Sharon of Swail Studio. Imposter syndrome, morning pages, and finding your practice

This week I'm talking to Sharon of Swail Studios. We talk about imposter syndrome, morning pages, and how to determine what fits into your practice.

Swail Studio

Before we get into the episode I'd like to invite you to Fortune Fridays, where I will be doing live card pulls in the Hive House facebook group. There are others who will join in periodically, so come check it out, talk to some new people, and get a tarot, rune or oracle reading!
Fortune Fridays at Hive House

Transcript

 Welcome back to Your Average Witch, where every Tuesday we talk about witch life, witch stories, and sometimes a little witchcraft. Your Average Witch is brought to you by Clever Kim's Curios. Before we get into the episode I'd like to invite you to Fortune Fridays, where I will be doing live card pulls in the Hive House facebook group. There are others who will join in periodically, so come check it out, talk to some new people, and get a tarot, rune or oracle reading!

This week I'm talking to Sharon of Swail Studios. We talk about imposter syndrome, morning pages, and how to determine what fits into your practice. Now let's get to the stories. 

 Kim: Hi, Sharon. Welcome to the show.

Sharon: Hello. Thanks for having me, Kim.

Kim: Thank you for being here! Can you please introduce yourself and let everybody know who you are and what you do and where they can find you?

Sharon: Yeah. So I'm Sharon Wagner. I am a brand designer at Swail Studio, which I founded, where I make weirdos look expensive.

Kim: Yay!

Sharon: And yes, that is a one-liner. And you can mainly find me on Instagram at Swail Studio. I'm sure it will be in the notes, but Swail is spelled S-W-A-I-L. And, yeah, I'm based in New York City for now. I've been here for 13 years and I'm about to relocate actually in the spring and I have not decided whether or not I want to publicly tell people where I'm relocating yet so I'm gonna stay mysterious about that for now.

Kim: Give out clues and let them guess. Like little micro shots of where you are, like a sandwich that you can only get within a 50 mile radius.

Sharon: Good question. That's actually really hard because I feel like this place has a lot, has like a pretty iconic like feel to it.

Kim: So I guess if it's a cheesesteak, I'm going to guess what it is.

Sharon: Right. Yeah, I can't think of a good way to introduce one.

Kim: I am a jerk, so that's what I would do. Everyone guess where I am. Here's a bunch of food.

Sharon: Yeah, yeah. Let's see. I'll say the music industry. That is my wide, wide clue.

Kim: So everybody, go follow her on Instagram and look for those hints or just guess based on that. So Sharon, what does it mean to you when you call yourself a witch?

Sharon: Well, when I call myself a witch, it means... I guess my definition would be spirit work, specifically. Working with spirits and intentionally engaging with energy in a way that's directed as opposed to just sending out a vibe that you don't realize is happening. (laughs)

Kim: Just living life.

Sharon: Yeah,, yeah, exactly. But yeah, intentionally manipulating things on an unseen level, I would say, or at least intending to manipulate things on an unseen level. For me, it's also animism, assuming that everything else around me operates on an unseen level. And generally-

Kim: Ooo, I like that one!

Sharon: Awesome. But yeah, generally, yeah, this question is interesting to me because I feel like I'm still very much exploring what my own personal cosmology is. And that's something I kind of enjoy. I kind of make things up as I go and see what's true one day versus another.

Kim: Well that makes sense because I'm not the same person I was ten years ago so...

Sharon:  Yeah absolutely not.

Kim: It makes sense that should change thank God.

Sharon: Yes agree.

Kim: Do you have or magical practice of any kind?

Sharon:Well, I had a pretty standard, standard on one level, like, Midwestern, German-ish, American, Lutheran upbringing. No serious, intense church trauma. Which, it's interesting that that seems actually kind of rare in the space of witchcraft.

Kim: I was thinking that.

Sharon: Yeah, yeah. But I had this interesting slant of I was also raised by engineers and my parents were very specifically interested in science and definitely raised me and my siblings to be critical thinkers and to have like an interest in how things work and why they work that way. So it was kind of an interesting, conflicting cosmology, again, of like, yes, I am being taught that God exists and Jesus exists and all of these things around that. And getting kind of one message in the church, which we were regular church goers. We went every Sunday. But again, not extremely strict. We actually had a pretty interesting pastor who taught us meditation and things like that. So in hindsight, this was like a pretty solid, like small community church experience. But again, having that conflicting piece of like, But also science, and creationism is not real. So there was a lot of back and forth. You know, it's a whole other conversation we could have about how a lot of people who are very interested in science and how things work are also into spirituality, specifically because of that. Like there's that for me there's definitely overlap. But for me, as far, again, as far as what I've experienced in this community, that seems like a pretty unique perspective to come from of like, yeah, I've been more about marrying these two opposites than like bouncing between extremes. Though I did, of course, havemy atheist phase before I got here. (laughs) Yeah. And yeah, and I'll also say like I definitely had an interest in witchcraft very young. I was super, I got super into like sci-fi, and then into fantasy, and was always so interested in how stories talked about magic. Like Tamora Pierce and like Garth Nix books were huge for me. And yeah, I always loved that in an escapist way and related to it. And then, you know, I got to the age where I'm in half-priced books waiting for my mom to be done at the salon and wandering over to like the occult section, and just looking at these titles and being like... not scared of them, but feeling like this is too much power and I cannot buy this, (laughs) when I'm like 12. You know? So I like, it's like I had the gateway in front of me and I like turned away very young because I was like this feels like there's no coming back if I start this which yeah then when I was in my 20s yes that was absolutely absolutely correct for once I went down the rabbit hole, there is no coming back from that. So here I am.

Kim: So do you believe in deity now?

Sharon: I do. I do. And yeah, it's also still very much an evolving, definitely emerging thing for me currently. I've never like sought specifically to work with deities but I've definitely had experiences that point to that. And I'm not, honestly, to get honest, (laughs) I have not really gotten like my shit together spiritually to like create the practices that I know will like bring in deeper engagement with deities. Though, yeah, I was planning on bringing this up later in the interview when we get to influences, but... (both laugh) for me a big turning point was reading The Artist's Way and beginning to work through that.

Kim: That keeps coming up!

Sharon:  Mm-hmm. It's so funny, any time I mention it to someone they're always like, oh, you're the third person who's mentioned that to me in the past month. I feel like I'm like proselytized for The Artist's Way, for sure. And it was so interesting going through it and the way that Julia Cameron talks about The Creator resonates so deeply with me. Like as I was getting through to the chapters, I talk really specifically about, you know, not just trusting the universe, but then like there is a creative force that is working through you. That to me just like clicked everything into place. I've never been sure if I can believe in a specific god, but I can absolutely, like, I absolutely have evidence that that creative force exists and that is how I work. So that, that for me, the, the, I don't want to say general, but like, the maybe amorphous creative deity energy is definitely something that I believe in and work with on a daily basis.

Kim: Okay, so I am officially stating right now on December, what date is it? 18th, that I'm going to read that book in 2024.

Sharon: Aw yeah.

Kim: Somebody call me up like February-ish and say, did you do it? Do it then, you said. Okay, everybody hassle me.

Sharon: Perfect, yeah. And for what it's worth, I feel like I've never heard of anyone actually finish it.

Kim: Well good! (laughs)

Sharon:  It's like a 12 week thing. I've never met anyone who has actually fully worked through it, but it's definitely, it's like there's so much in there, it's so dense. Like, good luck if you can actually work through it in 12 weeks. But, um, literally just starting with certain tools, like morning pages, of course, and stuff like that, and just seeing how it goes and just taking a couple of things from there really changed everything for me.

Kim: The first person I ever interviewed for this podcast mentioned it actually.

Sharon: Hmm.

Kim:  Which was interesting. And now this is the last person I've interviewed so far. So, cool. Could you introduce us to your practice? Do you have any regular or consistent rituals that you'll share?

Sharon: Yeah, so morning pages I have abandoned, temporarily, while we're there. (both laugh) So for me, I actually have like a pretty solid daily routine practice, and that is the basis of my practice, as opposed to like larger rituals. So for me, it's I have like I keep an altar and I have nightly altar time where I give offerings and say prayers, acknowledging my allies in the other worlds, if you will, and journaling, that's always been huge for me to just keep, first to keep tabs on my own mental health and then to extend my magical practice into like, yes, I am writing down this weird thing that happened today so that I remember it and I can't convince myself that none of this is real later. And daily tarot as well. And I also definitely lean on moon cycles to measure time. I again like don't do a lot of big rituals because I personally have like an intense aversion to time pressure, which is also like why I started my own business, because I can't handle deadlines that aren't my own deadlines, (laughs) that I set for myself.

Kim: Well, why should you though? Their emergency isn't my emergency.

Sharon: Exactly. But yeah, but then my problem is that that also extends to like the moon, where I'm like, I cannot get my shit together to like plan my own full moon ritual. We'll always run out of time.

Kim: We're not talking about the negative stuff, we're only talking about why it works for us to not worry about other people.

Sharon: Yes, perfect. Wonderful.

Kim: We're right. (both laugh)

Sharon: Yes, yes. Um, yeah, and then the last pretty regular piece is I try to keep on top of my cleansing, of my space especially, living in New York in an apartment in a loud neighborhood with the train outside and people yelling in the grocery store across the street. I try to like keep that pretty locked down and like keep, and I've just started doing, taking boarding more seriously on the regular, and I definitely noticed a difference with that as well.

Kim: Oh, good!

Sharon: So yeah, I'm a very slow routine builder, where it will take me months to really, like, work into a routine, but once it's there, it is solid, and I will do it 90% of the time.

Kim: That's cool. Yeah, I'm not a three – I'm not one of those people are like, if you do it for three weeks in a row, it's a habit. It's not.

Sharon: Right, right. And they're seasonal-

Kim: And there's, I don't know who said that, but it's not anyone who thinks like I do.

Sharon: Completely agree. And my habits are so seasonal, too, where like I, um, of course, like in the winter months and there's no sunlight and every year I've started to notice like, oh yeah, I do have a lot less energy and I do need to change my routines and my expectations of myself. And I don't count that as like, oh no, I like dropped a habit. Like I'm never doing morning pages again. It's just, okay, well, not right now. I'll do that when it feels good again and not beating myself up about it.

Kim: That is healthy.

Sharon: (laughs) It took a long time to get there.

Kim: Way to not self-castigate and talk crap about yourself. Good job.

Sharon: (laughs) Thank you.

Kim: Note to self. (laughs)

Sharon:  Takes a lot of practice but highly recommend. (laughs)

Kim: Would you say that witchcraft has changed your life?

Sharon: 100%. It, again, having this attraction to it for a long time and then finally picking it up and taking it on as a part of my life and my identity. I would say the biggest thing is, again, coming back to cosmologies, which I will keep coming back to, it just opens up your options for how to see the world so much bigger than what you think you're seeing in front of you, outside of you, with your senses. And for me, especially as someone who, like, diagnosed chronic depression, plenty of things, questionably neuro-spicy, I am slowly learning about myself, my family, all these things. It allows for much wider interpretations and definitions of what's going on, like the self-acceptance piece. It's really easy when you're very depressed to say, everything is terrible, all these things happen to me, and I have no control over what my body is allowing me to do right now, fuck this. But just having a framework where reality is a little bit more pliable, and you have more room to experiment and play with with what you supposedly can or cannot do, absolutely just blows open the possibilities for me.

Kim: (quietly) Dang.

Sharon: And I think the other piece is, and those possibilities provide, again, like give you the agency to make changes when, that you can. And it has also led me to meet people who are also interested in change, and in actually doing the work to make things different in the world and create the reality that we want to create. Those are the people who I'm always seeking to work with, especially. But generally, I find people are, people just have this much wider view of the world and of reality and the possibilities and that is a much more inspiring way for me to live than to sit in like, there is, I have no control over my reality and how things work.

Kim: Who is that? Who does that? (Sharon laughs) That's so foreign, I can't even imagine how that feels!

Sharon: Really, yeah, no, I think of my atheist phase, which went through college even though I was writing papers about witches and books and shit like that. Oblivious. (laughs) And that's the thing, it was something that I had to come to, to get through my own bullshit, for sure. 

Kim: Hmm. What do you feel like is your biggest motivator in your practice? And has it changed since you first started out?

Sharon:  Well, I would say the biggest motivator definitely ties into the point that I got into it in the first place, which would have been in my early 20s. I got through art school and graduated and got a full-time job in advertising straight straight out of school. Like I already had the job before I graduated, which was very, very rare.

Kim: Nice!

Sharon: Yeah, like it was amazing and it was exactly what I wanted because that was my number one priority, getting out of school was I want to have a full-time job so I can stay in New York City. I went to Pratt Institute. So my goal was like, I need to stay here. My family was in South Carolina at the time and I did not want to go back for various reasons. So, uh, I did it, but I also went absolutely insane in the process. Like I really deeply burned myself out. Um, at the time I saw advertising as absolutely selling out and it was a job that was offered. Therefore I took it, but it was also not really what I wanted to do. So there was some dissonance in itself. And then going into this full-time job with no break after having like my senior year of college-

Kim: School? All this school you just went to? All this school you just went to your whole child life?

Sharon: Yeah. Yeah, and then on top of that, in my senior year, I again had made it my priority to get a job and not necessarily to like, pass with flying colors by that point. So, like with art school, it's like no one gives a shit about your grades. Like, going to a free job...

Kim: Cs get degrees, baby, Cs get degrees! (laughs)

Sharon: Right, yeah, it was like, I was purely focused on like, well, I'm gonna have a good portfolio and I'm gonna have good work experience. So I had two work study jobs, I was interning. By senior year, I was at a part-time course load, but I was spending all of my time working and interning. So I had the experience to get a full-time job, which a lot of my peers did not have. But I had all this burnout (laughs) that I was carrying with me. It's funny thinking back on that period of time because I remember being so frustrated that my work, my schoolwork was not as good as I wanted it to be. And with just like a year of distance, I then realized like, oh, I literally didn't have time. Like, what was I thinking? There was no way I could make good work with the amount that I was working on other stuff. Yeah, so that's a whole other thing. But coming back to the motivator. So the original motivator was I was so burnt out and deep, deep in this job that was creative and I was a junior designer in a very small agency with very little power over the work that we were doing or my role in it. Though had more power than if I would have been at a much larger agency. And yeah, I was so burnt out. And I was just going home and spending hours on astrology blogs. (laughs) Like this was my, it started as an outlet of like there has to be a better way for everything to work. Like there has to be a way that I can find fulfillment somewhere else that isn't my job, which is what I had been told and assumed would be the way that I found fulfullment, of course. And yeah, the motivator was how do I survive this? Like, how do I survive this without losing my mind? Like, how can I go to work every day and feel good about it? Because at that point, I could not do that. I was so deeply dissatisfied. I had a lot of relationships that fell apart at that point in my life. And so there was a sense of like, okay, well, I thought I was doing everything right, so there has to be something else. Like, where is the cheat code? So that's kind of what brought me into it.

Kim: Could it be that they lied to us? (laughs)

Sharon: Could it be? Could you imagine?

Kim: Capitalism isn't the avenue to happiness? How could that be? (laughs)

Sharon: Who knew? Who knew. So yeah, I guess the deep motivator, which still carries through now, is finding connection to myself and something larger, and finding the thread to pull me through like those dips in my mental health and hard times in general. *gestures to the world around us* Yeah and just like staying centered and grounded that things will keep moving. Or in my notes, I put it better, remembering who I am, what I'm here to do, and to just keep going, and finding a way to keep going.

Kim: Okay, that made me think of a question that is... I don't know. It's a question.

Sharon: Let's do it!

Kim: Do you feel like ... (pauses) I gotta go back into time and listen to what you said in my head again. Hold on.

Sharon: Yeah, yeah.

Kim: I feel like like witches have a different idea. Like they, I feel like we try harder to figure out what it is we're here to do. And we aren't just satisfied just going to work because that's what everybody does. 

Sharon: Oh, yes.

Kim: We are like, no, I'm here to do something, and we need to figure out what it is. And, like, your average person going to a job in their office, in their cubicle, I don't know that they do that. Maybe they should because they seem to be all, like, massively unhappy with their lives, based on interactions with them on Facebook. But... (both laugh) I feel like we as witches actually are conscious of the need to figure that out and actually do whatever it is.

Sharon: Yeah. I mean, that makes me think there's definitely something about being a witch that is inherently proactive about existing as a person. Like, we're constantly trying to find, like I  recently had a client say spirituality is, it's about being a better human. That's like the ultimate end goal and that was from Jackie from the Outer Known Podcast to give credit and a shout out.

Kim: Nice!

Sharon: Shout out, not a shadow, okay. Yeah, like people who are into spirituality are, and especially witches, which kind of infers this like, I guess this didn't go into my definition earlier, but it infers you're able to engage with the darkness of reality on a certain level, and you're able to kind of see the full range of possibilities as opposed to just going like, oh, well, I'm just going to go in this direction and ignore everything else and it'll be fine.

Kim: That is in fact what I do really often, though.

Sharon: Yeah. (both laugh)

Kim: I'm not gonna pretend.

Sharon: Right. I mean, and that's, and the other piece, it's like, I feel like witches are also, again, because we work in change, we also accept when things change. We accept when there are fluctuations, again, whether it's in our personal energy or, oh, I was going in this direction and now it's time to switch directions. And that can happen, obviously, more smoothly and consciously or less smoothly and consciously. I forget where I was going with this, but...

Kim: It's still fun. Yeah. I mean, I'm enjoying the conversation and it's making sense to me.

Sharon: Awesome. I'm glad.

Kim: We'll see what everybody else thinks in a month. (both laugh) I'll get a review that this is the most disjointed time I've ever heard you. (laughs) Were you on drugs. Maybe I was.

Sharon: Who knows.

Kim: I'm not. I just had some pudding earlier. How do you feel about imposter syndrome?

Sharon: Mhmmm. Oh my gosh. Um... I would say that I have not beat imposter syndrome. (both laugh)

Kim: I gotta say, I'm sorry I'm interrupting you, but this interview is so, I feel like we're both in the same place right now-

Sharon: Yeah.

Kim: ...and that's really strange for me. (laughs)

Sharon: Oh, you mean you don't, you don't, you normally rely on someone else's mood to like make you feel sane? Because same. And now we're both here...

Kim: Yup.

Sharon:  ...and we're on the same level.

Kim: That's exactly it. Sorry for interrupting you but And I know it's gonna come out in the interview.

Sharon: Yep.

Kim: Yup. Tell me about your imposter syndrome and how you're not a real person and everything you do is a fake. 

Sharon: Right.

Kim: Sorry, that's me. 

Sharon: Yeah. I feel like the discourse about imposter syndrome has gotten so muddy and crazy, becausesome people are like " imposter syndrome actually isn't a thing and it's way overblown-"

Kim: What?!

Sharon: ... and other people are like it's my entire life and I can't, like I don't know any other way to function. 

Kim: Who even am I? 

Sharon: Right, right. And for me like I would say in witch, witchcraft specifically, I have, I still have major imposter syndrome and partly because I mean I honestly identify still as like a pretty new witch. Like I really didn't get serious about my practice. I'm like, like I I learned like tarot and astrology like 10 years ago and like started that journey, but I didn't get serious about like building a practice of like again like the specific spirit work pieces and things like that, that make it that make something like a tarot practice deeper than just that, that give it the fuel and the oomph and the connection to something bigger. That piece of my practice didn't really come in until 2020. It was, for me and for a lot of other people, I know it was a huge catalyst for that, and for me specifically, living alone in 2020 for the first time, which I had been super excited about leading up to it. I couldn't wait to live alone. And then my roommate moved in with her fiance and I was like, this is amazing. For two weeks. And then it was also COVID. And I was like, oh, this is bad.

Kim: I'm completely alone. 

Sharon: Like this is not what I wanted it to be, but it absolutely, just like being in that void, like, if I had not had a spiritual practice that I was building at that time, that would have been so much worse. And it really did catalyze and just change everything Um, yeah, so, so really, I'm really only about like three years into a serious witchcraft practice and I don't, I do not consider myself experienced. Like I absolutely consider myself still a beginner and I'm still kind of trying to figure out my cosmology, how I really want to think and feel about things, and what I want to focus on. I dip my toes in a lot of things, and currently stick with the stuff that has stuck so far in terms of just like okay here's what I already know is working for me and just getting really good and consistent at that before I move on to finding the shiny next thing. Yeah, so as a witch definitely I guess I don't have imposter syndrome. I just do consider myself authentically a beginner and I don't think that's a bad judgment. (laughs) And yeah, and then work, in my work that's like a whole other thing with imposter syndrome where I have a lot of experience, but again, not nearly as much experience running a business and there are different elements to different things. So yeah, I would say it's very hard to be, I categorically do not struggle with imposter syndrome, but there are definitely some pieces that I'm just like yeah, I'm solid on this, and there are other pieces that are just, ah. I don't actually have that skill yet, and I'm not gonna pretend that I do.

Kim: That is one of the healthiest ways of looking at and describing and dealing with imposter syndrome that I have ever heard.

Sharon: Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I just try to be honest with myself. Like, I'm not, like, if I'm not an expert I'm not going to bill myself as an expert. Like I'm not out here teaching witchcraft and I would not try to do that for many years. Or like even. even you know. I work with a lot of witches in my branding work and towards the beginning of that I had this idea that like oh well I have to like prove to everyone that I'm a witch. And I have to like add I have to have some sort of like magic incorporated into my services otherwise like who, otherwise it's like why would I work with witches? But then it really came down to like okay but like I'm not actually experienced enough that I'm confident in intentionally adding like spells and sigils and things like that into branding work, but I am really good at working with spiritual practitioners, because that's obviously how my brain works, and those are the people I want to support and help make more money. (laughs) So I'm still going to focus on that, even though I'm not going to pretend that I can provide magical services. That... my intuition definitely factors into my branding. I've had people tell me that I read their minds when I do branding and that was happening before I was consciously practicing witchcraft, you know, before I was consciously working on like my psychic abilities, etc. So, yeah, it's like absolutely a factor, but I'm not gonna say like, yes, I can like cast a glamour for your brand when I'm like, actually, I'm not confident I can do that. I'm not gonna pressure myself to like, offer something that I'm not confident in when I'm already good at my core skillset of branding and design.

Kim: That is cool.

Sharon: Good, I'm glad you think so. It's something I've always been self-conscious about, you know? So I appreciate that. (laughs)

Kim: The fact that you come out and say, no, I'm not doing magical shit on this thing I'm doing for you. I am doing, I am using my magic in the way that I do to help you do your thing, but I'm not, that's what I'm doing. That's what I'm doing. I'm not everything you just said. Ditto.

Sharon: Perfect. (both laugh)

Kim: What would you say is your biggest struggle with your practice?

Sharon: My biggest struggle is definitely not doing enough. Again, I've gotten really good at keeping a relatively regular routine and not beating myself up when I don't get to it every day or if I have a busy week and I just can't get to it and it's more important for me to sleep than like do the offerings and prayers on a particular day. I don't judge myself for that. But again, like I don't do my own like moon I have not done a big spell for a long time. I really rely on guidance and structures from other practitioners whose services I'm paying for, whether it's like a group ritual or like a course with someone I'm learning from. I've really relied on other practitioners to give me the structure and give me like, okay, we are going to do a ritual and it and you get, and I get to participate, but they're the ones who have prepared it and planned it. I again have found that it's really not my strength to like come up with a big elaborate ritual because ultimately there's a time pressure piece and I also tend to like to keep things as simple as possible. I am not someone who's going to like put on a giant, I'm not going to be putting on ritual robes and like chanting for two hours. Like I will never be that person. Like I, like that kind of thing in a group setting, awesome. But if it's something that I have to prepare and do myself, I am not, I'm not ever going to do that.

Kim: It's not going to happen. Yep, same. Same.

Sharon? Yeah, I'd say that's my biggest struggle. And then the other piece is when I first started getting serious about it, I was doing a lot of trance work, working with Ren Zatopek. She was really my big... big, she was the most structured teacher that I've ever had. (laughs) And she does incredible guided trance journeys. She has a group called Hedge Riders and it's a very, very low-priced membership, and she does monthly trance journeys. And I have not done one for a very long time. (laughs)  You know, because I'm just like, okay, I need to find the two hours. I need to blah, blah, blah. And sorry, Ren, if you're listening to this. But Ren is also very understanding of like, yeah, and sometimes you can't do things, which is great. And that's why I love her. But yeah, it's like there are things that I want to do that require deeper focus and a higher time commitment than nightly offerings. And I would like to do those, but I'm still struggling to find the energy and the time to put those in. So I'd say that is currently my biggest struggle, is like figuring out where I can fit those in, and then also being honest with myself about whether or not I have the energy to do those things right now. 

Kim: Yeah, because I don't.

Sharon: (laughs) Yeah, big same, big same right now.

Kim: What brings you the most joy in your practice?

Sharon: For me, it's the little things. It's definitely the synchronicities. Like, just a couple weeks ago, I tell my candles, thank you, when I put them out. Personally, as an animist, that is what I like to do. (laughs)

Kim: Me too!

Sharon: Yeah,  I tell them thank you. And there was a point where I'm like going around my house cleaning and I'm putting a candle out and I tell it thank you and I'm listening to an audio book and it says thank you at the same time. And it's those little moments like that where I'm like, ooh, yeah, there's something happening. That's what I love, when there's something a little bit weird, and you're like, oh. And it's just, yeah, and I don't take those synchronicities as specific signs. I don't... when I've tried to read into them, they make me crazy. But just taking them as like a confirmation sort of, just like a confirmation of like, yes, you're on the right track, like things are aligning, you know. Or like there was a couple months ago, I kind of jokingly said, like I had a recipe I was planning to make and I had everything except for onions at home. And I was about to go to my local farm stand, and they sometimes have onions, but kind of like half the time have onions, maybe less than half. And I jokingly said to myself, if there is a God, they will have onions today. (Kim laughs) And sure enough, I get there, and they have these very small onions. (laughs) It was just like, ah yes, okay, I will not, I will stop challenging, I will stop challenging my reality. (both laugh) Or challenging my, challenging the, I will stop challenging the existence of God. Okay, got it. Like, that type of thing is what makes, that's what keeps me going in my practice is finding those little moments and just continuing and it makes me want to show up for more of them.

Kim: That's cool.

Sharon: Yeah.

Kim: What is something you did early in your practice that you don't do any more, and why don't you do it?

Sharon: (pauses) I think the biggest thing is binging content. Binging specifically, like I love, I love interviews and stuff like that with different practitioners, and poking your head out like oh, what are you doing. Specifically binging learning content that I'm intending to like try myself and practice and master. And whether that's, you know, finding a specific content creator where I become really obsessed with their stuff and I'm like trying to go through all of it, or reading books, or just buying books that I think I might be interested in and not reading them. Who like, I don't know a single occultist who doesn't have that problem. (both laugh) But I but just like, that that was huge for me early on just to like stick a toe in and like figure out... like I couldn't have found the things that truly resonate with me if I weren't doing that. But now that I have found a couple things that resonate, and I've realized like okay yeah I don't have the capacity to try all this stuff, (laughs) and it's interesting to get ideas from, but if I'm not actually acting on them then like why am I adding this to my brain when I already already have limited energy to practice things? So I've stopped doing that. I've done my best to-

Kim: Healthy!

Sharon: ...yeah. And another piece would be I did used to try to force myself to do the big spells and do the big rituals and I would instead get very anxious and overcome with the fear that they don't work, which obviously then they don't work.

Kim: And then you get imposter syndrome. (laughs)

Sharon: So I stopped doing that as well. Exactly. So again, I've just stuck to like, all right, I'm going to, again, after a big period of growth in 2020 and 2021, currently I'm just going, okay, I'm going to stick with what I know I can do and focus on that for now.

Kim: Cool!

Sharon: Yeah.

Kim: What would you say is your favorite tool? And it does not have to be a physical thing, and how do you use it?

Sharon: Okay, so my favorite tool, my favorite tool tool is definitely a cast iron pan that I have. It's like a mini one and one of the small like it's probably like a five or six inch size.

Kim: The kind they bring a little cookie in at a restaurant.

Sharon: Yes, exactly. Exactly that. And what I do is I use it for cleansing and I also keep it on my altar. It's like, I didn't have a cauldron at the time that I started my cleansing practice. And so I started using this cast iron pan.

Kim: Spiritual fajitas.

Sharon:  Yeah, yeah. And it's been, but it's actually fascinating because, like iron of course being associated with Mars and it like holds so much heat. And so I was using, and I still use like a wood-based incense for cleansing. It has like cedar wood and some other stuff in it. And I don't like using charcoal a lot because the smell is a lot. So I'll use it for like resins or whatever but I try to avoid it when I can. So what I started doing is instead of burning the wood-based incense on a charcoal, I would instead like roast it in the cast iron pan and just like over like like on my stove top like heat up the incense in the in the pan until it's smoking and the smell is so much better than like if you're burning it on a charcoal because it's not actually burning, it's just kind of like toasting and like releasing the aromas from the wood and the herbs. And then I like carry that around my house and do a cleansing.

Kim: That sounds so nice! I'm gonna find a cookie pan!

Sharon: Yeah, I love it. And then I can also use that to like kind of set, like if I'm doing a weekly cleansing then to set my intentions for the week as well, where of course, the cast iron pan, like you, um, the term is escaping me... When you season it, when you season it with an oil, like the oil bakes into the pan. So I started given, like, I'm not using this pan to eat from ever, but like, you, I would literally take magical oils and like, after the cleansing is done cleaning out the pan and using the pan with the magical intention oil, and that fucking works. (laughs)

Kim: I don't know where your people are from but that is one of the most Appalachian sounding things I've ever heard. Sharon: That makes sense. Oh my gosh. I yeah I'm definitely more like Pennsylvania Dutch is more like where I come from, but not that different. Kim: Yeah, man. That's cool.

Sharon: Definitely like a farm people, you know.

Kim:  I'm totally copying you.

Sharon: Yes, do it. Yes.

Kim: That's amazing.

Sharon: Yeah, my favorite thing that I've come up with for sure.

Kim: If you could only recommend one source of information to a witch, what would it be and why?

Sharon: Okay, so I would recommend the book How to Study Magic by Sarah Lyons because this is a newer book. It just came out in the past year and Sarah wrote it specifically to address that question of like, how do you get into this stuff? And it's, I will admit I've not read it yet, but it's like, she separates it into sections for like, to address like, different types of crafts and like, kind of different streams that you could pursue as far as like, ceremonial magic versus like more like folk based versus traditional witchcraft, and kind of gives people, like teaches people how to research, like how to do the research so that you're finding good sources and you know how to vet your teachers and also gives you like little things you can try to like see if this resonates with you. So there's like a little bit of practice built in. So that is that is now the easy answer to that question for me, is definitely pick up How to Study Magic.

Kim:  Only sort of related to what you said, but one of the classes that really paid off for me in school was the one that showed you how to do research and how to determine whether it's, what are the two things, valid and something else? I don't remember, but how to determine that, whether it's like a real source or is it just some dipshit with AI.

Sharon: Right, absolutely. And yeah, and I definitely had classes like that as well. And I wish that, well, I mean, I can't say what the education system is like now. I've been out of it for a long time. But I really hope that's still part of it.

Kim: Based on Facebook, I'm going to say they don't teach that everywhere.

Sharon: Right, right. Yeah.

Kim: How do you pull yourself out of a magical slump?

Sharon: Well, I wait. (laughs) I have learned that-

Kim: Me too.

Sharon: Yeah, yeah, I mean for me, I like, there is no forcing it. I have to get very present and honest with myself and take my sweet time, because if I put the extra pressure on myself to work through it, it's not, it's going to make it worse. Like, if anything, I just try to come back to like my bare minimum easiest practices, like light a candle on my altar. If I don't have time to like do anything else, then I don't have time. If I don't have the energy to come up with anything else then that's it, and I just wait. yeah just like just like a depressive episode you kind of just have to wait there's no real you just have to take care of yourself and keep going and when your cup is full, then you can return.

Kim: I like that.

Sharon: Yeah. Awesome. (both laugh)

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

Sharon: I would say that I see a lot of people talking about practices that feel very strict in different ways. And again, I'm obviously like a I just kind of do things the way that I want to do them.

Kim: Same.

Sharon: And I feel like there's, yeah, and there's a lot of like artificial urgency that people add to things. And like, yeah, when you're trying to make an astrological timing work, then you're going to try to do that. But I feel like the consequences of not doing that are kind of overblown. I feel like I see a lot of people talking about these strict rules and structures that they have for themselves, and also talking about trying to get away from a strict religious background, and there's a dissonance there.

Kim: Ohh, yeah.

Sharon: You know what I mean? And that always is confusing confusing to me, given I've like, again, had the privilege of like I did not have an absolutely devastating like religious upbringing, and that is more rare than it should be. But yeah I just, yeah. It's like there there's a lot of talk about like the trauma and the shadow work and all these things. And I see so many people talking about that, but also not acknowledging like, okay, but if your practice is being informed by that in a way that's unconscious, as opposed to, in an unconscious way where you're recreating the same structures that were oppressive for you as opposed to creating something new that works for you. It's like, you know, obviously you go to the trash fire of TikTok witchcraft, and there are a thousand comments of like, well, can I substitute this and can I do this and blah blah blah blah blah.

Kim: Absolutely not! Because RULES!

Sharon:  Right, and it's just like, yeah, yeah. Like, people come to it looking for rules, and there are people who kind of, like, exacerbate that. There are people who don't. And given, like, different things work for different people. Like, I definitely know people where they want that structure, they want that hardcore ritual because that's the only way they can fully, like, detach from their personal whatever that they're dealing with, you know? Yeah.

Kim: It seems like people are really reluctant to let go of that though, and just let let other people be themselves.

Sharon: Right. Yeah. No. Okay. What I realize I'm trying to say is like there are a lot of people looking for someone to tell them what to do.

Kim: Oh!

Sharon: That is like the thread that I see.

Kim: What's that like.

Sharon: And it's like yeah but the whole point is that you get to make this up and that to me is what's so exciting.

Kim: I left religion and the army so...

Sharon: Yeah.

Kim: Partly because don't tell me what to do.

Sharon: Mhmmm. Please, never tell me what to do.

Kim: I mean, if you want to try and reverse psychology me, it'll totally work, probably. Do that, but I'm not looking for it.

Sharon: Yeah.

Kim: But if you don't want me to do it, then you should tell me that I absolutely have to.

Sharon: (laughs) Must.

Kim: Imagine the three biggest influences on your practice. It doesn't have to be a person. It can be like an idea or a dog. (both laugh)

Sharon: Yes. So-

Kim: Thank them. Thank them for what you're... Tell me how they influenced you and thank them for whatever you're going to thank them for. Or curse them out because they did something bad and now it had a different influence than they would expect.

Sharon: Oh shit! (laughs) Well. Okay, well, first, coming back to Ren Zatopek, again, she was definitely my first and probably most important teacher. I took a long, I don't know if course is the right word. It was a very long, like, coast-working type situation with her and Sarah Chappell that was intended for, it's like witchcraft for entrepreneurs. And they only write it once, and it was during COVID. And of course, like a few months in, all of us in the group are just like, so this is intense. Like, she's like, yeah, I tricked you into like getting initiated. (laughs)

Kim: Ha ha! Gotchu! (laughs)

Sharon: (laughs) Sorry. Obviously. potentially. But yeah, Ren's amazing and her work is wonderful work for all levels of people, whether you're brand new to it or you're someone who is very experienced and needs a new way into meditation and visualization and all those things. And The Artist's Way, already mentioned. Again having my worldview validated in that way that creativity is something that's channeled it is not purely from within yourself and with that I will add the anecdote of this is definitely like a good, not quite a fuck you moment but definitely a turning point that was very influential related, where there was a class I was in in college and I had a good friend in the class with me. And at some point our teacher asked us, where does your work come from? With the context of like, does it come from you or does it come from somewhere else? And without missing a beat, I immediately went somewhere else. Like obvious, totally obvious to me, didn't even think about it. And then my friend next to me just looked at me like, what the fuck? (both laugh) And that for me was a moment of like, oh, no one else has, like, I haven't, like, realizing one, I haven't thought about this, and also no one else has thought about this, and something that's so obvious to me is not that way for other people who I am very close to, you know. And that for me was like, huh. Maybe I should look into that. (both laugh) And yeah, and that exact thing, again, reading The Artist's Way, like, oh, that perfectly encapsulates exactly what I was thinking in that moment and what I've been trying to answer and explore since then. And then the third thing, I'll also add the book Six Ways by Aidan Wachter. It also came out I think in 2018, and for me that was the first... his kind of like, the practice of the outlines and everything was kind of the first time I had permission to keep things extremely simple. It's like an incredible primer, basically, to just like extremely simple and effective practices that kind of work for a lot of different cosmologies, but are just like easy ways in to try it out for yourself and see what works. And written in a very, an extremely accessible way. Like you don't have to be like a big reader or any, or like know or have any real like occult background to grasp what he's talking about. And for me, it was a great, reading that book was definitely a point, that was when I first came to the point of like, okay, yeah, I need to stop just like reading everything and not doing anything. Like it's time for me to actually focus on the things that are working and I'm allowed to keep it simple until I have a reason to make it complicated.

Sharon: Oh my god, yeah, I totally had that phase too where I was like looking for knives specifically. (laughs)

Kim: I just like knives.

Sharon:  I was like, what am I going to use this for? Oh right, I guess, like yeah, I had this idea of like yes, I need a special knife that I can use to carve candles. And then I realized like okay, but also I can just like consecrate a butter knife and just use that and then de-consecrate it and it's fine. Like, it's like choose your battle.

Kim: I use a dental pick.

Sharon: Oh my god, that's so smart.

Kim: Not one that's actually been in anybody's teeth.

Sharon:  But that's such a good idea. I'm definitely going to try that. I love that. Oh, and another thing I have in my notes about this that I do think is important. Don't start with high expectations. Like I touched on earlier, this need to like work it into my services for my business because I want to work with witches. Like no, you don't have to like immediately offer service, you don't have to immediately make it into a thing that other people can like see and consume. You don't need to work it into your art, you don't need to make it high stakes immediately and in fact doing things like a high stakes spell for something that I was deeply attached to, if anything doing stuff like that early on set me back before I had the actual foundation of like, I believe that this will work, I believe that the world works this way, I believe in myself and my ability to make this happen. If you give yourself these high stakes things to start with and they don't work because you're starting and you're learning, then that can make your life a lot harder or at least it did for me, so. That's the last piece.

Kim:  Good advice.

Sharon: (laughs) Thank you.

Kim: Having seen the questions, even the Patreon ones, the secret ones, the Bee Box, Hive House, quiet little, not everybody gets to hear those questions, who do you think would be interesting to hear from on the show? Let me rephrase that in a way that isn't insane. Who do you think I should have on the show?

Sharon: Okay, I have a cop-out answer for this, but it's also a genuine answer that I would really love to hear from pretty much all of my clients on this show. Like Andi from Every Light Wellness was the original person who connected us, so thank you Andi. Yeah, literally go to my Instagram and just scroll through the projects and invite all of these, all of them to be on the show. Like I've worked with so many like really talented and really like niche, interesting astrologers and herbalists and practitioners of all kinds. 

Kim: That's what I like, people who are really into a little thing and they will tell me all about it. I love those people. 

Sharon: Yes, exactly. Just like very niche. 

Kim: Tell me what you're into. 

Sharon: Yes. Exactly. Just like, very niche. Yes. Yeah, my whole thing is weirdos. I attract the weirdest people possible. 

Kim: Yes!

Sharon: Please just like interview everyone on my Instagram. 

Kim: If you're weird, come here! 

Sharon: Yes.

Kim: Is there anything else you want to bring up or anything that you wanted to ask me?

Sharon: Yes, yes. So yeah obviously as I've said I work with witches and weirdos on branding so if you are someone who offers services or products and has a business and you're trying to make money and you would like to try out hiring out to have someone do your branding professionally. I have this offer that has done really well this past year and I'm planning to continue for this year for the time being where I started offering basically a budget basic branding kit, which I call intuitive brand kits. I have a wait list for them on my website. Basically for the new price is gonna be $600 and it's a color palette, fonts, a selection of free stock images and a word mark, so like a very basic logo. Just to give you the building blocks of like, oh fuck, I don't wanna scroll through fonts on Canva for two hours when I'm trying to make an Instagram post. Like if you are in that place, then this is for you. And again, they're not currently open.

Kim: I love fonts, so I'm guilty of the font scrolling because I fucking love them.

Sharon: Yeah, yeah, as a craft designer, I also love fonts and I'm also tortured by them. I'm very picky. And yeah, and another thing that people come to me all the time about is like, yeah, I want my stuff to look cool, but I want people to be able to read it. I can help you with that. Yeah, so that's something I offer. I'm not sure if it will be open by the time this airs, but either way, there's a wait list on my website if that's something that you're interested in. I also offer, of course, more in-depth services for more established businesses, or if you want something more complex that requires a deeper understanding like a custom logo system or a full website, then there are different entry points to working with me depending on what you need and what you're interested in. So that's my pitch.

Kim: That is cool.

Sharon: Yeah, it's been fun.

Kim: I don't understand everything you said, but hopefully other people do.

Sharon: Well, no, I mean, if there are pieces you'd like me to explain further there are probably other people who did not understand what I said as well. (laughs)

Kim: But I do not know enough. I don't know enough even to know words to ask you questions about it. Which means everyone who also doesn't know should go follow her Instagram account and ask. questions.

Sharon: Yes, please send me all the questions! Yeah, but yeah, essentially like if you are having a hard time showing up consistently, if you are spending way too much time on content creation because you're worried about how it looks, if you're self-conscious about how your stuff looks, it sucks, and it can really hinder you being able to sell what you're selling to make your living, and I would like to help especially weird people who are inherently so much more self-conscious, often, and like struggle with that so much more, who have who do amazing things and offer amazing products, and we all want to be able to make a living doing our weird thing, so that's who I want to help. So if that is you, check it out.

Kim: Yes!

Sharon: Yes.

Kim: So finally, I ask two things of my guests at the very end. Thing number one is recommend something to the listeners. It does not have to be witch-related at all.

Sharon: Of course, like the most controversial thing comes to mind. (laughs) But I would say because there are very shitty things happening in the world right now, and they will continue to happen, I'm going to recommend a healthy, moderated dose of escapism.

Kim: Eyyy, yeah!

Sharon: Because we are all being inundated, especially if you're in a position running a business online, or promoting anything online, or generally being online, which is everyone, definitely everyone listening to this. You are taking in so much. You're taking in so much pain. And for me, as someone prone to depressive episodes, I have to be really careful about it personally. And I know that not everyone has developed that skill set. And for me, something that really helps me is allowing myself to turn on the TV, watch something terrible on Netflix, or put on an audio book and work on a quilt, which actually I'm astounded I've made it through this entire interview without mentioning quilting because I also do that. But yeah, just like know what will take your mind off of things and do it. Like you don't have to completely check out, and in fact I would argue that it's impossible to completely check out. And because it's impossible, like you do have to intentionally give yourself time to check out, because it's a lot. And if we can't, if we just totally break down, then we're not helpful to anyone. So moderated dose of escapism is the recommendation.

Kim: Highly recommend.

Sharon: Yeah.

Kim: The last thing is very simple, and it is please tell me a story.

Sharon: Okay yeah this I thought about for a while because I was like...

Kim: Everybody is ascared of this- ascared. Everybody's scared of this.

Sharon: But, okay actually I okay I had a story I was going to tell, but I actually want to bump back to a question that I prepared for and you didn't ask, but I do kind of want to talk about, which does have a story in it. So...

Kim: What did I miss?

Sharon: I'm jumping back to what is your biggest fear in witchcraft.

Kim: I didn't think I put it on here! That's why I didn't ask it, because I thought it was, I didn't know I sent it. Okay, yeah, go for it.

Sharon: Yeah, so I guess it's, well, I guess there's a story within a story, and that it's about a piece of media. But okay, so my biggest fear used to be, and still kind of is, uninvited guests, generally, spiritually. Being woken up by something. You know, that kind of thing has always been my biggest fear. I had a huge aversion to, like I've always been like touchy about like horror movies and stuff like that because I'm so sensitive to like any kind of like supernatural fear mongering. I'm like, no, I can't do this. And I've been like that for the longest time and it was only just this season, but that has really shifted. And the turning point was watching The Unbinding, which is a new documentary.

Kim: Yeah!

Sharon: ...done by the Hellier people, Greg and Dana Newkirk. And it was scary. You know, I first saw the trailer with the doll and I sent it to my roommate and I was just like, this is so fucking scary. I don't know about this, but we watched it. And they tell this whole story about like, they saw something in their bedroom and like, I was just like, losing it, you know, that's the exact shit that will not leave my brain for months. And I'm sorry to anyone I just did that to.

Kim: Good for you for protecting yourself.

Sharon: But yeah, so, but then what I love is that they then kind of, Dana who's the person who like saw this like apparition, um, then unpacks it in a really refreshing way that actually alleviated my fear so much, and really appreciated with this, where she said, basically, you know, sometimes these things are scary. And we've accepted that. And sometimes things are scary because they have to be scary, because that is the initiation. And also, that fear is temporary. Like, it will pass. You know, like, when you're in that, for me, when I'm in that fear of like, oh my God, I'm going to see a ghost and it's going to do something to me. But then you asked on what's on the other end of it, of like, what am I afraid of? Um, like, I can't articulate that, you know, it's just like the fear of like being surprised, like the fear of fear itself in a way, of like seeing something that I don't understand, the fear of the unknown, and just putting that in the context of like, okay, but then you know, like once you see it, then you know, and that's so much more intriguing to me, and you know, not comforting, but then it makes, then you become curious, you know what I mean? Like, it's, it like shifted it where it's like, and they also have a thing that they say on their podcast of like, instead of like, I forget what the exact phrase is, but they talk about basically looking past the fear and being curious instead. And that reframe definitely shifted how I think about that kind of stuff, like paranormal stuff and supernatural stuff that used to absolutely terrify me. So yeah, just like finding the reframe that makes you curious and being able to look at the unknown and go, okay, but then once I look at it then I'll know. And now this is like an interesting puzzle to solve as opposed to something I'm terrified of because it exists.

Kim: Hmmm.

Sharon: Yeah.

Kim: Also, if anyone listening knows Dana, ask her to be on my show!

Sharon: Yes, please! Oh my god. 

Kim: Because how interesting would that be?

Sharon: It would be so good. 

Kim: I love that documentary. I love that it came up now. That's cool!

Sharon: Yeah, it's a good one.

Kim: And it's cool that it made that change, helped you make that change.

Sharon: Yeah, yeah, 100%. And I'll also add addendum, which is also a mini story of something that really solidified this for me was going to an in-person ritual with Melissa Madara, formerly one of the owners and managers of Catland, a store in Bushwick that just recently closed in New York. I've actually heard of that. Yes, they did close just like a few months ago, I think, very recently. But all the owners are moving on to bigger and better things so definitely like they you can find them from the Catline Instagram if anyone wants to check up on that but yeah so hosted by Melissa Madara and the owners of OpenSea Design Design Company, who make they make this incredible witchy planner together and it's beautiful if you're into like the Victorian gold filigree goth aesthetic. Very elegant and beautiful and understated, but also opulent. Love their work so much, if you don't know about OpenSea. But yeah, so they started hosting a series of full moon rituals, and they did one where they did the Estes method, which is this technique from the paranormal ghost hunting type world where you have a radio scanner that just basically like scans through radio stations very rapidly. So you'll get snippets of like songs, voices, those types of things. And so people use that as like a medium to talk to spirits in a location or whatever. And they incorporated this into their ritual. So it was like, they called it like technology-assisted mediumship, and they said that they have never heard of anyone trying to do this, and I certainly have never heard of anyone trying to do this, but it was like a full-on ritual in virtual space, and we asked questions of the dead. And this is again something where in the past I would have been like, that sounds terrifying, I don't want to be anywhere near that. But in this specific case, I was like, actually, I really want to see that. I really want to do this. So also seeing like, yeah, we're dealing with something, we're dealing, we're interfacing directly with the unknown, with the dead. But doing that in community where there are 20 other people in the room and in a controlled ritual environment from practitioners who I trust and being able to discuss it afterward and we got some really specific, interesting stuff. Like it definitely works, quote unquote, if you're curious. And that was such a cool experience. And that really solidified for me, like, oh yeah, especially when you create the proper support for yourself, where you can be curious, where you are resourced and you are calm and you can engage fully. That takes all the fear away for me. Yeah, very very cool ritual. Would do it again, 10 out of 10.

Kim: I still like to be a little bit scared. (both laugh)

Sharon: Just a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

Kim: Well, thanks for being on the show.

Sharon: Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm so glad Andi recommended me to be on the show.

Kim: Me too! Okay everybody go follow Swail Studio on instagram and I will see you over there! Okay, bye!

Sharon: Bye-bye.

Kim: Alright, Sharon. Welcome to Hive House!

Sharon: Woohoo!  (Kim laughs) Happy to be here! Hive House, I love that name.

Kim: Me too, it's very fun. So something we're going to do is, I have these questions, these cards with questions on them. I'm going to pull one and ask you. (fades out)

Sharon: (fades in) Yeah, I enjoy her. I enjoy the snake. She has her like cute little face and cute little tongue.

Kim: And then you feel like you're a wildlife adventurer.

Sharon: Yes, totally. Yes. Even like in a sensory way, just like the weight of a snake on your shoulders is like so specific. It's not like holding a cat or something. Like I... (fades out)

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