The Witch Wave

Kim Krans is a visionary artist, author, and creator of the New York Times bestseller, The Wild Unknown Tarot, The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit deck, The Wild Unknown Journal, and The Wild Unknown Archetypes Deck and Guidebook, as well as several children’s books including ABC DREAM and Whose Moon Is That? Her new book for adults, Blossoms and Bones: Drawing a Life Back Together, was recently published by HarperOne, and is a graphic memoir about using art and ritual as tools of shadow excavation and spiritual transformation. Kim received her BFA in drawing at Cooper Union in NYC, her MFA in mixed media at Hunter College, and an MA in depth psychology and creativity at Pacifica Graduate Institute in California. She has also studied in-depth practices of yoga and shamanism in India, Africa, Europe, and the UK. Kim teaches events and workshops that activate the forces of creativity and radical transformation through art, meditation, mysticism, and movement.

On this episode, Kim discusses how her creative practice supported her through a time of great grief, the deep magic of archetypes and symbols, and why we must resist flattening our myriad selves both on and offline.

Pam also discusses the symbolism of flowers, and answers a listener question about a magic skull.

Content warning: this episode contains some discussion about disordered eating, addiction, and miscarriage.

Our sponsors for this episode are Cat Coven, Lunalux Botanicals, and BetterHelp

Shannon Taggart photographs ghosts and the mediums who communicate with them. In this episode, she discusses phantoms, photography, and why she's collaborating with original Ghostbuster, Dan Aykroyd. Shannon's forthcoming book, SÉANCE: Spiritualist Ritual and the Search for Ectoplasm, is currently being crowdfunded on Unbound.com.

Our sponsors for this episode are Weiser Books and Mithras Candle.

Welcome to Season 4! Camille Rose Garcia is a world renowned painter, illustrator, and author whose work is steeped in warped fairy tales and (super)natural magic. The child of a Mexican activist filmmaker father and a muralist/painter mother, she apprenticed at age 14 working on murals with her mother while growing up in the suburbs of Orange County, visiting Disneyland, and going to punk shows with the other disenchanted youth of that era.

Her fine art has been displayed internationally and featured in numerous magazines including Juxtapoz, Rolling Stone, and Modern Painter, and is included in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Resnick Collection, and the San Jose Museum of Art, which held a retrospective of her work, entitled Tragic Kingdom, accompanied by a catalog of the same name. Garcia’s book, The Illustrated Alice in Wonderland (Harper Collins) was a New York Times Bestseller, and she has also illustrated such classics as Snow White and Cinderella. Her latest book, The Cabinet of Dr. Deekay, a surrealist fairy tale she wrote and illustrated, is out now from Sympathetic Press. She currently lives in woods of the Pacific Northwest.

On this episode, Camille discusses how she came to be a painter of the dark feminine, the power of subverting fairy tales, and the vivid magic that comes with being an art witch in the woods.

Pam also speaks about the autumn and underworld stories, and answers a listener question about how to engage in shadow work.

Our sponsors for this episode are Clarissa Eck Ceramics, The Modern Witches Confluence, and BetterHelp.

Phyllis Curott is one of America’s first “out” Witches, an activist attorney for the rights of Witches, and author of four internationally bestselling books including the groundbreaking Book of Shadows: A Modern Woman's Journey into the Wisdom of Witchcraft and the Magic of the Goddess. Her newest project, The Witches' Wisdom Tarot, is releasing in late October 2020.

Phyllis was named one of the Ten Gutsiest Women of the Year by Jane Magazine, and in 2014 was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegium of Clergy and Scholars. Her Awaken the Witch Within online course and Youtube series Wicca have more than 2,000,000 views.

Widely profiled in the media, Time published her call for religious equality as one of “America’s leading voices.” She is Vice Chair Emerita of the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions, creator of the historic Inaugural Women’s Assembly, and founder of the Temple of Ara, the first Wiccan tradition to integrate core shamanism in the early 1980s. Curott received her BA in philosophy from Brown University and her Juris Doctor from New York University.

On this episode, Phyllis discusses her incredible journey as a pioneering public witch, her legal career as a defender of Pagan rights, and her enthusiastic embrace of elderhood.

Pam also speaks about why witchcraft is inherently political, and answers a listener question about how to feel the magic.

Our sponsors for this episode are Mithras Candle, The Many Moons 2021 Planner, BetterHelp, and Clarissa Eck Ceramics

Yugen Blakrok is a critically-acclaimed hip-hop artist who hails from the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Her occult-flavored rhymes draw from world mythology and an eclectic blend of various spiritual systems, while sounding entirely unique and future-forward. Her 2013 album, Return of the Astro-Goth caught the attention of musical maestros such as Chuck D, who makes a cameo appearance on her newest album, Anima Mysterium (2019). Many might recognize her from her blazing performance on the Black Panther soundtrack via the song “Opps” which she did in collaboration with Kendrick Lamar and Vince Staples. Yugen has toured throughout South Africa and Europe, and has opened for hip-hop icons such as MC Lyte and performed alongside such legends as Public Enemy. Her music is a mix of sci-fi soundscapes, meditative melodies, and trip-hop beats thanks in large part to her collaborator, Kanif the Jhatmaster, who also makes an appearance during the interview.

On this episode, Yugen discusses the occult elements of her songs, her lifelong quest to balance shadow and light, and how she’s used music as medicine during tumultuous times.

Pam also speaks about the sacred practice of reconciling opposite forces for Spring Equinox, and answers a listener question about participating in a ritual to help with the coronavirus.

Our sponsors for this episode are Ethereal Visions Publishing, Foxglove Pharm, BetterHelp, and Mithras Candle