The Witch Wave

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

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.

Season Finale! Rachel Pollack is a legend who is perhaps best known as one of the world’s foremost tarot experts, having written such classics as Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom and The New Tarot Handbook. She’s also the creator of The Shining Tribe Tarot and co-creator with Robert Place of The Burning Serpent Oracle and the Raziel Deck.But tarot is just of tip of the iceberg, as she is the author of 43 books of fiction and non-fiction, many of them in the speculative or sci-fi genres, including Unquenchable Fire which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and Godmother Night, which won the World Fantasy Award. She is also an accomplished comic book writer and pioneer, and during her run for DC Comics’ Doom Patrol in the 1990s, she introduced one of the world’s first transgender superheroes - and is now considered by many to be a transgender superhero herself.Rachel’s work has been translated into 16 languages, and she has taught and lectured on tarot, creative writing, gender, and innumerable other topics in the U.S. Canada, Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and China. And until her retirement, she was a senior faculty member of Goddard College’s MFA in Writing program.Rachel’s most recent book is The Beatrix Gates, a volume which collects several of her most visionary stories as well as a brand new essay on magic and transgender living. This year it was nominated for a Lambda Award.One can see why poet Cat Fitzpatrick called Rachel “a living national treasure.”On this episode, Rachel discusses the relationship between tarot and comic books, the importance of visionary transgender storytelling, and why her religion is Heresy.Pam also speaks about following magical clues long term, and answers a listener question about practicing fire magic in the home.Our sponsors for this episode are Clarissa Eck Pottery, Max Razdow’s Mage Cards on Kickstarter, BetterHelp, and Clever Kim’s Curios

Brooklynn is an Atlanta-based singer, songwriter, and producer who makes magical pop music. Her latest album, My Shadow and I, is an introspective excavation of her multidimensional identity as a queer, black woman and witch.She is also an accomplished visual artist and designer, who runs the online shop Bébé Vaudou, which carries her jewelry and clothing line and other mystical merch, including her viral WITCHES AGAINST WHITE SUPREMACY t-shirts, posters, and stickers. And she is donating 100% of the profits of the WITCHES AGAINST WHITE SUPREMACY collection to Buy From A Black Woman, a non-profit which supports black woman business owners. Brooklynn also hosts the Witches of Atlanta podcast, where she speaks with local witches about spiritual practice, economics, and culture.On this episode, Brooklynn speaks about art as activism, music as spellcraft, and how we can best support the black community during the current protests and beyond.Pam also speaks about antiracism as spiritual work (including reading Anchor & Star’s zines about whiteness, cultural appropriation, and paganism), and answers a listener question about techno witches.and how we can best support the black community during the current protests and beyond.Pam also speaks about antiracism as spiritual work, and answers a listener question about techno witches.Our sponsors for this episode are the Magic And Realism Jungian Archetypal Dream Journal and BetterHelp

Bonus episode! The Witch Wave is thrilled to introduce Predictions, a new daily episodic story told over 30 days, written and performed by Matthew Freeman. Listen to Predictions to discover what the signs portend, what the stars reveal, and what the cards foretell.Predictions is an audio drama produced by Theater Accident. Subscribe now to start the story from the beginning on June 1st.

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

Robin Rose Bennett is a writer, green witch, and wisewoman who has been practicing herbalism for over 30 years - and Pam’s teacher. As a practitioner of WiseWoman Healing Ways of Herbal Medicine and EarthSpirit teachings, she offers her knowledge in many formats from in-person classes and conference workshops all over the world, to online videos, and via her herbal apprenticeship circles.Robin is the author of Healing Magic: A Green Witch Guidebook to Conscious Living and The Gift of Healing Herbs: Plant Medicines and Home Remedies for a Vibrantly Healthy Life. She is also a repeat guest lecturer at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, St John's Hospital, Beth Israel's Nursing program, and Brown University Medical School, and a faculty member of the New York Open Center. In addition to that, Robin has a private consultation practice in New Jersey, offered on a sliding-scale, and an herbalist-in-residence teaching practice at a family medical practice in Bronx, NY.On this episode, Robin discusses the divine magic of nature, specific plants that can help support our bodies and spirits during this pandemic, the world-shifting power of community, and why joy is medicine.Pam also discusses the importance of magical elders, and answers a listener question about facing a natural fear.Our sponsors for this episode are The Pretty Cult, Lunalux Botanicals, and Mithras Candle

Edgar Fabián Frías is a nonbinary, queer, indigenous and Latinx multidisciplinary artist, curator, educator, and psychotherapist. They work in a variety of media including photography, video art, installations, printed textiles, GIFs, performance, and other emergent genres, and they incorporate magical practice into their artwork - and vice versa. They also conduct ceremonial, divinatory, and healing services through their offering called Our Sacred Web.For 2019/2020, Frías is a visual arts fellow at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship in Tulsa, Oklahoma and a Research Fellow for the Oklahoma Center for Humanities’ Research Seminar on Play. Their work has been exhibited throughout North and South American, with recent exhibitions at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center in Portland, Oregon and the Vincent Price Art Museum in Los Angeles, California.On this episode, Edgar discusses how art can be a sanctuary, the potency of colorful magic, and how they use witchcraft to celebrate their expansive, ever-changing self.Pam also discusses the spirituality of style, and answers a lister question about sharing joy in times of crisis.Our sponsors for this episode are Magic Monday Podcast, Cat Coven, BetterHelp, and Mithras Candle

Lisa Marie Basile is a poet, essayist and editor who focuses on witchcraft, shadow work, and using the power of language to heal from trauma. She's author of the non-fiction book Light Magic for Dark Times: More Than 100 Spells, Rituals, and Practices for Coping in a Crisis and The Magical Writing Grimoire: Use the Word as Your Wand, for Magic, Manifestation, and Ritual which is out this month. She is also the founder and creative director of Luna Luna Magazine, an editor at Ingram’s poetry site Little Infinite, and co-host of the podcast, AstroLushes, which intersects astrology, literature, wellness, and culture. She’s written several books of a poetry, and the collection, NYMPHOLEPSY, which she co-authored was a finalist in the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards. She’s also been nominated for several Pushcart Prizes, and her essays and other work can be found in such places as The New York Times, Bust, Self, Refinery 29 and many more.On this episode, Lisa discusses how to work with the shadow, rituals for crisis, and why poetry is in fact magic.Pam also discusses the power of poetry in dark times, and answers a listener question about how to boost communication confidence.Our sponsors for this episode are Tarot For the Wild Soul, Foxglove Pharm, and Mithras Candle

Christina Oakley Harrington is the founder and presiding spirit of Treadwell’s, an esoteric bookshop in London with a feverishly devoted following. As both a former academic with a doctorate in Medieval History and a decades-long pagan, she also happens to be a rare example of a scholar practitioner, which is a combination we happen to find utterly irresistible. Christina is a respected author, consultant and authority on paganism and witchcraft, and her media appearances have included Channel Four TV, BBCTV, BBC Radio and BBC World Service.On this episode, Christina discusses the magic of language, her favorite trailblazing women in occult history, and the ways that witchcraft can set us free during trying times.Pam also speaks about the wisdom of The Fool for April Fool’s Day, and answers a listener question about kitchen witchery.Our sponsors for this episode are Altar New Orleans, BetterHelp, and Mithras Candle