Elizabeth Chapman. 2 Young Crones, Young Crones Cafe, and the Witchstones Oracle Deck

In this episode I'm talking to Elizabeth of  the Young Crones Cafe podcast, and creator of the Witchstones Oracle deck. Before we get started I did want to give a content warning for domestic violence and death in this conversation. 

We talked about talking to rocks, how her family changed --and changed her life, and I'm going to tell you about how you can win a Witchstones oracle deck for yourself in an instagram giveaway! 

You can win your own Witchstones oracle deck by sharing the reel I posted today, and tagging @2youngcrones and @youraveragewitchpodcast. That's it! I'll draw a random winner on Monday and announce them on next week's podcast.

Check out 2 Young Crones/Young Crones Cafe 

Enter the giveaway on instagram!
instagram.com/youraveragewitchpodcast

Transcript

Welcome back to Your Average Witch, where every Tuesday we talk about witch life, witch stories and sometimes a little witchcraft. This episode of Your Average Witch is brought to you by Clever Kim's Curios. This weekend you can find Clever Kim's Curios and Your Average Witch podcast at Phoenix Pagan Pride. Come see me at 300 East Indian School Road in Phoenix on Saturday, November 4th from 9 to 5. I'll have awesome electroformed bones, gorgeous crystals, even some glowy uranium glass pieces. I'll also have Your Average Witch merch to give away. Come celebrate Pagan Pride with us this weekend! In this episode, I'm talking to Elizabeth Chapman of the Young Crones Café podcast and creator of the Witchstones Oracle Deck. I do want to give a content warning for domestic violence and death in this conversation, just be aware going in. Elizabeth and I talked about talking to rocks, how her family changed and changed her life, and I'm going to tell you about how you can win a Witchstones Oracle deck for yourself in an Instagram giveaway. You can win your own Witchstones Oracle deck by sharing the the reel I posted today and tagging Two Young Crones and Your Average Witch Podcast. That's it! I'll draw a random winner on Monday and announce them on next week's podcast. Now let's get to the stories.

Kim: Hi, Elizabeth. Welcome to the show.

Elizabeth: Hi, Kim. It's nice to be here with you today.

Kim: Yay, I'm glad to have you. Can you please introduce yourself and let everybody know who you are and what you do and where they can find you.

Elizabeth: Okay, I am Elizabeth of the Young Crones Cafe podcast and Two Young Crones is our business. I started out podcasting with my best friend and practice partner of almost 20 years, Sue, and she passed away last March, unfortunately, of metastasized breast cancer that they didn't catch because of COVID and her husband has kindly stepped in and we're finding our way. That's the best way to describe it after all of that. Yeah, it's a lot. I've been a witch for, God, over 20 years now, I think I've been practicing. Came to witchcraft later probably than a lot of people, but that's okay too. I think we find our path when we're meant to.

Kim: Do you have a website or social media?

Elizabeth: Oh sure, we are, our website is 2, that's the number 2, youngcrones.com. We also have Young Crones Cafe, which is the podcast. We have a Patreon, we're on Facebook and Twitter. We're working on getting Instagram back together because that was kind of Sue's thing more than anything else, but you can, if you Google, you'll find us pretty much.

Kim: Now what does it mean to you when you call yourself a witch?

Elizabeth: I think first of all, the whole reverence for nature piece has stuck with me over the years that, and I think I have established connections, for want of a better word, with a lot of the different energies that are out there. And I regularly practice magic. I attempt to do ritual as much as I can with my schedule. And I think it means I get to make my own choices about what I think about how the universe works.

Kim: That makes sense.

Elizabeth: Thank you. I do try.

Kim: Do you have any family history with witchcraft or any stories from childhood where even if you're, they, nobody would say, yes, I'm a witch, they were doing witchy things?

Elizabeth: I think my grandfather, more than anything else, he used to be able to get fish to come to him in when he was fishing more than anything else. Other than that, I don't think so. You know, loosely Baptist, I was raised loosely Presbyterian. My father was a chemist of all things. So he was very logically, scientifically, you know, prove it kind of guy. So no, I don't think so. In fact, I found Witchcraft, believe it or not, in a fiction book and then went looking for information because that's what I do. And dove in headfirst as I work. Had never kind of came up. Of course, back up, of course, this was the 90s where most of the information you got was suspect, I guess, is the best way to put it. But if you're as much of a reader as I am, you kind of learn after a while that this is not exactly what you want to do, how you think it's going to work. So you come out of it, hopefully, in one piece. I think it's such an individual thing that you'll be lucky if some of the things that you read apply to what you actually end up doing. Oh I think so I think especially back then. Oh please yes come on. You had Scott Cunningham, you had Silver Ravenwolf, Raymond Buckland's Big Blue Book, etc etc etc and then a whole bunch of other. Anybody who could say anything about witchcraft or paganism or any of those slightly esoteric subjects back then was considered an authority even if they didn't know anything.

Kim: Can you introduce us to your practice and if you share any regular or daily practices you have?

Elizabeth: Oh, sure. My partner Sue and I, over the years, we have kind of come up with what we call our own tradition and we tend to call it the PATH, all in caps, you hear the caps, where we do celebrate solstices and equinoxes, but we don't celebrate like Candlemas, Beltane, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We see them as seasonal practices and we have over the years done a series of three rituals at the beginning of each time and work with the elements more closely there. I think our practices are a little different than a lot of people who celebrate the 8, as it were. I can say I am not Wiccan anymore though I came in from there. I work on setting my intent every morning, if nothing else. When I'm communing with my coffee maker standing there saying, please let there be coffee, I try and figure out what I am going to do to grow a little bit today, and learn something today that relates to my practice. Regularly acknowledge the dark times of the moon, which I guess is kind of offbeat in its own way, a time of really receptive energies where I tend to draw things to me that I need to learn about or pay attention to more than anything else. And I tend to listen to a lot of different witchy podcasts in my car on a regular basis. I guess that counts as part of my practice.

Kim: I think anything can count as our practice if we want to.

Elizabeth: I think so.

Kim: How would you say witchcraft has changed your life?

Elizabeth: Oh, I think it's made me the most me I've ever been. I don't put up with a lot of crap. I don't apologize for what I believe or what I think anymore. I came from a generation where women often had to speak up a lot louder to be heard, I guess is the best way to put that. And today I'm a lot more live and let live than I ever was, I think. You know, as long as you're not messing with me, I don't care what you think, most of the time. You know, if you're being overtly racist or sexist or any of the ists, I may say something and walk away from you quickly. Whereas before I would just kind of, you know, shut up and let you be you. I don't tend to ignore that like I used to. I think I'm a little more out there than I ever was.

Kim: And you feel like witchcraft helped with that?

Elizabeth: I do, because for the first time I got to pick and choose what I believe. Then think about it. Witchcraft does not have a book somewhere that says, this is how you believe. This is what you do. This is what you should think. These are what your morals and values are. Guess what? Now you have to think for yourself. 

Kim: Hmm. I feel for me, I feel like just life experience did that for me. It does help though.

Elizabeth:  Oh, yeah, I mean it helps. I think the ability to find that inner joy that my practice gives me, gives me that center spot from which I can use life experience better, if that makes any sense.

Kim:  It does. 

Elizabeth: Thank you. (both laugh)

Kim: What would you say, you're welcome. What would you say is the biggest motivator in your practice?

Elizabeth: The fact that I want to know how stuff works more than anything else. I think I'm more of my dad's kid than I ever like to admit. I like knowing how things connect to each other, and witchcraft helps me find those connections. It's like I talk to rocks and rocks talk back, which is probably not the normal practice for a lot of people, but I can sense their energy and I know that they are just as alive as I am. They just run on a different time frame than the rest of us. I'd like to be able to prove that to some people, but I don't think it's going to happen in my lifetime.

Kim: Yeah, I don't think we're around long enough.

Elizabeth: No, I don't think we are. And they're going to be around long after we're gone as a species, I think.

Kim: One can only hope, to be honest. (laughs)

Elizabeth: Thanks. Yeah, I kind of, yes, watching climate change. We actually had a 70 degree day the other day where I live. I live in upstate New York. And normally at this time of year, we're getting our last gasp of snowfall and the fact that it was 70 the other day let me know climate change is very real, and is affecting us more than we ever were aware of or cared to pay attention to before.

Kim: Do you ever feel like you have imposter syndrome about your practice?

Elizabeth: Oh all the time. You know I mean when you think about it a lot of people think witchcraft is all made up and make-believe anyway. Why wouldn't we think the same thing? We've been too conditioned sometimes by society to think that, you know. And then I get up and remember that yes, I'm a witch, and yes, I can set my intent for the day and go forth. If I get stuck in traffic, I might have been known to manipulate a stoplight or two in my time. You know, it's just a little things that I can, I know magic is real, it works, and I can use it to make my day a little smoother sometimes. And I'm learning, the older I get, that I don't have to listen to other people's opinions and why am I letting them rent space in my head?

Kim: Absolutely. It's interesting with the whole using it for stoplights. And I think about people who came up with Charmed who probably think you can't do that.

Elizabeth: (laughs) I don'tknow. I don't do it on a regular basis. You know, it's just I don't, to me, magic is becoming more and more part of an everyday thing, where I can do little things for myself or other people just to make it a little better around me. 

Kim: I just meant the whole, "Oh, you're not allowed to use magic for self gain or to help yourself out in any way." I just, it's interesting that people, well, I don't know why you wouldn't but... Charmed. It was a rule on Charmed. 

Elizabeth:  Okay. Yeah now that you say that I guess it was I was never terribly I think that's I Don't know never so much into that kind of show when I was younger or even now because I imagine it's everywhere I could probably go back and watch I get the references But to me their magic was always So grand in that sense to me. I think the biggest part of being a witch is it's becoming more and more the older I get part of the everyday ordinary part of who I am. So it's not, I'm not a, you know chasing demons or changing the world in grand and glorious ways. I'm more likely casting a quick spell to find where the hell I left my car keys yesterday. You know? 

Kim: Yeah, I'm very practical.

Elizabeth: Yes, I think so. I am too. I'm probably one of the biggest pragmatists around right now, at least in my circle of people, simply because somebody has to say, okay, yeah, that's a nice idea, but how do we put it into, like, what can we use it for? Kind of, is it going to benefit anything? Or is it going to be one of those nice philosophical discussions that we're going to have until 3 a.m. Kind of conversations.

Kim:  I'm too tired for that. (laughs)

Elizabeth: Me too, my day starts way too early.

Kim: What would you say is your biggest struggle when it comes to your practice?

Elizabeth: Finding time to actually do something that I consider like really important like the cross-quarter time celebrations that my spiritual partner and I always did, and that I'm now doing with my sage, Dave, there's always something that gets in the way. And finding time to do major things bothers me when I can't, more than anything else. And I think that's my biggest struggle, is I can find five minutes here, I can find five minutes there, but can I string together a couple of hours without interruption nowadays? No.

Kim: I can't imagine spending two hours on one working.

Elizabeth: Well, for us, it's not so much as a working as a celebratory kind of thing.

Kim: Oh, I don't really do holidays myself, but I get it. I get it.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Well, we don't either as a general rule, it's just these have evolved into... kind of an introduction to the season, for want of a better word. It's three rituals we do, and it connects us more deeply to one of the four physical elements for a season. More than anything else, we've kind of developed a system that works here where we practice in terms of what element is more accessible, I guess, for conversation or to partner with during a particular season than another. And we tend to do these and then we go off and we have, you know, little things that we do throughout the season to kind of reinforce that point, for want of a better word.

Kim: Hmm. Well, let's, since we're talking about celebrations, what brings you the most joy in your practice?

Elizabeth: Hmm. The fact that I got up and woke up and I'm breathing today is a good start. I tend to be real grateful for that most mornings. Um, what brings me my most joy? I think when I can talk with somebody else about what I think and it kind of sparks a discussion, whether it's in agreement or I think you're crazy kind of statement, because then there's reason to keep talking to them, more than anything else. I think that's one of the reasons I write, and one of the reasons I'm here talking to you, because I love your podcast and hearing what other people are doing, even if it's not what I do.

Kim: We're all a little bit nosy. (laughs)

Elizabeth: Well sure, and that because it reminds me of the diversity available to us as witches.

Kim: Yeah. I really like that for new people, because I want them to know that you don't have to, you don't have to light a candle every morning.

Elizabeth: No, you don't. There are sometimes I write, I light a mental candle rather than a physical candle next to the coffee maker. You know, there are mornings all I can do is find the coffee maker, let alone think about, okay, what am I planning to do today? What would I like to do today? What the hell do I have to do today? Kind of conversations that I have with myself. So yeah, more than anything else, I love hearing somebody else who struggles finding time to practice or, you know, struggles with, okay, this worked and now it doesn't anymore. And what the hell do I do next kind of conversations.

Kim: It seems like the most common struggle people list is either finding time, or consistency.

Elizabeth: I think so. And I think sometimes it's living up to the expectations we set for ourselves.

Kim: Oh, gosh. That one.

Elizabeth: Like I should be spending more time on my practice or I should be doing this consistently. And I'm a great one for beating myself up with shoulds. Shoulda, coulda, woulda, you know. It's a wonderful line for a song, but you shouldn't have to live like that either. You know, and I think that's my biggest struggle is thinking I should be doing something that I'm not doing right now.

Kim: What would you say is your biggest fear? 

Elizabeth: In life or in witchcraft? 

Kim: In witchcraft if you have any because some people haven't. 

Elizabeth: I don't think so much in witchcraft because it's not like I'm calling up these supposed demons that exist on 87 other planes or whatever. I think my biggest fear in life right now is trying to keep up with the grandchildren because I'm getting older and I joke about the youngest one getting out of high school in 2028 that I'm responsible for. I think it's being responsible for people at my age where this was not in my life plan to be raising grandchildren ever, full time as a career choice. And I think it's, am I meeting their needs because I'm a generation removed. I'm not their parent. And I don't have some of the patience and tolerance that I might have had for 13-year-old behavior 20 years ago. You know, that kind of thing. I think that's my biggest fear is that I'm not being enough for them. And then I remember belatedly sometimes that I'm a witch, so I have a lot more options. 

Kim: Yeah.

Elizabeth: ...than 20 years ago. Yeah. 

Kim: What's something you did early on in your practice that you don't do anymore, and why don't you? 

Elizabeth: You can't do anything on the dark moon, you know, you're supposed to just ignore magic and pretend, you know, that we're all under the blankets. I don't hold with the law of three anymore. Like they talk about, you know, whatever you put out is going to come back to you three times over. I think anything you do magically affects you.

Kim: In one way or another, I agree.

Elizabeth: Oh yeah, exactly. So that you pay the piper if you are a witch and who hexes and curses and all of that. I have been known to occasionally when I felt I had exhausted any other recourse in my life with certain things. But I also took a backlash for it in my own way, you know, and I'm not talking about karma, which is a very, you know, Eastern concept. I think there's reciprocity in the universe, what goes around comes around in terms of what I put out there. So I tend to try to improve myself more than anything else, so that I am putting my own positive spin out into the universe, most of the time. Unless you catch me at 6 o'clock in the morning and we're out of coffee, then all bets are off. but yeah I don't do that anymore. I don't hold with the world is going to end if I miss a Sabbat celebration or a moon celebration. I can acknowledge it in passing if I don't have time for some fancy schmancy kind of ritual thing. I don't push that on people like I used to when I first started practicing. You had to do ritual all the time. And I don't think you do anymore. I think life is more of a ritual than we're willing to acknowledge sometimes.

Kim: I, for me, I feel like pushing ritual or even oftentimes doing ritual, performing ritual, or feeling bad about not doing it is just leftover from church.

Elizabeth:  Oh, I think so. I think a lot of people who come into witchcraft and our kind of spirituality, we all carry, if we've been raised that way, we all carry that baggage. And let's be honest, in this country, we live in a very Christianized society, whether we admit it or not, that there is a certain amount of residual guilt that we bring with us. And sometimes we're better at managing it than others. You know, and I think that's one of the reasons we dive into rituals and, you know, celebrating the full moon if you're part of a group and getting together quote unquote religiously, as it were, for all kinds of activities, because in its own way, the established church is socialization for a lot of people. You know, they don't necessarily attend for the religious experience, but they go because they see the same people or they're part of the choir or there's other active youth group is a big thing in a lot of churches so that you're part of a group and part of regular activities together and a lot I think a lot of people who come into our practice miss that socialization so they create the need for ritual with people.

Kim: When you said youth group my insides just shriveled.

Elizabeth: Oh, mine too, come on. But you get the point.

Kim: I do.

Elizabeth: It gave you a place, it gave you a group of people that you saw regularly, especially as teens, where it's so important to be part of a group. It gave you a place to belong, you know. 

Kim: In local Facebook groups, I see a lot of people who ask about Covens. And as far as I know, there aren't, I mean, there might be one or two in the Tucson area, but I think the one that I know about is Wiccan. And they just, it seems- this is me being Taurus. Okay. But it seems to me that they're on the younger side, like in their early 20s. And I don't necessarily see people their mom's age, aka my age, doing that. 

Elizabeth: No, I don't think so. Well, I think, too, you outgrow that need to have all your expectations met and your needs and wants fulfilled by other people all the time.

Kim: But also I got more selfish and it's okay for me to want things for myself. I don't have to want to take care of everybody all the time.

Elizabeth: Oh yeah, exactly. You know, I mean, I was happily ensconced in my second career when I ended up taking on my daughter's kids, you know, and part of me was selfish and I'm like, I don't want to do this, but there isn't anybody else, damn it. You know, I have to step up and do this, but at the same time, I still at least carve out five or 10 minutes to myself every day, even if it's because I'm hiding in the bathroom somewhere.

Kim: What is your favorite tool in your practice and how do you use it?

Elizabeth: Oh, dear. Okay. Other than me and my head, I think my mind more than anything else, because I can sit here literally and create an entire ritual in my head if I want and think it through. Can't see it, but that's another pet peeve. But I can think my way through an entire ritual like I just sat through it. And I think my computer, because thanks to COVID, I was able to attend all sorts of conventions and kind of, you know, learn about other people who are doing this thing in far-flung places that I can't get to. And because I'm a writer, so I think my computer as well.

That and my bucket of rocks. Yes.

Kim: If you could only recommend one source of info to a new practitioner, what would it be?

Elizabeth: Oh, dear. I think a lot of people who come into this at a younger age, they haven't developed yet. We are so eager for information about what we do and how to do it. And you have to listen to your own inner voice and say, that works for me or that's bullshit. And I think that would be my one source of information is does it resonate within you somehow? And that should be your biggest source of information for witchcraft. Is because you have to figure it out. This is not a religion or faith or practice or whatever you want to call it that you can only get through reading about it. You have to get up off your butt and do things, and have some glorious failures in there as well. Until you figure out what what does work for you and why you're doing what you're doing and what you want to do to express it so I don't think I could recommend like one book or one source or whatever because it took me reading a whole bunch of garbage to figure out what worked for me and what was real and true to me in my practice more than anything else.

Kim: That makes sense. So you live, you said, in the northern part of the country, would you say that environment has shaped your practice? And if you lived somewhere else, would it be different?

Elizabeth: Oh, yeah, I think big time. A, I live right near Lake Ontario, if you know where that is in your state.

Kim: Oh no.

Elizabeth: I live right in the middle of the Great Lakes. No, I'm not in Buffalo, thank god. I have a child who's going to college there and he's experienced seven feet of snow in four hours kind of thing this past winter. But I get the four seasons and I think it has shaped how I see the seasonal changes and it affects me differently than say if I was living in Arizona. I can cope. I happen to, heresy I know, but I happen to enjoy when it's cold. I like January more than July. And my birthday is in July, which says something. I'm more of a cold weather kind of person than hot. I hate heat. If it gets too hot, I can only take so much off and go out in public. If it's cold, I can always put another layer on and just keep on trucking, as I used to say.

Kim: No, no, no. (laughs)

Elizabeth: No, I know. But I like experiencing the seasons because I like that cycle that comes around and things change and are different. Every year I experience different weather and I don't have tornadoes and I don't have earthquakes and I don't have hurricanes on a regular basis. Just the occasional ice storm. So you know, I think it's a trade off. But I like the seasons. I like knowing that it's a representation outside my window of the passage of time. But it comes back around to the same thing again, because here we are, it's April, it's almost 50 out here today and the windows are open so you know it could be worse. 

Kim: It kind of- you're- you made me think that I feel like people think we don't have seasons here.

Elizabeth: No you have different seasons. 

Kim: Yeah it's just it just presents differently. Like there's prickly pear season and there's Palo Verde blossom time and there's the rains and there's these three days that goes below freezing and we have to cover the plants, the winter.

Elizabeth: Those are perfectly acceptable. See, this is it. I think you're influenced by what you live with. Now, you just described a whole seasonal cycle to me that makes perfect sense to where you are.

Kim: But I feel like people don't realize, they just think, oh, it's just hot and then maybe less hot and sometimes it rains, but that's not true. Anyway, we're not here to talk about my weather. How do you pull yourself out of a magical slump?

Elizabeth: Oh, God. Yeah. This may sound stupid, but I go back to basics. You know, did I like that?

Kim: That's the opposite of stupid. In my opinion.

Elizabeth: No, I guess. Thank you. No, I mean, people seem to feel like you should do something dramatic. To me, sometimes it's just getting out of bed and saying, okay, I am a witch today, and I'm going to do something witchy. I don't know what it is yet, but something witchy is going to present itself, and I'm going to grab it. It may be even just paying attention to what my friend Sue always used to call those cosmic synchronicities that show up when we least expect them. You know, those seemingly unrelated coincidences that when we look at what happened yesterday, it's like, oh, that's what the universe was trying to say before it gets out the cosmic 2x4, which we also have experienced being pounded over the head with when we don't get the point.

Kim: Rude.

Elizabeth: Well, it can be, but sometimes it's required because we can be, I guess...

Kim: Too much a Taurus. Don't tell me what to do, I don't care. No, or I don't want to do that.

Elizabeth: Too much a Leo who has no water anywhere in her astrological sight, so I'm probably drowning myself in a bathtub somewhere at that point. Well, I think it's sometimes it's not listening to that little inner voice. And for me, by getting back to basics, sometimes it means taking 10 minutes to meditate somewhere quiet and just listen for that voice who's been yelling at me for the last two months that maybe you need to do this or ignore this or get up off your behind and do this kind of thing. And I find that what gets me out of a slump is remembering to listen. And sometimes if the message isn't my inner voice and it's something that I should have been paying attention to that's like right there in front of me kind of thing.

Kim: I like that.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Kim: Do you listen to the Which Bitch Amateur Hour?

Elizabeth: Occasionally, I used to a lot more.

Kim: Did you hear the shut up and listen episode? Because that's what that reminds me of, what you just said.

Elizabeth:  Yeah, I did, now that you say it again. But sometimes that's what's required. You know, as we get so busy and focused on all that external crap that we're responsible for or think we should be doing, that we forget to listen to ourselves. And if that's not the best definition of insanity I have given myself in a while, you know, that might be it.

Kim: What would you say is something you wish was discussed more in the witch community?

Elizabeth: Oh, God. That we tend to be a very white community, at least in this country, and that maybe we need to stop talking about diversity and acceptance and non-binary, you know, everything and just make ourselves more inclusive because we do know how if we choose to be. You know, I am, I'm saying this because I'm raising African American grandchildren and yeah, watching what goes on in American society can be frustrating at times. You know and I'd like to think that that white privilege is going to die an untimely death sooner rather than later and I don't think we need it in the witchcraft community either. And sometimes I think it's unintentional, but sometimes we need to be a bit more mature in our attitudes. It is really easy to point fingers and say, you should be doing more, when maybe we need to stay in our own lane a little better. Spoken from a 63-year-old perspective who's kind of watched history for a long time and it does seem to go in cycles with a lot of things. 

Kim: Sadly, yes. 

Elizabeth: Sadly, yes. I keep hoping that we're going to outgrow some of our humanity, if that makes any sense. Because we seem to cycle around to some interesting parallels, how's that, of things that have happened before. And you would have think we would have gotten the point the last 14 times by now, but apparently not.

Kim: Nope.

Elizabeth: Nope. You know. And I think that's where witchcraft makes a difference because we're kind of the outlier.

Kim: Yeah. Fringe people.

Elizabeth: Fringe people on the bell curve, as it were, and we tend to be the ones who kind of drive change towards the middle.

Kim: Do you ever work with other witches?

Elizabeth: Yeah, I do. Much so, less so now as I've gotten older. Like I said, I talk about Dave and my friend Sue. We met in a coven a long time, longer ago than I care to admit and a bunch of us literally kind of broke away because we were kind of tired of all the sweetness and pretend light that was going on and worked together for a while and kind of dwindled down to the two of us like you said we get older and a bit more set in our ways and you know we want what we want when we want it and we're more willing to be live and let live. And it kind of dwindled down to the two of us. And then, as I said, she passed away last year. And now I have Dave. I'm still connected to the local community in that respect. And Dave and I are podcasting nowadays. And I like to think somebody's out there listening to us because, you know, they say they are but yeah and we're not just talking to each other through a Google Meet you know at 2 in the morning when we have time to record when it's quiet or whatever but I find I don't need to work with other people like I used to when I was younger. I am less concerned about oh I have to have a certain amount of energy to do whatever when I can tap into the universe is much more readily than I could when I first started out. I think a lot of us want that security of a coven when, like you said, they're all in their 20s or when we're first starting out because there is somebody to catch us if we're about to fall flat on our face, hopefully, kind of thing. Today I am more likely to take responsibility, I guess, for my own stuff so that I don't need to practice with others like I used to when I was younger.

Kim:  I'm just a control freak and if they don't do it the way I want, then I don't want to do it with them.

Elizabeth:  That's okay too. You know.

Kim: That's the real reason. And also people are terrifying and scary and mean and no thank you.

Elizabeth: Well, sometimes it depends what people you're hanging out with, you know, you can choose who you hang out with I mean, I think that's part of the freedom of being a witch You know is if I don't vibe with you I'm not gonna hang out with you so, you know, no skin off my nose No skin off your thigh. Nice to meet you.

Kim:  Who or what would you say are your three biggest influences on your practice?

Elizabeth: (sighs) Oh Dear oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Okay. I can't call out any big pagan names or authors because I read everything. I think anybody like you or the people on Witch Bitch Amateur Hour or any of those podcasts like that who got up and said, okay, I'm going to do a podcast about witchcraft and I don't care. And it was there for me to listen to when I was really developing, for one of the better word, resentments about having to transport my grandchildren everywhere in a car and if I had to wait for somebody to come out of football practice one more time that they said was going to be over at 7.30 and it's quarter to nine and I'm still sitting there, and I found podcasts to listen to. I think anybody like that has been a big influence on my practice. I know my best friend Sue was a super influence on me because she listened to how I thought about things and say, okay, how do we make that work? And we would figure it out. And like I said, she has been party to some of our more spectacular failures when we've tried to do various workings and magics and decided in the middle, no, this isn't what we wanted to do. And I think more than anything else, my grandmother on my mom's side, who lived to be 106, and she was probably, she grew up in an age where she could vote, the first year women could vote, and live to see the development of airplanes, and live through more world wars and police actions and insurrections and you'd care to count and was probably the most accepting person I ever met and for her generation that would not have been the norm.

Kim: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: Yeah, so her ability to say okay. If it floats your boat go do it.

Kim: Good.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Kim: Do you have any advice for a new practitioner, or "baby witch" as some are wont to say?

Elizabeth: Don't sweat the big stuff. You know.

Kim: The big stuff?

Elizabeth:  The big stuff. You know like is am I going to blow up the universe if I walk the wrong way around the circle?

Kim: Oh, okay. You mean that big.

Elizabeth: Oh, that big stuff. You know what I'm saying? That, one of the most important things I have learned about working magic and practicing witchcraft is I can say I don't know and it's okay. 

Kim: Yeah, that's important. 

Elizabeth: Oh, please, yes. Okay? okay, is I and I don't have to know and there are things I'm never going to know. It doesn't matter how much I read or how much I do, there's a limit here, you know, that my brain will absorb and use on a daily and yearly and lifetime basis. And I think that no one can tell you you're doing it wrong just because they do it differently than you do. And if they are, you need to get as far away from them as possible.

Kim: Who should I have on the show?

Elizabeth: More people like you've been having. I don't know, I'll be honest, I don't know all the big names in the witchcraft world. I get more joy out of you talking to everyday people than people with names. Does that make sense?

Kim: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: I, if you found, you know, people like me, the average witch around the corner, down the block, you know, and talk to them like you talk, you talk to me like I'm as important as the people I know are important names that have been on your show, and I think that's cool.

Kim: Yay. Yay! Is there anything that I didn't bring up or any questions that you had?

Elizabeth: We created a Witchstones Oracle deck because she could never read tarot successfully. It used to drive her nuts because there was always too many meanings to the cards, depending on what it was next to or what it did. We went through a period where someone we were practicing with was kind of dabbling in runes. And we went up to Lake Ontario and our original witchstones were literally stones that we found on a beach with a whole bunch of pebbles. And we started adding symbols to them for stuff that was relevant to our practice and what we do. And the meanings sort of evolved from there. And now we've created a deck of Oracle cards that we have out there on Etsy at the moment at, you know, Young Crones Cafe or 2 Young Crones. And to us they're just kind of those more universal symbols of witchcraft. And they read two ways. If you can see the picture, it's seen energy. If you get the back of the card, which is, you know, like the fancy design that you put on the back like a deck of playing cards. It's unseen energy and it's still energy. It's just not as prevalent, I guess, or obvious. So we're having a lot of fun getting those out. 

Kim: Are you okay with me doing a giveaway? Because you sent me two...

Elizabeth: Okay, this is for you. Because you keep saying you can't do divination. And I wanted to see what you thought. But yeah, but the idea is they're not complicated. You know, if you want to just draw one card and see what the energy says, you know, and we like them. They're very handy. That's something that I do try to do on at least a semi-weekly basis, is pull a card and see what the energy might be that might show up and hit me over the head when I wasn't looking. I like to think of them as my personal heads up sometimes, you know. But the symbols are not complex, you know, they're not, it's not like a tarot deck that's got, you know, 47 different symbols on it that you can get distracted by. It's one picture and you're done. It is very rune-like. In that respect, yes, I think. But they're more meaningful because they relate to things that we do.

Kim: And I will be giving away a deck of these cards this week!

Elizabeth: Oh, cool. So make sure you click the link in the show notes to figure out how you can win your own deck! So the last two things, number one, please recommend something to the listeners.

Elizabeth: Oh dear. Okay. I'm going to selflessly promote here. We have a book out on Amazon that's called The Liturgy of the Past Tradition that I've been getting much more into again, because I wrote it a while ago. And the idea is, okay, shameless here. I'm in recovery for a little over 30 years so that I am well familiar with the concepts of prayer and meditation. You know, prayer is talking to the God of your understanding and then meditation is listening for the answers. Okay, and our liturgy book is conversations with the divine when you don't have your own words so that you can use the ones we wrote, adapt them if you want, or just open up the page and say, that, that's what I'm feeling right now. And I want the universe to help me with it, kind of thing.

Kim: I like that.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Thanks. I appreciate that. Yeah, because sometimes you don't have words. All you have are the raw feelings. And I love it if somebody else's words work when mine don't. And I'm shameless enough to say that I'd like to think people are using my words sometimes. And I've been kind of getting back into it and reading what I wrote and I'm going to put it out there because I need to do it for myself and my practice. You were talking about how you get out of slumps. One of the things I wrote is a series of, we use the word prayers because it's a way of talking to the universe that's similar to like what lay Catholics used to do way back in the day where you prayed at different hours of the day.

Kim: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Yes, and I wrote one. That's part of this book and that's something I've used before when I find that things are becoming routine or I'm not doing stuff or whatever I tend to pop back into that and do it for a day or two and it tends to reset things sometimes.

Kim: Now, the last thing is, please tell me a story.

Elizabeth: Okay. Um, yeah, best story I've got. Like I said, my daughter is deceased and she used to dye her hair, this kind of almost that auburn more reddish purple-ish color and I am was never a big believer necessarily in communications from beyond the spirit realms kind of thing you know I've never had personal experiences where you know my ancestors came back and brought me sage advice or whatever, but I am firmly convinced that my daughter and granddaughter, oldest granddaughter who died with her, are alive and well and living in our house and, you know, regularly check in on us just to make sure things are okay. I rejoiced in, you know, little triumphs that kids have. And one of my grandsons got accepted to a private high school here where we live and it took a lot of work to get there and we were invited to that you show up and yes it is a Catholic high school but I don't care because it's a good education and you come and you get like a pin that says you are now a member of this particular school and this graduating class and everything and they all wear their you know suit coats and ties and all of this to school and to the ceremony. So I went with him and he's sitting with his friends in the audience and I'm in another section and I watched this kid get his pin. And of course, you know, I'm tearing up because it's such a big deal for him. And I go to meet up with him afterwards and there's these three long strands of hair, that color of my daughter's hair on his sleeve. Now he was not around any kids with long hair. He wasn't around anybody, there's nobody there with that color hair as far as I know. But it was just her way of checking in and letting her know that she was proud of him. 

Kim: That's neat!

Elizabeth: Yeah. And I remind him of that when he's like, why did you send me to this school? Because he's buried in homework or he's stuck in theology class, which is the one cross you bear if you attend a Catholic high school. But I don't know. 

Kim: Ah, very punny. (laughs)

Elizabeth: The education is better. So, you know, and I remind him of that, you know, but guess what? You're going to have choices when you get out of school.

Kim: Yeah.

Elizabeth:  And he's going off to be a stonemason, which I think is awesome. You know, he's one of these kids who's always been better with his hands. And I am a firm believer, for anybody who's listening, that college is not necessarily for everybody. If you're if you're going into a profession that requires you to have that piece of paper, great, go. If not, figure it out. That's what most people did for years before it became such an obsession that everyone has to go to college.

Kim: Mhmm.

Elizabeth: Yeah. And the trades need us in this world, I think.

Kim:  Yeah, I don't want to learn to be a plumber.

Elizabeth: Or an auto mechanic or an electrician, or, or, or. I will happily pay you to do it for me.

Kim: Yeah, I don't want to learn HVAC.

Elizabeth: No, exactly. I want somebody who's going to come to my house and I will pay the exorbitant fee because it's January and the heat isn't working. You know, that's, yeah, I will pay for that still. You know, just so I don't have to know how to do it.

Kim: Well, thanks for being on the show.

Elizabeth: Well, thank you for inviting me. It's been a blast.

Kim: Well good.

Elizabeth: And hopefully I said some things that somebody else wanted to hear.

Kim: I imagine. We can be hopeful.

Kim: And I will see you over on the internet then. Bye!

Elizabeth: (fades in) This was a red candle. Wasn't supposed to burn that long, but it burned the entire 10 days of the trial. And when the verdict came in, my friend was tending the candle out in her backyard and it just kept burning and burning and the glass cracked. And that's when I knew there's more certainty than I've ever known in my life that magic works. So I think that is my most important... (fades out)

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