she lives with her husband, dog and two cats in western massachusetts. you can find her online at awentree.com, on instagram @awentree, and on facebook as awentree. join the witching well here.

winifred has a freebie just for us! check out the 3 biggest mistakes witches make (and how to overcome them) when cultivating a daily spiritual practice.

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 3

ash alberg: [Upbeat music plays in the background.] 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.

Okay. Winifred is a visionary healer, Reiki master teacher, tarot reader, and witch. She is the founder and mentor of The Witching Well, a unique, magical community for earth centered mystics who are ready to grow their spiritual practices in meaningful ways with authentic knowledge, rooted wisdom and real life magical skills.

She is the founder of AwenTree, an online witch shop, in 2006, originally as a brick and mortar boutique pagan store and recently transitioned to be fully online due to the impact of COVID-19. Winifred views witching as a mystical path and craft that facilitates deep healing and transformation through direct encounter and embodiment practices.

She identifies as an earth witch, she has experience and training in goddess traditions, old-world witchcraft, faery seership, folk magick and tarot. She is a national guild-certified hypnotherapist and past life regression facilitator.

Winifred is an avid outdoors person, active in hiking, camping, and organic gardening. She lives with her husband, dog, and two cats in Western Massachusetts. Hi Winifred!

winifred tannetta: Hey, Ash.
ash alberg: Thank you so much for joining me.
winifred tannetta: Thank you for having me, it's an honor.

ash alberg: I'm so excited to have you here. Um, so, uh, we have a tendency of chatting for long periods of time and ramble, we're both very good at ramble so I'm going to attempt to keep us on track. But we met through an online mentorship program at the beginning of COVID-19. We met just before, before COVID shut everything down. And then all of a sudden we were in this... in this program with a group of other biz witches at the time that COVID just kind of threw everything for a loop and we became very bonded throughout that.

And then we went through another, another program together which bonded us even more. And so I just, I appreciate you and your knowledge and just like how wonderful you are, and I feel like you're such a... I mean, officially you are a mentor for other witches, but I feel like you're often a really solid mentor and friend for me as well, which I appreciate.

winifred tannetta: Awww, thank you! Aww, that means so much to me. Aww, super feels. Just a shout out, my neighbor is literally having a huge, massive tree removal project right now.

ash alberg: Oh my god!
winifred tannetta: So hopefully ... like, I can hear the trees being ground and hopefully it's

not picking up in the interview.

ash alberg: I don't hear them, but I'm also fully anticipating that Willow will end up barking at some point during our chat. So people will just have to deal with a background noise. I will attempt to edit it out, but I make no guarantees. [Chuckles.]

winifred tannetta: Okay. This ... I hope is not coming through. I can hear them grinding trees right now [Chuckles.]

ash alberg: Oh my god. Yeah, no, we're good. Okay, so, I'm going to get us through kind of the main questions that I'm going to be asking everybody, but of course we'll also have our lovely random chats going sideways, which I'm very excited about.

winifred tannetta: Our, our side chat tangents that run into hours. I love that.
ash alberg: Yes. Seriously though. So can you tell us a bit about you and what you do in the

world?

winifred tannetta: Yeah, I would love to! So first I just want to say thank you for having me here and there's total reciprocity in our connection and friendship. So all that wonderful stuff you just said, I find you very inspiring and I always really value and appreciate folks that just imbue witchiness and really embody it and live it. ‘Cause it's really about ... it's a living tradition.

So um, so I know we're resurrecting ... some people feel like it's a dead tradition that we're resurrecting, what has kind of in some ways withered and we're recovering it, but it really is, witch practice, really is a living practice and you definitely embody it in that. I find that hugely inspiring. All right. So now I've already forgotten the question.

ash alberg: [Cackles.] Tell us a bit about you and what you do in the world.

winifred tannetta: Okay. So I am ... I most strongly identify as a visionary healer and an earth-centered mystic and earth witch. I definitely use the word witch, that is a strong, positive word for me to reclaim the power around. But I'm definitely extremely earth-centered in my, in my life and in my spiritual practices. I have been drawn to learning, studying, practicing all things pagan and witchcraft and goddess traditions and faery seer work.

Faery seer work entered my life later, like in my thirties, but, the paganism, goddess traditions, and witchcraft, and all things outdoors and magical/mystical has been a huge interest of mine since I was a child. So I’ve always kind of walked these ways and each decade kind of brought like a different flavour or a different deep dive into it.

And what do I do in the world? I am the founder and owner of... it used to be a brick-and-mortar ... I own AwenTree which is a now totally online witch shop. It started... Its original incarnation was as a brick-and-mortar boutique store for pagans and witches to access spiritual supplies, educational resources, and connection with community and healing arts services. With the impact of COVID that's... that role or that mission has just moved entirely online.

And here online, I still have, you know, with AwenTree as an online store and I also am the founder and mentor of the Witching Well, which is my online magical community.

ash alberg: Yeah. and I feel like a lot of the mentorship portion of what you did with AwenTree... like Awentree obviously is an online store and you also do like distance healing sessions and things, but the... the mentorship bit and the community that really is over in the Witching Well ...

winifred tannetta: Yes. It's like, the Witching Well is the focus for if you want ongoing study, mentorship, and to access the growth that can come with having a mentor and a teacher and access to community that, like, sees the world in the same way that you do. That's really the focus of the Witching Well, is like ongoing teachings and mentoring, and ... access to community with like-minded souls. And then my more individual one-off like one-on-one work, like where I do healing work would be tarot readings and Reiki. And I did that a lot through the physical store and now I just do it remote online.

ash alberg: Cool.
winifred tannetta: I think that's what you're asking.

ash alberg: Yeah. So what's your relationship with ritual and magic? I mean, it's, it's obviously very much embedded for you, but tell us a bit more about it.

winifred tannetta: Mmm that's so good, ‘cause ritual and magick can be very different. I think people... it's so interesting. So let's just talk about magick and let's talk about ritual.

ash alberg: Yes.

winifred tannetta: So I meet so many witches that will say, oh, I'm not into magick because they think magick is the same as spellcraft. And they are certainly interconnected, but I feel like they...

[Willow, the dog, barks in the background.] Oh, barking!
ash alberg: Oh, I will mute!

winifred tannetta: So when it comes to magick, so many... I see so many mystics and pagans and witches and magical folk to say, “Oh, I don't actually...” They are magical, but they don't... they'll, they'll identify as not practicing magick or not being comfortable with magick because they might not really understand all the structure or all the ingredients that go into

spellcraft, so that they'll actually either ... or, because they don't really understand the structure and all the structure of spellcraft, they might not feel comfortable with the word magick or claiming their magick or ... and/or they may have a prior experience.

A lot of times I meet a lot of witchy folk that practiced magick in their younger days and things... they didn't really know, they weren't fully informed of what they were doing, or they knew the recipe, but they didn't understand those... the chemistry and structure of spells and spellcraft and magick, but they knew that they found a recipe in a book, or nowadays you probably find one online, but back when I came of age, you had to find it in a book.

And so they might, may or may not have done... dabbled in spellcraft and had it go sideways or work. Sometimes people freak out when their spells actually come true to a good degree, but sometimes they have an unexpected outcome, um, and they get freaked out. And so then they kind of shove the magical side, either they block it off or they don't really understand it, or they're scared of their own personal power around it. Like whether we're claiming it when we're claiming our power, claiming our magick, it's very much a personal process. And so I see a lot of people have a weird relationship around magick and they'll quickly, um, regulate themselves as not being magical or not doing... a lot of witch, “well I don't do magick,” because they somehow assign a value to it that isn't as informed as ... it's not as like, what a well ... a holistic well-rounded approach.

So, I see magick as any time we combine our ... to me... to me magick and spellcraft are our, um, you know ... what? Cousins hanging, hanging out in the same witch house. So anytime we combine our will is when we have a desire to create change in ourselves, our life, our family, our community, our world, our environment around us.

Like when we combine that desire, like I'm here and want to get there. We combine our desire with our will and some sort of action in the real, real world earth plane, so it's like energy, intention, and will, when they come together, that is classically a spell, but that's also creating magick. So, you know, you can create magic when you're just brewing a cup of tea...

ash alberg: Yeaah!
winifred tannetta: You know, like, or a cup of coffee in the morning or writing a letter to

someone, um, or...
ash alberg: Ah, I love that!

winifred tannetta: Right?! You can put so much magic in a letter or making soup, you know, especially if it's a healing soup. We've talked about that before...

ash alberg: Yesss!
winifred tannetta: ... Making a family recipe. You know, there's all, so many ways that magic

can really just be a very ordinary act that's very powerful. ash alberg: Yes.

winifred tannetta: Um, or turning an ordinary act into something very powerful when we bring our consciousness and intention to it. And then ritual, to me, ritual’s happening all the time. I just think people don't... also another word that people might not... Like, maybe some people are indoctrinated to think that ritual only happens in church or is very formal.

And yes, there are rituals that are very involved and complex and formal, more formal structured, which are really powerful and wonderful, but like, ritual happens in everyday. Like those actions we were just talking about, like brewing a cup of tea, brushing your teeth can be, is a ritual. Anything you do, will... like, I know you know this, but like anything we do habitually, it becomes ritualized.

ash alberg: Yes.

winifred tannetta: It can even be like, if you always have the way you get the mail or send your mail or write Bill or make your tea or coffee in the morning or cook a certain recipe/ And then it becomes the ritual, the ritual space, like, so a habit can become, can become ... so habits we do every day can become ritual. Ritual can become sacred when we bring, again, that intention, and we slow down and we show up and we become fully present in the ritual, rituals that we're creating anyway in our life.

But then like what happens when we bring like a ritual, a magical mindset or just our full presence to those moments? So, you know, when we, right, make that soup, I mean, that's a classic thing, when someone makes a healing soup, whether it's chicken soup or vegetable soup, whatever it is that you... however your eating ethics align, but there's, everyone knows about the power of the soup that someone may, you know, you made... either your parent made for you or you make for a friend or your family member when they're not well. And they literally got better eating the soup, or you got better!

ash alberg: Toootally. Yeah. Totally. It's so funny, like, my ... I was talking to my parents about... we've been, I've been doing ancestry work, which you and I have talked about a lot. And I've been talking to my parents quite a bit about it and my dad's side of the family is a little bit of an unknown. Um, we know it's Eastern European, that's about it.

But also most likely there's some fairly heavy Jewish genes, and so I've been researching Yiddish herbs. And so I was talking to my parents about that, and my dad joked, he was like, “Well, the most obvious Yiddish magic is chicken noodle soup.” I was like, yeah, that's true. Like that is the thing, you know, you make like a, a really herby, good soup and it cures all ills.

I mean, maybe not COVID, but... it doesn’t hurt.

winifred tannetta: Right. Well, and like, and then I, you know, I think that there... and there is ... and so like there's everyday ritual, which is when we bring our attention and our focus into something that happens in the everyday. And then there is more, um, do we want to use the word fancy? Like a more... like a more elaborate ... then there's more elaborate ritual and elaborate ritual might be when, you know, like, oh, there's going to be the full moon, and I really, you know, who doesn't feel the impact of the full moon? Like most people can't ... witchy folk or mystical folk tend to say they either have more intense dreams or they can't really sleep at night.

So then you could just pick a more elaborate ritual and focus on a time, like a new moon or a dark moon, and do some research around, what's the energy, like what's the energy that you can... you know, to me, ritual’s always... ritual’s a bunch of things. It's recognizing sacred space that exists around us at all times, showing up and being present and consciously stepping into that sacred space...

ash alberg: Yes, or consciously stepping out of it if we're not supposed to be in it.

winifred tannetta: Yeah. Yeah. Like that's for sure true. You could even, yeah, that is absolutely... Yeah, it's totally true. There's times I've entered the woods when I'm like, there is stuff a foot in the woods today, and I'm going to close the ways and step, graciously step back out. Yes.

ash alberg: Yep.

winifred tannetta: And, the, the haunted wood. And then there's like times when we want to like fix ourselves or an intention, like tie our magick or tie a manifestation or dream, or goal to an earth tide that, or a moon tide that we see happening. So like, moon is really obvious cause it waxes and wanes quickly...

ash alberg: Yes.

winifred tannetta: So it's easy to see that happening. And so it's a great way to... it's a great ritual. So if someone was like, looking to find a place to start to be more intentioned and build a ritual that's bigger than just brewing a cup of tea with intention or making soup, they could try something like working with the moon and like, it'd be easy to think of something you want to ... if you pick the full moon and think of something you want to manifest more of in your life and to tie your magic to the rising tide of the moon and tie the... tie your own growth of something that you'd like to grow.

So ritual can be very simple or very elaborate. And I think that's what makes it so beautiful. ash alberg: Yeah.
winifred tannetta: Very ... it can expand or contract as you need.

ash alberg: Yes. I think that's a big part of it too, right, is like... I mean, you and I, we both... the practice shifts as we need it to practice, and we both, a lot of our magick is very much in the everyday things that we are doing. Um, and I feel like you do a significantly better job than I do about recognizing and also knowing, like, being aware of the different, like dates and things that are happening in the universe that, that then we’ll benefit from, or that an elaborate ritual will benefit from aligning with that timing.

I’m super lazy about that shit. Uh, and so I frequently forget, or just like, don't even know, or like I find out afterwards, right? Like I got, I got my horoscope, it's like, “Yesterday was this auspicious thing.” I'm like, Hmm, cool, missed that. And then I think about it for another few days. And then, you know, the planets have shifted quite drastically by then, and it's like, oh, I guess now it doesn't make sense to do that thing from a few days ago.

But I think that's, that's one of the things that it can be really intimidating about doing a witchcraft practice, if you don't have it, is that it feels like... and I think, you know, social media doesn't help, and neither do honestly, the, the kind of common ... Like when we think witch, and we were thinking like Hocus Pocus and like all of these kinds of very cartoony ideas, um, or even like The Craft, which is a slightly weirder version, um, then it feels like it's supposed to be these, like, very big and elaborate things and it feels very... very difficult to step in if you don't have a huge amount of knowledge and/or if you are coming to witchcraft from a secular viewpoint rather than coming from something that's either very organized or very much rooted in more of a religious kind of slant to witchcraft.

Then, then it can feel even more intimidating, right? Because it's like, well, how do I, how do I do this thing? And I, I, like, I definitely noticed for myself, I don't do organized religion of any sort. I have a lot of problems with it.

I recognize that people can find really good things about it. I ... it's, it's the organized bit that bothers me. But I, because of that particular bias on my end, then when I was, especially initially, stepping into my witchcraft practice, then I had a lot of personal like, I guess limits or... or restrictions that I was imposing on myself in terms of not wanting it to become too ritualized in a formal way, because I ... because I didn't want to, like, I don't believe in following my life according to some like arbitrary set of rules that is set about by somebody else. I kind of, I go with my intuition.

But then because of that, then it becomes sometimes tricky to be like, well, what, what can I embody? What is a ritual that feels good to me? What feels like now it's stepping too far? Like that ... it's a really interesting kind of flow. And I guess that's kind of what it comes down to, is that it is a flow and it is a practice and it does shift.

And I think part of becoming comfortable with witchcraft is becoming comfortable in the way that any long-term habit, practice, is part of your life. There are points where you will be much more invested, actively, with it, and other points where it's going to slip away a little bit, because there are other things that take priority. And maybe that's for good or bad reasons, and it may mean that you actually want to be working more with it or not, but... but allowing that kind of flow and not being so rigid with it, I think is one of the things that, as you spend more time with your witchcraft, you realize, “This is okay.”

winifred tannetta: Well, I also think that you brought up a couple of points, which is like, well, one there's like barrier ... I hate the word “barriers to entry,” but there can be, they can be real ... people have, like, real religious trauma.

ash alberg: Yes.
winifred tannetta: That that's a very real thing. ash alberg: Yup.

winifred tannetta: It's getting talked about more, but that is ... I've been ... that's been on my radar for years because so many people came to the store, were working and healing through and moving through very ... the real impact of religious trauma. And then there's

also other barriers, like you're saying, like, you know, I, I want to really claim my spiritual [audio cuts out briefly] but, like, witches and pagans and mystics are really very ... it's very, much ... they are direct encounter practices, they are embodiment practices, and they are fueled by our ... they are ... we are called to them because we're seeking our spiritual agency and they are fueled by our spiritual agency. So that makes them very powerful and beautiful and like, interesting.

Like, because there is no one ... like, there are some like guiding principles or ... I always like, that's why I call like my membership “The Witching Well” because like, there are, there is a well.... I mean, if you put a bunch of witches in the room they’re all going to ... and you did a debate panel, they're all going to argue semantics and break it down. Like, no, it means this, and no, it means that, but I like to focus more on like, what do we commonly gather around?

Like, what's the common well or the common marketplace where we would all like govern ... not governing because that's not a good word, but guidelines or principles that we will ... ethics that we have or core values that we would share that we'd be like, yes, that's a core value that I think is important and that I need my spiritual practice to uphold.

ash alberg: Yes.

winifred tannetta: So I like to think of like, if you're ... if something makes someone uncomfortable, I would try to like, you know, break down like, well, how, like, what is that action? Do you really need that action in your practice to feel satisfied in your spiritual practice? What did that action serve?

Sometimes if we can ... It's ... I think with, um, you know, when I came to witchcraft, I'm still very much more ... I see it as a practice, a craft, an art, and a faith more than ... I don’t like, like the dogma. I don't like the overly dogmatic stuff either. I think most witches don't, that's mostly why we're here.

ash alberg: Yep. [Laughs.]
winifred tannetta: [Laughs.] I'm like, that's not how we roll.

So, so, but what can be helpful to look at is like behind that dog ... So if something becomes dogmatic when there's an over-rigid adherence to something...

ash alberg: Yeeah.

winifred tannetta: So kind of looking... So when things, when structures become dogmatic, they become bogged down and they don't work. So, but maybe trying to peel back the dogmatic and the rigidity and the control that was going on, like, cause the whole empire and capitalism that is inserted into organized religion... So if we try to distill out the original structure of like showing up, you know, like what was the original structure there?

Like, you know, like, and how could that uphold my spirituality in a holistic way that, um, is more, more human and relevant to my core values, I think is what helped me on my journey. And like, I like, you know, I ... for almost the entire first 20 years of my spiritual practice, I

didn't work with a deity and a god in a masculine form. And I got pushback from other more established occult witches that, nope, you got to work with the goddess and the god.

And I .. and that ... I specifically made a choice, I wanted to work with only a feminine energy and a goddess energy. And, um, that's what I did. And I got a lot of pushback from that in my earlier years. They were like, nope, you got to find a god that you like. And I'm like, well, there isn't one.

[Ash full-belly laughs.]

There isn't a god... I ... that ... and I was overcoming, you know, early trauma from my childhood. And so in my own journey ... and so I I'm glad I didn't listen to it. I listened, but I didn't do what they told me. I took in the wisdom and I sat with it like, okay, I wonder why they feel like it's so important, and I wonder why I've ... why it's so important, I feel so adamant in my decision, not to?

Rather than, Like, rather than, I could have internalized what they were taught. Oh my gosh, am I doing it wrong? Should I do it that way? Should I force myself to work with a, with a god form, like find a male/masculine deity form that works for me? There’s something wrong with me. I did ... I chose not to do that route.

I was like, nope, I feel... I went inward, I checked myself and I was like, nope, my own healing and my own spiritual development and what I need to be doing, and because of the way I healed ... sought to heal all that impact and damage of patriarchal forces, I guess, on my own, that happened my own body, was that I went inward and I had to really do a feminine, deep, feminine alignment healing work.

And when I ... and I allow myself that space, and so I just worked with the goddess and for many years, and I was like, there's plenty of patriarchy. There's plenty of masculine. Do I have to like ... like, I don't need another source of masculinity. It's everywhere. Do I really ... I didn't need it to be in my deity.

And I, but I did do the inner work and ask myself, why is that? Why, why are they recommending it? Why is it important, so important, in other people's opinions? Why is it, in my own ecology, in my own landscape or my own spiritual growth and awakening and development and healing, really healing, in my own healing of trauma, why is it important I go this way?

And the interesting thing was that because I gave myself that space all along ... I didn't do it out of denial, I did do the inner work, but eventually in my mid to late thirties, because I didn't force anything. And I listened to my inner ... higher or my higher self, my own inner compass around my healing, I started, in my mid-thirties, to notice that there was, um, a male deity, like, um ... So people like, like at the, I'm just going to say some ... I'm just going to use the name Thor, although I am not a practitioner of heathen or north traditions, and I know that there's a modern movement to bring awareness to not cherry pick from traditions, but I just think, for the interest of most listeners they can under... most people have heard of Thor. He's a thunder god.

ash alberg: Well, and Thor also ... like, Thor is a deity who ... a similar thing overlaps with a lot of European ... like Roman, Greek, Norse, all ... they all have a very similar person ...

winifred tannetta: A thunder god.
ash alberg: Yeah, exactly. And the alchemists, like, they all, they ... they recognize all of them

as essentially being the same thing as far as their own purposes were concerned.

winifred tannetta: Right? So Thor started showing up pretty clearly in my life and, and after I gave myself the space ... and it wasn't till my thirties, so very interesting. That's how long I needed! And that’s fine, that's okay, and it was appropriate for my, for my journey.

ash alberg: Yeah.

winifred tannetta: And when he started to show up in my mid-thirties, then he started like really knocking on the door, and, um, but I knew like [section indecipherable.] So, but I did ask all those questions too, like, oh, am I supposed to go in this direction?

And I know this is a long tangent, but like ...

ash alberg: It’s what we do. [Laughs.]

winifred tannetta: ... because I allowed the space and then fast forward to many years later, and the other practice that I'm part of now, I'm like, oh, I get it. That, that makes total sense. And I'm so glad I didn’t force something, and I allowed my body and my soul to have the space it needed.

And I just feel like I ... the stuff that happened to me that injured me with such a direct impact of the patriarchy, of course I needed to swing my pendulum so deeply into a goddess vibration and, and just be healed that way. And then I was able to then, um, you know, open up to... and when it was right for me, another energy started to arrive into my life and my spiritual practice, and I could come at it holistically. And I would just want to add a caveat: I think that sometimes people think if you aren't working with, you know, deity and goddess and god in this binary-defined, defined way, you're somehow denying your own inner masculine and feminine. No!

ash alberg: And I was totally gonna pop in on this because I don't, I don't do deity stuff. Like it's, I am very much attuned and intuitive to, to like the vibrations around me and the natural world around me and the spirit world around me, but deities never come into it. And I am ... I personally am extremely uncomfortable with them as far as my own practice goes.

I find it fascinating to be like reading about different deities and like learning about, you know, here are the, especially within like my own traditions, like, like Baba Yaga, and then like on the like Bridget and like all, all of these, or Brigid, like I find them interesting but I also like, I ... the only thing that I'm like, yeah, go Baba Yaga is ‘cause it's like, here's this like old grandma who like, fucks with shit. Like that's, that's the bit that I'm interested in, not the bit where it's like I would talk to Baba Yaga, not as a deity, but as an old granny figure. Like that's ...

winifred tannetta: And that's probably more ... I definitely... my relationship with deity is much more like the way most people probably interact with the state. That's very much more my way.

ash alberg: Right. It's like an elder, a wisdom, like a thing that has like older wisdom than you. And I think that's also maybe where a number of my, my older spirits who like to hang out with me come from, is that, that energy where it's like very old wisdom that you can eventually, maybe learn how to, you know, hear ... like, speak the same language as them.

But the ... I think probably for me, a lot of my resistance to specifically deity work comes from the same like thing where I, I don't do religion. I also don't do deities because it's like, we like to prescribe so much power to a single thing that humans have decided is a thing feels awkward, right? Whereas like I'm, I'm totally down for like accepting and learning from and hearing wisdom from other beings, but not prescribing all of this ... I think it's the power bit. The power bit is what makes me uncomfortable. I'm like, I fully ...

winifred tannetta: Well it’s about ...

ash alberg: I can recognize like ...

winifred tannetta: Because ... do you think ... like, I'm going to interject and say, do you think it's because in the ... see, I wasn't raised in a church, so I was raised unchurched. I wasn't raised a Christian ... and my mom was a good Christian woman.

We never stepped foot in church. There were no Bibles in our house. I didn't know the Lord's prayer. I didn't even know what the Lord's prayer was. I was never baptized. I was like, it was my little Catholic friends that brought the Lord's prayer in like sixth grade. I had to go home and say to, my mom, what's this prayer word guy. Like, I didn't even know.

[Ash laughs.]

And so like, so I, I didn't have that religious trauma, you know, I didn't have that ... I didn't have that programming. Um, so I didn't have that to heal. And I ... oh, I had a whole thought about that. So I think that, like, it, I think like when deity is seen as this, like in this patriarchal view of this power-over figure as, as opposed to an animism ... So like, also my sacred relationship with the goddess and god for me is very much an animistic one, it's very much like the Force from like Star Wars or Awen from like Druid world? Or the Force, most people know the Force in Star Wars, but like, you know, something that moves that's within us, that’s imminent, something that's here.

ash alberg: Yeeaahh.
winifred tannetta: Part of moving and breathing, it's in the relationships we have, it isn't this

old white man in a cloud somewhere with a beard, like, like ...

ash alberg: Yeah. I think that's maybe that, yeah, like I definitely ... I don't, I ... what you're speaking of, I definitely feel that I just prescribe to it as being like the universe’s fit ... like vibration ... Like that's, that's the vibrationy bit and that's the, like the like intuitive, like the overall kind of like, here's the energy of a space and walking into a space and then there's

like the smaller vibrations from other, other beings that then have their own ripple effects on the general fabric.

But yeah, that's, that's a really interesting way of... because to me, deities are it's ... yeah, it, I think it's the, the, power bit. I also don't have specific religious trauma in the way that a lot of other people do but I think the combo of like the one side of the family having just like the general persecution during the war, and then the other side of the family, like, very like Scottish. So it definitely like Protestant, um, not really Catholic. The other side is technically Catholic sort of, but yeah, definitely that like Protestant bit, but I think more, more specifically my issues with it are with religion, and in particular Christianity, is the way that it's weaponized against queer bodies.

winifred tannetta: Yeah.

ash alberg: And so I think that's, maybe it for me is, yeah, exactly. And like, I remember the bit, like, you know, we went to church when I was a small child, then we stopped going because the treasurer was feeding her gambling habit by stealing from the church coffer. So like from an early age, it was like, oh, humans are very flawed and the church doesn't necessarily make it any better ...

winifred tannetta: And those, and those stories are in the pagan communities too! You know those stories ... [indecipherable.]

ash alberg: Totally!! Um, and then, uh, and then, yeah, like trying to get back into it just to like sort of appease, especially my grandparents, like my Nan, she was just so uncomfortable with us not going to church when we would go to visit and like, you know, they would go to United. It wasn't that intense and like women ministers and all of that sort of thing, but still, sitting through the sermons, especially just like the binary bits of it, and then how it was so consistently weaponized against queer bodies. I was like, this is not like ... I actually can't. It is better for me to remove myself from this space, because if I am here, I'm going to be, I'm just going to be questioning it. And that energy is not actually helpful to the rest of the congregation ‘cause they're here for something else.

I'm muting myself again because I see my mail person showing and Willow is going to bark.

winifred tannetta: Okay. And I just, I kind of want to go deeper into that. I want to just clarify, like for me, my identity of the goddess, like the original goddess and the goddess I aligned to the most is embodied in mother earth. Like to me, they're synonymous.

So to me, it's like, they goddess is the mother earth. So to me it. was about coming home to the earth and going into deep relationship with the earth was my route of ... And I think that's why I ... I used to, as a teenager, like on purpose reword things, like if it was he and god, I would always like, “goddess.” So like I, on purpose, would feminize a lot of things I read.

And because I, I was curious what it would be like if my world oncology was more wired, not from this patriarchal point of view and like ... the age of the internet, there's so many more wonderful rich conversations happening now around empire and capitalism. But that stuff,

when I came of age in the ‘80s, I was aware of those things, but there wasn't, um, the resources that we have now that are... and like, having the conversations and the understanding is like really another layer of healing.

But I, for me, very much the goddess was earth, like mother earth. I was very much about my feet on the earth, my hands in the dirt, laying on the earth, going deep into the woods and listening to the trees. And that to me was the goddess, as opposed to some form, again, off planet floating around in the cloud ...

[Ash laughs.]

... like [indecipherable], like being a puppeteer. Like that's never been my relationship with deity but I also want to say, like, to be a witch, you absolutely don't you don't like, you can just work the seasons...

ash alberg: Tootally!

winifred tannetta: ... the earth, you can just do earth magic and work with the wind. Like, there's nothing more powerful for witching then listening to the wheel, observing and working with and being part of the land. Like that, I think is to me the first step of every witch should be doing anyways, like wherever you live, like going deep diving into like what's growing in your neighborhood, even if it's ... no matter how urban you are, like, you know, walking it regularly, if you can, if you're able, or traveling around your neighborhood, however you can.

You know, even if you have to get a ride and look out the window, you know, ash alberg: Yeah.

winifred tannetta: ... but being aware of where you live in the season. Even to be able to just look out the window and watch whatever's growing outside your ... whatever you see, could be like even the weather patterns.

But, um, you know, it really about like ... the deep, deep ecology is really like my ... I think that's the core to witching really, um, but I guess that I'm an earth witch, that's my ...

ash alberg: We have a bias. [Chuckles.] Yeah. And I haven't had too much so I'm just like, yes, absolutely, like all this relationship with like plants and then animal, there's like, just like getting into and attuning with other forces. I think like ... and I'm very interested in ... I'm excited, uh, side note, as more of these conversations happen to hear about like how other folks, traditions, and relationships with witchcraft, and how they view their witchcraft or like, don't view it necessarily as witchcraft specifically, but like other language like ...

I mean, we both have European roots and so that is the framework that a lot of this is coming from. Although I know like you have other traditions that you learn and practice and ... but it’s the impact of colonialism, and in particular European colonialism, on Western society's views of witchcraft is so intense. And I'm very interested in hearing how ... and learning from others how they, they see other things. And when we, when we like read

Western colonial accounts of what they viewed as witches - and I put that in quotation marks because witches were not necessarily the language that was used in, in different areas ...

winifred tannetta: Correct.

ash alberg: It was so consistently the healers and the mediums and the spirit workers and the folks who were more in tuned with the, the other parts of the world than just like the immediate material, physical world. Um, and to ... and with the material, physical world being like deeply in tuned with, with beings other than just the humans.

winifred tannetta: Right. Well, I think of like what you're saying about, so like on both sides of my family, so my dad is, is Italian and Mediterranean and north African in his heritage, he’s of mixed ancestry. And then my mom is, uh, like the UK combo. She's Irish, English and Scottish.

[Ash giggles.]

And, um, I, yes I call it the UK combo. And they, they, they, they are first-generation born. So I also think there's a different relationship, it seems to me from folks that, um, like, you know ... so I'm second generation born here, but so they're like ... my mom's mom read tea leaves in [indecipherable.]

ash alberg: Mhmmm. Yes.

winifred tannetta: And then here, and my dad's great aunt Mary, like, read the Meh-locchio ... Mah-locchio ... I'm not, I don't speak Italian, so I'm not going to get that right. I'll be totally transparent on that. Um, the Malocchio, I think it's how you say it. So like, but, um, they were never called witches, but it was ... they were just ... great aunt Mary reads the Malocchio and great grandma Emily read tea leaves.

ash alberg: Totally. Totally.

winifred tannetta: And so they were just known for their services and that, and that they were utilized ... that they were part of the family events. So like, my dad said at the end of every holiday, it's ... think Italian, like, you know, Italian, Italian holidays. I mean, Italians are large and in charge and we wave our hands around a lot. [Ash laughs in the background.] And we're ... and we like love fiercely and fight fiercely and pretty intense heritage.

So like my dad said that at the end of every meal, so I, um, I ... but she wasn't alive when I was growing up, so I just know my dad's stories, but like when he was growing up, um, you know, that after every holiday, after any fancy, large gathering or like Sunday dinner or holidays, the table would be cleared for dessert and the, the dish and the olive oil and the water would be brought for my aunt, his great aunt Mary, to read the Malocchio for anyone who was there. And then she read it for everyone who was there.

ash alberg: Yeah.

winifred tannetta: ... And told them what to do after whatever they got, you know? And no one ever ca-- .... She wasn't a wit-- ... I mean, like we would, that's witchy very witchy to us,

but that's just what they did. And of course she did it, because that's how you stayed well! And same with my mom, with her, you know, her mother ... women in the neighborhood came over regularly to get their tea leaves read by her, and the girl, my mom ... I'd be like, I used to ask my mom, “What was it like?? What’d she say??” and my mom was like, “Oh, well, we were sent outside.”

So, so she doesn't know what happened in the readings. Like the, the women would come over, there’d be kids, the kids were sent outside, and the women sat indoors and drank their tea and did the tea leaf readings. And, and, and my ... that same grandmother had a lot of folk medicine. We've talked about this. Like, you know, like, you know, you, you never had a wallet that didn't have a coin in it. And if you gave, it gave a wallet ...

ash alberg: Yes! You had to have a coin in the wallet.

winifred tannetta: ... it had to have a coin in it. When you get your first home, you have to have a silver dime. It was interesting, the silver dime was for when you bought the home, they went over your front door.So there needed to be like ... and so when I bought my first home, but I didn't know that tradition.

So I bought my first home and then my mom gave me the silver dime. So, and it was upon buying the home, the silver dime goes over the door. Other things happened before then, like, or you ... like, my grandmother, my grandfather carried a locket of her hair, my grandmother's hair in his wallet. So that even in death, like I've told you ...

ash alberg: They could find each other.
winifred tannetta: Yeah, so they can find each other. So like there was folk magic, all ... in all

kinds of folk magic traditions. But my mom didn't write them down, you know?

ash alberg: Totally. And I think that's a big part of it, right? Like, like, and same, like my, my grandma on my dad's side, like she learned how to read dreams when she grew up with gypsies. And so, and it was like beyond just like, oh, you saw this color and therefore that means this. Right? Like, it was very much beyond that.

And so if you had a dream that was like, weirded you out a little bit, then you would go and ask, “Grandma, what does this mean?” Sometimes also you would not ask grandma what it means ‘cause you didn't want to know. Um, and then yeah, like that was just, that was normal.

And I think that's an interesting ... like you like hit on a really interesting point, which is that we don't like it, it wasn't considered witchy. It was just one of the things that you did. Same with like, you know, my nan’s side or my mom's side, very like proper Scot ... like Scottish ancestry, but like Nova Scotian, um, there for like seven generations. Uh, and they would ... like you, you never watched a funeral procession go out of sight. If you met somebody at the stairs, you turned around and walked back, you would throw salt.

Like, just all of these little things that like, we just do them. It's not superstition. It's not magic. You just are supposed to do, it's just what we do. And it's like ...

winifred tannetta: Well ...
ash alberg: ... but to us it's “witch.”

winifred tannetta: Yeah. And it was sort of like you just said the word, like, it's sort of like, you're putting the odds in your favor.

ash alberg: Yes, yes.
winifred tannetta: ... and why would you ever attempt ... [audio distortion.] ash alberg: Yeah.

winifred tannetta: It's like you were, it was like, you were tipping the balance in your favor. Like we had, we talked about this, my grandmother had the, if you put an article of clothing on inside out or upside down or like backwards in any way, you couldn't, you had to wear it that way the rest of the day in order to stay straight with the fairies, the fair folk.

Um, and like ... and I was like, well, what did that mean? My mom's like, well, we didn't really talk about it. You just did it.

ash alberg: You just did it, yeah. You don't question it.

winifred tannetta: To be straight with the fair folk. And she's like, well, that's like, that's just, everyone just knew, like you might get turned around by them or end up lost or not in a good way. You want to ... in order to maintain a good relationship ... it was like ... in a good way with them. That was the most she would describe it is like, if your shirt’s on inside out, ‘cause I would go to fix it and she'd be like, oh no, you need ... you can't do that. And I'd be like, well, I can't go to school with my shirt on inside out, kids will make fun of me! And she's like, well put a sweater on over it.

ash alberg: [Laughs.] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Hide it, but like you can't change it.

winifred tannetta: Can't change it. And um, and there were like, our ... our, you know, there was a lot of things over doors for like blessings or protection. And it was just to help you tip the balance in your favor. And if you think about it, like isn't witchcraft always about using the resources? Like, we're all ... most people reach for magic and witchcraft because we are under-resourced or resource challenged or the odds might not be in our favor.

And so we're reaching to, well, sometimes we're reaching to witchcraft because we just see the unseen, we’re natural born seers, but also too, we're seeking to tip the balance more in our favor, open the ways, um, in a world that can often get you hard and cruel and unfair. They saw that as just the things you did to even out the odds.

And like, and allyship, it was very much like ... my mom had a strong ancestor practice, but again, it wasn't like witchified. Um, but it, was, uh, excuse me ... [coughs.] She had a very strong ancestor practice. Like she was like very much a keeper. Like she knew all the dates and they're all recorded and she passed those all ... She wrote them all in a book and gave them to me and like, you know, tended gravestones.

And like that was a very, very strong practice and, um, you know, tending to gravestones and graves and remembering stories and recipes and death dates and anniversary dates. And when people immigrated dates, like there was a strong ... like you did, you know, you raised a glass of wine on certain days.

Like it was very powerful and like that's, that's ritual. That is everyday magic. That is everyday ritual. Like I think we think of, um, I think maybe because Christianity is, or not just Christianity, like monotheistic religions, like it's a day set aside, like Sunday something.

ash alberg: Yeah, yes.

winifred tannetta: And you go somewhere where you have this separate day and there's certainly power in ritual when we set aside a day, we have Sabbaths, we have moons and things.

ash alberg: Totally.

winifred tannetta: Um, but the, the monotheistic patriarchal religions are very much there's this day set aside and you go somewhere outside of your home and you sit in this ... you think of church, like, I think like, I don't know, I didn't go to this kind of church, but like, you sit there and I picture like colonial church and like someone would hit you on the head with a stick, if you don’t.

[Ash laughs.]

So like it's very removed, right? It's not ...

ash alberg: Yeah. And it's, it's interesting too, because it's like, like for those who do practice it or where, where their witchcraft overlaps with their, with their, religious practice, then like folk Catholicism for hundreds of years has been the baseline in Eastern Europe where the, the witchy pagan, well, old ways have just been, become completely enmeshed with Catholicism and Catholicism itself is super witchy. Like, excuse me, how fucking ritualistic can we get?

Like Catholicism is all ritual to a point where if you don't practice, it's extremely alienating. Like I've gone to Roman Catholic services, funeral services. And I, I get personally really angry at them because I find them very alienating and very much not about the person who has died, but for the people who are still living, or if the person who died was very Roman Catholic, and for those who are still living, who are also very Roman Catholic, the, the comfort in that service comes from the fact that the ritual is, is completely not about the person and completely about “this is the practice that we follow” and “when somebody dies, this is what we do to honor them and, to, to guide them on their way and to acknowledge their life.”

Like that ... the comfort and the safety comes from a very specific, very rigid ritual practice, which, you know, I don't share it and so I find it alienating, but if I did share it, then, then I would probably find it a lot more comforting than I do. [Chuckles.]

winifred tannetta: And ... and like, you know ... and there are powerful people who are very, like ... we're not here to bash in Christianity, if that's your way. That's, that's great. But I think we're just, I ...

ash alberg: Well, I mean, we're both, we're both quite not ... but then I, I mean, I also know witches of like a lot of different backgrounds and a lot of different ancestral backgrounds and, and like general life backgrounds who are extremely witchy, very powerful witches, and also, usually there's an overlap with Catholicism specifically and often like saint worship, but specifically there, there is quite ... and same with Judaism, like quite a bit of overlap there.

And yeah, just like that it is possible to be meshing them together. I think probably it's just that, you know, you are somebody who is already willing to question the rigidity of the monotheistic faiths. And so that's, you know, to have a questioning spirit, I think is, is also something that you kind of need. I think you need it as a witch. And I think that's also why I have a lot of reticence about the, again, the very organized witchcraft, Wicca, I find highly problematic also because it's very patriarchal, but ...

winifred tannetta: Wait, I got, I have a, I have a rant on Wicca. Okay. ash alberg: Yes, please.
winifred tannetta: We have to clarify Wicca of now, 2021 ...
ash alberg: Yes!

winifred tannetta: ... versus like when I first stepped onto the path, like in the eighties and the nineties, Wicca didn’t mean what it means now.

ash alberg: Yes.

winifred tannetta: Sometimes we will use the word, like certainly earlier on people would have used the word “Wicca” because it was less scary than the word “witch.” Some people that aligned with the word “Wicca” aligned with the old, the old meaning of that word, as opposed to now in the 2021 and 2020, there's been a lot of, um, unfavorable viewing around Wicca as a religion.

And I think it can be helpful to remember that Wicca was, I believe, the first witchy religion to be recognized by Congress. So that's why ...

ash alberg: Yeah, in like the fifties or sixties, I think, right? It's like, like at that, witches also like, yeah. So, and, and ultimately like my problem with it is the same with like, I don't have problems with individual people who practice various fates. My problem comes from the institution and it's the same with the institution of Wicca where it's, it's very patriarchal and when you have people who prescribe just to specific written texts or specific like gurus, for lack of a better word or leaders within the movement who then ... it's the institutional bit that then gets manipulated by specific people in order to cherry pick and, and to oppress others.

That's my issue across the board with any faith, with any religion, including Wicca, but the individuals who are, who are practicing it and who are able to like look at it from a more holistic space and look at it with questions and to be able to say like, okay, this is my general guiding post, but like I ... you need to explain to me, and if I don't agree with you then I'm, I may just be like, I don't agree with this particular portion of it, right?

Like it's, it's like queers who, who follow Christianity or Islam or Judaism. Like if you're looking at the way that a number of those texts are, the actual, the old texts themselves ... the translations are not nearly as homophobic and transphobic and queerphobic as they have become weaponized to be. Um, but because they have become so weaponized, then I always find it really interesting to talk to people who have managed to figure out a way of kind of navigating their queerness and also navigating their faith and making it be something that feels supportive for them rather than something that is --

winifred tannetta: Like a, like a reconciliation, like an inner reconciliation.
ash alberg: Yeah! I can't do it myself, but I find it really interesting when people do.

winifred tannetta: Sure! And like, there are, I mean, like I just want to, I just wanted to say out there that not everyone who uses the word Wicca is actually practicing the Wicca that I think is problematic.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah, totally.

winifred tannetta: Because like in the eighties you would use the word Wicca and it was, first of all, you were protected because it was like a recognized religion. So like for me, raising children in a school system where we're pagan and we're witches, and when I start to catch ... Are we swearing on this podcast?

ash alberg: I swear all the time. I already swore multiple times.

winifred tannetta: But when we, as a family are catching shit for our, for our alternative spirituality, I can reference Wicca as a recognized religion. So you are, you are discriminating against a recognized religion by the federal government.

So we're not worship... we're not Satanists, we're not worshiping the devil. We are Wiccan. So like that word was helpful in that way for protection. But I understand and respect that there are aspects of modern Wicca now in the last 10 years or 20 years, that has gotten really problematic, but there are people who use ... align with the word Wicca because of the fact that it was a safety, you know, and also like it wasn't safe to use the word “witch.”

ash alberg: Yeah. And it's actually like, there's like old laws on the books, both in Canada and the States where witchcraft is actually very illegal.

winifred tannetta: Right. So people ... you have to remember... [Both speaking at the same time.]
winifred tannetta: Well, whenever someone says they were practicing

Wicca or Wicca or Wiccan, I think it's important to ask them to explain what that means to them, because it might not be the ... ‘cause I've, I've seen a lot of like wholesale bashing of Wiccans and Wicca, that they're all cherry picking and that they're all coming from this very, from what you're talking about, which is problematic.

I'm not saying that ... that definitely is, it definitely exists, but it's important to ask people, oh, when you use that word, what does, could you define that for me? Because you might find out that they're, they’re ... Not because ... I think you're meaning like Gardnerian and do you mean like Alexandrian Gardnerian and those kinds of things?

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah. Those ones. Yep.

winifred tannetta: So, but, um, I think that, so we always want to ask somebody, cause sometimes people use Wicca because it's a safer word than witchcraft, and they might like to be using the word witch, but for job or child, children in school...

ash alberg: Toootally.

winifred tannetta: Always ask. That's kind of my recommendations. Like, oh, how do you define that word? And what, what do your practices look like for you? It may or may not be sourced from that problematic route. They could be being witches...

ash alberg: Yeah. Realistically, I mean like all, all witchcraft histories have similar things, right? Like you look at ... I also find it really interesting how like the UK combo, as we refer to it, like Scottish witchcraft, there's like very much a strong line that they identify between healers and the witches who practice healing, and then the witches who did hexes and curses and charms. And they, they really put a line down the middle and it's like very much, like we don't talk about those people.

We don't like align ourselves with those people. They do bad magic. And it's this very like, again, binary thinking. Whereas it's interesting studying the Slavic side because it's very intertwined, like you are just as likely, if you're a witch in Slavic traditions, you are just as likely to be making somebody a healing chicken noodle soup, as you are to then make like ... do a hex on behalf of somebody else. Like it's, it's very overlapping and I'm, I'm curious about it. It makes me a little bit nervous, I'm not going to lie, but I'm curious about kind of digging into it a little bit more because I think maybe what is, what makes me nervous is that, uh, it is very gray. It's very intertwined and, um ...

winifred tannetta: Well, I think it's very gray because life is very gray.

ash alberg: A hundred percent, like I think that's, what's scary is like, oh, this was actually like this, this feels more like real life. And this also, it also overlaps with those, like, it's the shadow bits, right? Like it's recognizing that we all have a shadow side of ourselves and that there is a shadow side to our magic.

winifred tannetta: Right. Well, and also I think you're bringing up a really good point. So back in the day, I always like to do things, things like, let's remove the internet! The Internet’s got many wonderful blessings and curses, it brings, but one of the things about the age we live in

is the age of instant information. For good or bad, like the information could be good and it could be, it could be horrible. So, you know, a hundred years ago, 200 years ago, 5,000 years, like, whenever, um, that, that village cunning person that could, let's say the ... I'm not, I'm now in a territory, I've not studied yet.

ash alberg: Hmm.

winifred tannetta: So I’m not studied in Slavic witchcraft and I’m not descended but I'm just doing this more from a theoretical conversation. So we go back, there's a village cunning person that knows how to curse and heal, whoever they are. We don't have to make it ... just pretend. We'll just pretend, go with me on this.

ash alberg: [Chuckles.] I liked the theory.

winifred tannetta: So this person, right? So like, in this village, this make-believe village where there's a, make-believe cunning person that is trained in both, both ways, healer and maybe making a poppet that's not so good for you ... for the, for someone who's a bad bad person in the town, right?

ash alberg: Yeah.

winifred tannetta: [Laughs.] I want you all to stretch here with me, with a lot of generalizations right now. Don't, don't rip this apart, please. But back then, so now nowadays, right, I can go online and I can Google, like “how to make a hex.” So I'm like, I'm going to find a zillion things. I'm not necessarily going to be trained properly. I'm not gonna be really qualified to really understand what I'm reading to even know.

ash alberg: Yeah. Yep. Yes.
winifred tannetta: Maybe let's say I don't have the training and the background I have. Yeah.

Like, like, um, maybe I wouldn't even know if it's a good idea or ...

ash alberg: Oh, you can like buy, like in Iceland, one of the top touristy things - and I have a copy from when we went to Iceland - but one of the like top touristy books is a book of sigils and the book of sigils swear to god, 75% of them are like highly nonconsensual, highly problematic hexes that you are ... hexes and curses that you are casting where it's like, you are either controlling other people or you are like, actively harming other people.

And it's like, here's how to protect from thieves. And we might be like, let's create like a protection spell. And they're like, here's a, full-on like, if they come here, then they like this evil thing will happen. Or like, you hex somebody's livestock. Like it is fully ...

winifred tannetta: And that's why, and that's totally it, it's like here we have the age of information, access to information, that, you know, in this, in our, in our make-believe, years ago place, only the healer and their ... whoever mentored them, like in their apprentice, it wouldn't have been ... all the, all the town village folk couldn't have gone to the healers hut, and there wouldn't have been like all the recipes written on the outside of the healers hut ...

ash alberg: [Laughs.] Yeah.

winifred tannetta: ... and known how to hex your neighbor, you know, like ... ash alberg: A hundred percent.

winifred tannetta: Mary Jo is prettier than me, and so I want to hex ... I want to hex the crap out of that person because I feel insecure. Like that is not going to be posted on the side of the healer's hut for you to go do, go willy nilly, where you don't really have a self-checklist, if you haven't done the inner work, you don't have ... haven’t done the training. You're sort of like ... that's problematic, that the age of modern witchcraft has access to all this information that people might have the structure and the foundation to really properly navigate or comprehend and implement or not implement.

And so ... you know, long ago, like it just wouldn't have been pinned up, like in papyrus outside the, the witch’s hut. You know, like, here's five different evil eyes that you can whip at somebody if you're in a bad mood or your PMSing. You know, like, you know what I mean? [Giggles.] Like ...

ash alberg: A hundred percent.
winifred tannetta: ... and I'm ... I have PMS, so I feel at liberty to pick on them when some

people ...

ash alberg: It’s true though. Like when you're like in the mood and like, especially if you're like, in a mood ... I think this is the interesting bit, as far as like, looking back at historically, how did we identify, like, who is, and I'm putting these in quotations, like who was a good witch versus who was a bad witch? And when you're looking at like, okay, this person who was the, the cunning person in their town, like they have this knowledge, and so then it's a question of, how did they choose to apply it?

Because people are, are very different and you're going to have some people who were, you know, motivated by greed. And so whoever paid them, whatever they wanted, they would do it without question. And then you had other people who would have, you know, probably more morals and they would decide, you know what, like you might want to pay me for this thing, but I'm going to ... I'm not going to do that, or maybe I'm going to recommend that instead of doing this potion, we do this.

winifred tannetta: [Indecipherable.]

ash alberg: Yeah, exactly. Right. Like there's ... there was some ...

winifred tannetta: But it was still in the hands of the trained professional, like, like, and not like ... Same with, again ... I'm skating way wide here, but if you think about like, you know, we, I think it's pretty kind of common accepted information that Druids studied or Bards studied for their whole lives.

ash alberg: Yes!

winifred tannetta: There's a reason for that, you know? Like it took that long to become truly knowledgeable in all those ways.

ash alberg: Yeah. And they never stopped or assumed that, “Okay, well I've learned everything now.” Like that, that wasn't a thing.

winifred tannetta: And they couldn't cut a corner by Googling it, to figure out how to do something so, like we ... so, so, so much is taken out of context and the modern era. So like, I understand the whole, like, so you're saying like, oh, in one tradition, the Slavic, the healers healed and maybe did hexing. And it was a gray area, but also too, it probably wasn't in the hands of every villager, how to do those. And they probably wouldn't have taught them. Like if a, if some unhappy person came through their door and was like, I need to, you know... I'm mad at the miller who overcharged me for my flour, I want to kill them or something, you know, they didn't know how to do it.

ash alberg: Yeah.

winifred tannetta: And, and the, and you're right. Hopefully the healer would have been like well, you know, maybe, you know ... in so much of witchcraft and medicine is really pastoral care, like talking people off the cliff...

ash alberg: Yes! Yes!
winifred tannetta: Like, do we kill the miller because you perceive the ... he over-cheated

you and your bag of flour? Let's go.

Like maybe there was some other reason maybe the ... maybe, I don't know, like, let's go unpack this. So like, I kind of think about like when, once ... what words of wisdom I learned a long time ago, long, long time ago, was that, when we lived in smaller ... when we were in mega cult cultures, like mega consumer, mega capitalism, mega communities, when we were small and you knew everyone in your relative ... like, I mean, yes, there were cities, you know, long time ago, but most folks knew everyone in their ... that they interacted with.

They knew that they lived on a farm, they went to a little market, they knew ... they knew the miller. They knew the leather maker. They knew the blacksmith person. So like ... and they relied on each other. So when they had to settle their difference, they had to settle their differences.

ash alberg: Yeah, I think that's a big part of it, right. Like when we look at also then the trials, the witch hunts that would happen, it was that you now ... there was a threat. And, and so it was a lot of local politics were suddenly playing out and then overlapping with, you know, the Inquisition and various torture for it. Like it, it was like people getting involved in local politics that really shouldn't have fucking gotten involved is really what it comes down to.

winifred tannetta: And it was all ... and it was greed driven. I mean, that's a whole other conversation where we --

ash alberg: Yes! That's a whole, which probably, okay, we've rambled for a bit.

winifred tannetta: Right. But, but I think like people might not remember. It's good to remember that this ... these are ... it's about the small work and it's about this ... about relationships, always relationships. I'm like, my witch practice is relationship-based,

relational. And it's about context and small craft and like, and this, and the small energies and like, you know, caring about the people that are immediate, that you impact and touch in your daily day.

ash alberg: Yes. Um, which is a perfect segue. We've got like 10-ish minutes left. I'm going to try and keep us on track, but I know I'm not going to do very well. Um, so the ... it's a nice segue though, over to the next question, which is how does - and we've kind of already been touching on this - but perhaps more explicitly, how does ritual and magic ... how does that practice come into your biz? I mean, it's, it is your biz ...

winifred tannetta: Oh into my business. Oh, that's a really ... Well, to me, like first and foremost, I have a daily practice every morning. I like greet my ancestors and I offer them fresh water and I connect, take a moment to connect with them. And then my next step is that I have shrines I greet in a daily basis, and I have specific allies, spirit allies that I work with and they have shrines, dedicated shrines, and I greet them. You know, I, I greet them. They are given fresh waters. If it's appropriate for the day, they might be given offerings and I pray, you know, I meditate and therefore pray, set intentions and, and either give, give that one, definitely give thanks and gratitude. But then also I might ask for either just blessings or whatnot.

And my prosperity altar is also, um, in the same location so I've got my ancestors and primary shrines and my prosperity altar all in the same central location by the main door to our home where we're, where the main energy is coming in and out. And so, you know, I have ... already have a daily practice. And then when it comes to like incorporating or integrating magic into my business, you know, when I had the brick-and-mortar, you know, there was a bigger container.

So the bigger, the container, the bigger, the magic. So there would be, you know, um, you know, energizing the store, Reiki, cleansing and clearing, you know, with the ringing of bells, burning of herbs, you know, crystals. And we both cleansed and cleared, set protection, but we also lifted the vibration so that if anyone coming in a need, like, you know, just came in in a needful place, they could just absorb good, good energy and good vibes.

And that, that had to be recharged like a battery, like a, like a crystal battery grid that was set up at the store. I don't have like the public coming to my house, obviously. So I don't have those kinds of daily things. So it's become a much, much smaller practice but still like the protective, that gratitude, um, clear intention.

And if, you know, in my business, if I feel like ... there's a couple of ways, I very actively work with magic. Um, which might be like getting out of my own way is like, like when you're a business for yourself, it's you and you.

ash alberg: Yes. [Laughs.]
winifred tannetta: Like, hey self, how's it going? How's that closet full of old skeletons and

shadow work and insecurity and self-doubt rumbling around today? ash alberg: Yeah. [Chuckles.]

winifred tannetta: A lot of my daily magic might be like, help me get out of my own way. [Audio malfunction.] What piece of my healing can I work today that will help move me forward? What am I need to maybe be aware of ... brought on my radar? Maybe I need magic to help me focus. Maybe I need to put my grown-up panties on and power through something, or maybe I need to rest more, maybe so ... and know the balance around that.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah.

winifred tannetta: So my magic now, working, since COVID working ... I mean, that magic happened before, but now the magic is, you know, it's a different set of challenges to be only an online business. And only in my work from home, then working in a store where there was a lot more street magic and you know, more community magic.

And like here it's more land magic. Like, we had land magic at the store too, but it's this diff... it's just different when you're on like a ... we're on a really cool public old historical road, had a lot of history. Um, you know, we did a lot of street magic. We did a lot of healing magic on the street because it was prone to accidents.

And so I did a lot of like, we did like healing grids on the street and community work and community action. Whereas like here, it's more like gardening and plant spirit medicine because it's my own gardens I'm growing. So the magic has shifted, but, um, those are some ways it's intersected into my business.

ash alberg: I love that. Thank you. So what is something that you wish that somebody had told you about magic or witchcraft or ritual when you were younger?

winifred tannetta: That's such a good question. There are so many things. So I'm trying to think like what's the top one. Well... I'm not going to go ... I already kind of went into it, but around the deity thing, like when I was young, people were like, you have to have a patron goddess and/or god and I didn't. And, and I thought that there was something wrong with me or I wasn't doing it right. Or ... and it took till my forties to understand there was a very big and correct reason why I wasn't drawn to, or dedicated to, any one patron god or goddess.

And I'm glad that like, I did listen to my inner guidance on that. And I'm glad I stood my ground on that, my own ... working my own road that way. But it brought me a lot of anxiety and I thought ... it made me question whether I was really a witch or not. And a lot of my work because I, you know, for some witches, that's how they roll, they have like a patron goddess actually brings them in, you know.

ash alberg: Yes!

winifred tannetta: And that's a very beautiful, like, I'm really, like, there is no one way to do this stuff. There's no one way. There's no one path. So that's one piece of information, but the other piece of information is like that it did take ... to be ... it is that there is, there are people, even in the witchcraft and pagan world, that are very ego-driven and have hidden agendas.

ash alberg: Yes.

winifred tannetta: I vibed that. And ... but it also led and ... and stayed away ... and it led to me to be very spiritually isolated and, and miss out on some beautiful opportunities that I wish I ... of community ... that I wished ... I wish someone had told me that there are, like ... I eventually found like-minded community that weren't working ... operating from a hidden agenda, or like ...

So in the witchcraft and pagan world, just like in the whole world, there's a lot of cult of personality. There's a lot of guru stuff going on and I'm probably gonna catch some heat for this, but there's a lot of, you know, patriarchy.

ash alberg: Yes! Hundred percent!

winifred tannetta: Like, and I'm gonna get shot for this, so like, like then I might as well go there. Let's be controversial. There is a lot ... here we are. How am I going to say this without like really pissing off everybody? But there ... there's a lot of the exalted great white male witch teacher.

ash alberg: A hundred percent, yeah, no, a hundred percent. Systemic oppression from the rest of society a hundred percent is imbued and rooted and like has its nasty little tendrils through the witchcraft community.

winifred tannetta: Yeah. And I just want to be like, as a woman-identified... like, I wouldn't, like, I guess you would say identify ... that I'm a cisgendered woman, but that doesn't quite fit me, but that's probably the closest thing that I align to. And I'm just like, okay, like I told you about my whole intention around the goddess stuff, so I'm just like, I didn't come here ... I'm not a witch to pay liege to some old stuffy white witch man who just wants his ego fluffed or has a hidden agenda and wants to be ... doesn't really ... secretly has no intention of uplifting their students, or really empowering them is only giving them this little, these little like gippy like half-truths and just leaves a little breadcrumb, like here's a crumb for you.

Because they're, they're insecure, they have some scarcity stuff. They're insecure, they have ego issues and they have a hidden agenda. And so they're very controlled. They're really ... and they have control issues.

And, um, so I encountered a lot of that early on. and so therefore eschewed ... like I just stayed away. I just stayed very isolated and solitary until ... honestly it was my Reiki master teacher, who's also witchy, that was finally like ... and a woman. And I met someone that really sought to empower her students. And, um, that was like life-changing for me.

And luckily I met her when I was fairly young. I was like 26, 27, but, um, I just wish I had, I wished there had been someone to go back in time ... like so I did this opposite thing and kind of avoided all witchcraft community because I thought it was all that ‘cause I, every time I went into the more public witchcraft community, I encountered a lot of gatekeeping around resources, like if you weren't really ... like there's, there was a lot of gatekeeping around resources. So if you weren't super resourced, you really couldn't practice.

ash alberg: Yeah.

winifred tannetta: But as a single mom, poor ... a poor single mom, I was under-resourced in a lot of ways. And so that, that just led to me being very isolated. And it's really why I created AwenTree and the Wishing Well, because of that isolation, because I didn't want that to be ... so it doesn't need to be that way.

And I don't want it to be that way for others. So that's really a driving force in what I do, but, um, I wish I had known to keep looking, you know I love, I feel very grateful. I met my ... she taught me astrology, I mastered my tarot skills with her, you know, I learned my Reiki training with her and she's, she's still, we're friends. She's a wonderful mentor and I'm very grateful I met her, but I'm just like, ah, I was like, I avoided so many places because I thought it was all that yuckiness

ash alberg: Yes.

winifred tannetta: And it wasn't. And I ... and like there was community I wanted for my children that I couldn't find, and it was out there. And if, if the ... and now the internet information isn't as controlled and so like, you know, one of the local festivals that was the only festival I was aware of - but I really wanted to take my children to festivals where they can have community and meet other like-minded families because we were pagans and we were very isolated - was super cost prohibitive.

And I ... it wasn't until like years went by and the internet came around that I was like, you mean, there's all these other festivals that are way more affordable and they're within a easy car ride??

ash alberg: Yeah you're in like kind of prime area for them too! winifred tannetta: But before the internet ...
ash alberg: You wouldn’t know!

winifred tannetta: If you didn’t get the right magazine and read the right back page and the right classified, that like ... the information just was not out there. And, um, so I have like, you know, I just look back and I'm just wish, I wish I had known that there was more communities than some of those gatekeeping, you know, ones with a lot of barrier and dogma and restrictive energies and hidden agendas. So I just wish I had known that sooner.

ash alberg: Yeah. I'm glad that the internet came around and that we connected because of the internet.

winifred tannetta: Yes!
ash alberg: Okay. So our final or final questions is ... and then we're over time, but it's fine, I

knew we were going to be ... what's next for you?

winifred tannetta: Um, wow, what's next? So, well, I have .. I really leaned deep into the Witching Well, my online magical community. And that, you know, as I said earlier, um, it

really was born from, uh, you know, when I met my mentor, it was life-changing like, like it literally set my life in a very positive and very different direction. And, um, I'm so grateful for that.

And so I really wanted to create ... and that's why I created Awentree, because I really wanted to create like an inclusive, non-gatekeeping, at place where people can access resources, whether that's physical, spiritual supplies, educational info, like authentic educational training, you know, like without the dog ... the control of the hidden ... no hidden agenda, no dogma, trying not to be subscribed to dogma, but to provide like authentic teachings and structure and to really empower witches to witch their way in the world that aligns with our core values and is relevant to their life. And you know, so they can be the witch they want to be and make the impact they want to make in their own growth, their own lives, their community, their world. So I kind of like ... kind of like, you know ... Yeah, changing the world one witch at a time.

ash alberg: [Laughs.] I love this. You're like a super power ... you’re like the head of the X Witches.

winifred tannetta: [Laughs.] Yes. What did you call it? The head of the what? ash alberg: The X Witches instead of the X-Men. I don't know. That was just ...

winifred tannetta: Oh, right. I love it! Yes. Changing the world one witch at a time and empowering witches to like witch their way in the world is what I'm all about. And I do that through the Witching Well which is my online magical community. And I'm really looking forward to like growing it bigger. I have some, like, I'd like to grow it in a bigger community sense and like bring in like different layers to it.

And one day have, when we can meet in person, I really would love to have some sort of witch camp or a retreat.

ash alberg: Whooooaaa. Yes.

winifred tannetta: Um, yeah, that's big. And, and travel, like I'd love to do witch travel. Like pre-COVID striking I actually had my first European trip mapped out for ... would have happened in 2021. [Chuckles.]

ash alberg: Damn!

winifred tannetta: But COVID came, so maybe 2023, but I would love to do, um, like in-person retreats. I’ll probably ... I'm hoping to have one in 2022 for mystics to have ... to ... because one of the most transformational things about festivals and in-person experiences is that you can acquire your own lived experience. And there's something really incredible when you stand in circle together with other like-minded magical souls. So I ... and immersion, immersion magic is really powerful and life-changing, so I really want to have in-person retreats and travel and keep growing the Witching Well, that's really what's on the docket.

ash alberg: I love that. Oh, I'm so excited. And I'm definitely want to go on one of those European trips someday when the rest of ... I was like, okay, so like we'll be vaccinated, and then the rest of the world also needs to be vaccinated and everybody needs vaccinations ASAP! I've just been ... we are not going to get into COVID talk because I will go on forever and we're already over time.

Thank you, Winifred, so much for this. I really, I appreciate all of the time that we talk, which is basically daily, but thank you so much for joining me for this and for trusting me and this new little podcast baby, to come and share your time and your energy with us. I really appreciate it.

winifred tannetta: Oh, well, thank you for having me. I always enjoy talking with you if I knew very inspiring yourself, and this is an honor to be here and talk with your audience. Thank you.

ash alberg: Thank you. Chat soon! Let's stop the recording.

[Upbeat music playing.] 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.