Refresh, Refresh
A Venus Day Love List
In this week’s Venus Day Love List you get some important updates on past news - some may enrage you, others will make you shout with joy! Enjoy the ride!
Next Week: New Moon Recording + Healing the Liminal
Head’s up! Next week for the New Moon in Pisces I’ll be sharing a meditation I’ve created to help you have vivid dreams and deep rest. Pisces season is dream season and I want to help you make the most of it, so stay tuned!
And on Monday evening, 2/24/25, from 6-8pm at Stories Books & Cafe…
I will be joining Marcella Kroll for her release of her new book, Healing the Liminal, with other special guests such as Becky Stark (of Lavender Diamond fame), film director Darren Stine, and the brilliant band Death Valley Girls. I’m super excited about it. The book has suggestions for everything from dealing with imposter syndrome to grounding meditations to ancestor veneration, all in Marcella’s characteristic straightforward and loving style. Come grab the book and be entertained! Find out more here.
Cake Walks Out, Cherry Pie In
Several folks reached out after my post on Pisces Season Monday to let me know that the term “cake walk” has an unsavory (i.e. racist) history. I had no idea! (Thanks to those who wrote in about it). I will let you read about its history for yourself here. But this news means Pisces Season cake walk is CANCELLED, I’ve deleted the term from my last post. We’re going with Pisces Season Cherry Pie instead. IYKYK.
Pisces Season Cherry Pie Anti-Challenge Update
In this month’s Pisces Season Witch Guide our theme is sleep. In the guide, I shared a tarot spread, ritual ideas, creativity prompts, herb recommendations and more to help you get your ZZZs.
For this entire month, we will be practicing attending to our sleep hygiene and dreams. It’s only been a few days, but I’ve been enjoying it tremendously already.
Usually, by the end of the day I’m so exhausted, I turn on historical drama TV and veg out. But then I end up staying up later than I mean to, feel guilty for wasting time, and wake exhausted in the morning because I get to sleep late then have to get up early.
But that’s all changing this month with the Pisces Season Dream Anti-Challenge!
Since Pisces season began, instead of my usual routine, I’ve banned TV after 9 pm, drink a cup of mugwort tea to signal my body its sleep time, meditate, and then journal in bed until I fall asleep.
My body is still on old schedule, so I still haven’t been falling asleep until 1am, but I’ve been in much better spirits and more energized already.
I like prepping for my day with night journaling while deepening my relationship with mugwort. (I also burn a few leaves of it to sanctify my space).
So far I’ve had two important dreams, one telling me that I need to get some red shoes (my great grandmother always wore them, I think it’s a message from her), and another saying that my current sinus infection is stress-related. All the more reason to get good sleep - rest is a remedy for stress!
I can’t wait to see how the rest of the month goes as our practice deepens.
How have YOU been doing with the Pisces Season Cherry Pie Dream Anti-Challenge? Let us know below! Accountability will get you rested.
Everything’s Better with Butter
Remember a while back I shared how Butter was looking for a forever home? A friend of mine was going through a family crisis and needed to re-home her. Well! We did it, witches! Someone from this very community drove all the way down from Portland to pick Butter up in Los Angeles. Yay, yay, yay! I think we all needed some good news. If you’re reading this ButterMother-Witch, we send you so many blessings for your new lives together! Huzzah in all directions!
Telepathy Tapes, Schmelepathy Tapes
Another correction! A ways back a friend recommended the Telepathy Tapes to me and I listened to two episodes before recommending it to y’all. Several of you wrote to me with critiques afterwards (thank you), and a lively discussion about the show popped off in the comments of that post.
The two main critiques were: a) the podcaster needs to take some Disabilities Studies classes because the show does not hold up to ethical scrutiny, and b) ummm… she made it all up anyway?! It’s not real. Yikes!
I was, of course, horrified. I want you to be able to trust what I share here! So I looked into it and here are my thoughts:
The Telepathy Tapes podcast appears to have some serious problems and though I didn’t have time to dig into it too deeply, I’m probably not going to finish listening to the series because it feels too creepy now.
The main problem is that the creator, Ky Dickens, claims multiple times in the podcast that the experiments are being conducted in such a way to prevent “cheating” — but MULTIPLE people who have seen video recordings of the experiments (I haven’t seen them, it’s behind a paywall and I’m not passionate enough to purchase it) say that if you look at the video, it’s not at all as she presented it. IOW, Dickens misled people.
As a writer and creator who writes about esoteric/paranormal-ish topics myself, I believe it’s crucial not to misrepresent (let alone blatantly lie about) our work. It only makes what we’re doing harder for everyone. Besides, we don’t need to scientifically justify what we’re doing for it to be valuable, BUT if we do try to justify it scientifically… umm, we shouldn’t lie.
Besides, I don’t practice astrology because it’s an accepted scientific fact, I practice it because I enjoy it and it appeals to my imagination.
I don’t practice witchcraft because science has verified Hecate exists. I practice it because it gives me a sense of meaning, purpose, and connection, regardless of what “science” thinks about it.
Autistic people are not valuable because they have been scientifically proven to have telepathic powers, they are valuable just for existing.
I don’t have any real knowledge about autism or the best methods of facilitating communication with non-verbal people. But apparently the strategies Dickens is recommending in the show are highly contested and possibly harmful.
From a disabilities studies perspective, it seems like Dickens did NOT do enough to protect the autistic participants in her show, people who are already extremely vulnerable in a society that punishes and isolates people with disabilities. As a researcher, it’s Dicken’s responsibility to prioritize the care and wellbeing of her community partners, which it seems that she did not do.
For instance, did all of the families who participated truly understand the extent to which their lives would now come under public scrutiny? If you read any of the articles critiquing the show, they’re brutal. I hope these families are okay.
Even if some of her community partners (the families) ARE telepathic - and I still hold that it could be possible - her misleading representations of her own research discredits her work enough for me not to want to engage with it anymore, and the harm it might cause to autistic people is enough for me to want to tell YOU to be very cautious when listening to or recommending this show.
What do you think? I’d love to hear your perspectives.
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Upcoming Reading Group: Characteristics of White Supremacy
Wednesday, March 26th, 6pm.
I wanted to get this out to you early so that you’d have time to read it. We’ll be reading Characteristics of White Supremacy by Tema Okun. The issues they present have never been more pressing. All the info below…