Most people don't know how to access their inner worlds.
Listen to this essay (free!). Plus, more moon downloads.
(Hey everyone! This essay is a bit long, so I’m offering the recording to everyone today. Normally it’s only available to paid subscribers, so enjoy! It’s like your own little private podcast. Huzzah! Just to let you know, this essay does include some talk of mental illness and suicidal ideation, but, for the most part it’s a song of triumph. Hope you enjoy!)
Dear Initiates,
Last night, I was rushing to get the 2nd half of the New Moon download for my subscribers together, but then instead of forcing myself to sit at my computer and write, and InDesign the graphics, and format, and line edit — as I normally would — I did my own New Moon ritual instead.
Earlier that day, I’d been to an Ayurvedic doctor* who told me that I had an excess of Vata (air/ether) in my system and that I was EXTREMELY depleted. I’ve known that for a while now, but I’ve been trying to regenerate myself.
Basically, when I first started off in my career as the Oracle of Los Angeles, I was also working in adult and museum education. It wasn’t well paid, and – as I had for most of my life – I had to hustle or go hungry.
Then – as my work as a professional witch started to take off – I made big pushes. I never stopped working. My ex would call from downstairs that dinner was ready and I’d shout back, “5 more minutes… I just have to finish this [email, blog post, instagram post, etc.],” and then I’d come down three hours later after they’d already gone to bed. Let’s just say it wasn’t great for our relationship.
When we divorced (my work-aholism was NOT the only reason for that, I’ll have it known), I had relationships, but mostly, I worked. I stayed up late working, I worked on the weekends. I worked on holidays. I worked until 3am. I worked worked worked.
My witch work was what I wanted to be doing. I LOVED each element of it on its own. I love my work, but when I added all of it together? It was just too much.
I made podcast episode after podcast episode - writing 20 page essays every week, I toiled on my book, I turned out IG Posts, I designed graphics for the posts, I celebrated my clients, I saw friends for free, I workshopped performances, I led ceremonies, I promoted the ceremonies, etc. etc.
But then…
… then came 2020. I was already exhausted from all the work I was doing and because capitalism is exhausting, and coming from a family background with a lot of trauma is exhausting. You know what I’m saying. (And I come from a position of relative privilege!)
2020 hit, my old podcast very publicly blew up, and I went through a devastating break up… and the world was on fire, literally. Or at least California was. Journalists were being shot, uprisings were happening across the country, disease spreading, all of us locked inside, and everyone in my community was so stressed and scared. I wanted to show up for them. So I did. Even when I didn’t have the capacity. I pushed myself. I told myself, “If you are a good person you will do this.”
From what I can tell, many of you had similar experiences.
Hundreds of people were showing up to my gatherings, which was a profound honor and a blessing. But while my profile was growing in the public witch world, and I made posts about how to connect with the spirit world, stay grounded and heal, behind the scenes, I was basically having a nervous breakdown.
(Side note: all those people who we admire so much on social media are almost always having nervous breakdowns — we may not see it, but it’s there).
Because I’ve always been highly functioning with my mental illness (Scorpio sun, Leo Moon, Taurus rising, all fixed signs, stubborn AF), I held it together for the most part. In fact, I’d been “holding it together” for so long that I didn’t even realize that’s what I was doing. I just thought life was like that. That’s how it felt. Hard.
But then came 2022, and 11 days into it, my cat Pagan died. And that was it. I totally fell apart. I fell into an agonizing, psychedelic depression. I cried all the time, on my knees in the shower, often during my public ceremonies, going to sleep at night.
I felt so alone. As long as I’d had Pagan, I felt this constant source of comfort, care, and mutual understanding. I felt like with her I could do anything. And then she died, and I lost it.
I’d been so rigorous about getting my podcast out every week, not missing deadlines, answering emails back promptly, answering every DM, posting on Instagram every day… Pagan died and that all went out the window.
Not only could I not make my podcast deadlines, many times, I doubted I would even be able to make it through the day.
One evening, I was in so much psychological pain, it felt like my psyche was being stabbed, the knife twisted. It was so unbearable I realized that if it went on like that, I wasn’t going to make it. I couldn’t.
I didn’t want to die, but the pain was so unbearable, I knew that if I didn’t find a way out of it within literally days, that was going to be that. I just couldn’t take it anymore, you know?
So I went on anti-depressants.
Now, many of you might be asking, but didn’t you try magic? What good is witchcraft if it can’t help you in situations like that?
And I’m glad that we got to that question, because it’s exactly the whole point of this essay:
Witchcraft HAD helped me, it had kept me alive, it did and does support and sustain me. But we live in under capitalist, colonialist, white supremacist patriarchy. Our minds are constantly manipulated, we’re way overworked, many of our ancestors lost their souls (some had lives brutally stolen from them, some lost their souls by stealing the souls and labor and life force of others) and raised us in their image. We’re currently watching whole ecosystems collapse, our government is PUNISHING the most vulnerable people and PROTECTING the ones who are causing the most harm.
One witch alone cannot hope to win a fire fight against all these bastards.
Hence, anti-depressants.
After I started taking them, my moods began to stabilize. I started going to yoga again, dancing, dating, re-committing myself magic and ceremony. I looked around at the smoking rubble of my life and for the first time in ages, I felt… excited.
Here are a few major things that I extrapolated from this whole experience that I want to share with you:
Burn out is real. This is something I work on with my clients all the time. Burn out is REAL. If you’re wondering if you’re burnt out, you are. Like, wondering if you’re burnt out is a symptom of burn out. And if you don’t listen to that symptom, it will FUCK YOU UP. It can literally take YEARS to recover from burn out. It can be LIFE THREATENING. So when your body sends you the message that you’re overwhelmed, LISTEN. Change whatever you need to change. Prioritize your health. YOU ARE WORTH CARING FOR.
The thing that you’re struggling with the most is probably why you’re on this planet. Our purpose and our struggle are often bound up in one another. (I’m going to say more on this in another email, it’s complicated). But whatever is causing you the most pain in your life, it’s not just your problem, it’s systemic. And YOU are the Chiron for it, YOU ARE THE MEDICINE that can heal this problem in the world around you. (Well, you’re at least one INGREDIENT of the medicine, all change, both personal and political, requires the participation of the collective).
Yes, Audre Lorde said this first, but we should all join her in chorus every day. “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” I desired a magical life, and not only could I not get it pushing myself like a fascist to do ever more work, if I DID work in the furious way the Overculture demanded, I was going to end up dead. WE MUST FIND WAYS TO LIVE INTO THE BEAUTIFUL WORLD OF WHICH WE DREAM.
My work is about enchantment. It’s about INSISTING on beauty.
And I’m not working on that project from a position of ease, I’m working towards that from a position of struggle. And THAT is my role because my work as a priestess and witch is to help people who are struggling with the same issues as I am figure out a way forward.
I’m paid for the labor I do to overcome the obstacles that appear before me as I practice work of enchantment. I find ways around them so that other people in similar situations don’t have to figure it out on their own. They have a guide.
I can help BECAUSE I’m doing it for myself. I can help because I MAKE IT MY JOB to find ways to bring enchantment to my own burnt out world and regenerate it. So that I can share how to do it with everyone who’s busy leaning into their own medicine path, so that they can share their work with others. Because…
… EACH ONE OF US has something that is necessary to our biosphere. We all are necessary and we all belong. YOU have something essential to offer.
Which brings me back to the New Moon in Pisces, and connecting with the power of our dream worlds.
Though I’d found ways to enchant my outer life, my inner world had taken a beating from, been bound and misshapen by the Overculture. I became a public witch (which is like, the best dream job ever) but then set up systems of ceaseless labor for myself that replicated the world I was trying to dismantle! And this is hardly unusual, friends.
So like I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, I took some of my own medicine this Pisces New Moon.
Instead of sitting at the computer, formatting font sizes, and cranking out lists of correspondences, I did my own New Moon ceremony. I contacted my inner world. I called in my spirits. And what they gave me, and what they taught me, was a thousand times more authentic, real, beautiful, and HELPFUL, than anything I could have made grinding away at my desk, even if I’d sat there for eternity.
Because I made the choice to DO the very thing that I am asking all of you to do, I now can share HOW to do it with you (see below).
Because chances are high, you’re dealing with burn out, stress, trauma, and the mind-blowing agony of living in a disenchanted world as well. At least sometimes.
The thing is, if we don’t do the work to clear our inner worlds of the pollution of capitalist colonialism, then we’ll bring we’ll bring that muck with us into whatever new adventures we create for ourselves.
On the other hand, if we do the enchanted work of re-wilding our inner worlds… well, you know what they say in witchcraft…
What happens between the worlds effects all worlds.
In Welsh mythology, the spirit world, called Annwn, interpenetrates our own. They overlap. And the Pisces New Moon reminded me that we can step into that world of beauty and plenty any time. It’s always there for us. It’s always HERE for us.
But we have to know the techniques to enter it. There are words we can say, practices we can do, not only to help us enter the spirit world, but to help us retrieve some of its awen — the shining, flowing, visionary imagination that makes up the substance of that spirit world.
Awen is the substance of inspiration. We can get it. We can replenish ourselves, and we can bring it back out into our world to help replenish others as well.
IT’S ALL SO BEAUTIFUL!!
I love witchcraft so much.
The Goddexxs of Witchcraft reward our courage. We can find the Spirit to resist the deadening, mind-numbing, exhausting imperatives of the Overculture, by retrieving the awen from our own Inner Worlds.
Our inner world is part of the dream world, is one with the spirit world.
Our inner world reaches into the web of the wyrd. Some might call it the collective unconscious. Scientists might call it dark matter. No matter what you call it, it’s magic.
So this month, I invite you to enter the dream world of Pisces. INSIST on enchantment. Listen to the call of your heart. Risk beauty.
I’ll be with you the whole time.
And I can’t wait to hear how it goes.
In love,
Amanda
*My Ayurvedic doctor’s name is Rita Burgos and if you’re in Los Angeles and are having health issues, I highly recommend a visit. Tell her I sent you.
PISCES SEASON DOWNLOAD FOR SUBSCRIBERS
Inside:
The process I use for accessing my inner world, and prompts to access your own.
Music, incense, tarot and other recommendations
Poems to use and inspire
Understanding the 12th House
Pisces season Shadow Work prompts
Pisces season journal prompts
Ritual Suggestions
Magical Practice (Homework)
A Pisces season Correspondences project
And more!