Butterfly Wisdom: Crafting Magic Through Cross-Stitch With Starla Yilmaz

Starla Yilmaz joins us to discuss her journey as a witch, tarot creator, and cross-stitcher, sharing how a divine calling led her to create the Butterfly Wisdom Tarot deck through 21 months of meticulous stitching.

• Practicing witchcraft since age 15-16, Starla views it as being conscious of energy and recognizing universal connections
• Received a divine promise that "as long as you're writing, you'll be taken care of"
• Added cross-stitch to her calling, leading to the creation of her hand-stitched tarot deck
• Practices practical magic including candle witchcraft, sigil work, and kitchen magic as a busy mom
• Emphasizes issues of cultural appropriation around white sage use, suggesting selenite wands as alternatives
• Built community through her local Universalist Unitarian Church's CUUPS (Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans) group
• Each card in her Butterfly Wisdom Tarot features a real, identifiable butterfly species
• Created a unique guidebook with micro short stories rather than traditional meanings
• Recommends connecting with local metaphysical shops to find community and resources

Pre-order the Butterfly Wisdom Tarot, releasing June 28th, through your local metaphysical shop or bookstore.

Visit Starla here! starlayilmaz.com

Chapters

• 0:04 Meet Starla Yilmaz, Tarot Creator
• 4:14 Called to Write and Cross-Stitch
• 8:56 Cultural Appropriation in Witchcraft
• 16:32 Building Community Through CUPS
• 22:16 The Butterfly Wisdom Tarot Project
• 31:30 Crafting a Spell Together
• 39:16 Episode Closing and Resources

Transcript

Kimothy: 0:04

Welcome back to Your Average Witch, where every other Tuesday we talk about witch life, witch stories, and sometimes a little witchcraft. This week I'm talking with Starla Yilmaz, a witch and tarot deck creator. We talked about getting a calling, making deals with deity, and her new tarot deck, the Butterfly Wisdom Tarot. Now let's get to the stories. Starla, hello, welcome to the show!

Starla: 0:35

 Thank you for having me. 

Kimothy: 0:38

It is my pleasure. I'm glad to have you here. Can you please introduce yourself and let everybody know who you are and what you do and where they can find you?

Starla: 0:42

My name is Starla Yilmaz. I am a writer, I'm also a cross-stitcher, and you can find me on Instagram at Starla Yilmaz Tarot, also YouTube, I believe, Starla Yilmaz, and Facebook as well. Starla Yilmaz.

Kimothy: 1:01

And those links will be in the show notes everybody. so, yeah, I have a.

Starla: 1:07

So yeah. I have a… so what I did was, my level of crazy is that I designed and cross-stitched a tarot deck, and luckily enough that a publisher has decided to put it out in the world and it is getting released on June 30th.

Kimothy: 1:24

I love that you actually stitched the whole thing. That's so much stitching.

Starla: 1:31

It took- it was 21 months of stitching.

Kimothy: 1:36

Oh, wow, that's more than a baby.

Starla: 1:40

Yes, yes, and I have two babies, more than two babies, because that's only 18 months.

Kimothy: 1:48

You have four kids now! I'm assuming you call yourself a witch.

Starla: 1:57

Yes, I have been a practitioner since about 15, 16, somewhere in there. I kind of got started with Buckland's Blue Book, like a lot of us did. 

Kimothy: 2:16

Can you let us know what the word witch means to you and how you apply it to yourself?

Starla: 2:20

To me, a witch is someone who is more in touch with you, know nature and natural cycles, but also very conscious of energy that is moving through them and everywhere around them, and also, on some level, aware of the connection between you, know myself and literally everything you know. Especially if we're talking about like we all came from the big bang, then it's like I'm connected to you, I'm connected to the earth, I'm connected to Alpha Centauri. You know, however many light years away.

Starla: 2:56

And then yes, exactly, and on some level I believe that I can influence those energies and the currents and where everything flows. How well I can influence it is a different question. You know it depends on the day, but you know that is always the goal of practicing as a witch.

Kimothy: 3:22

That's also what I believe, the whole like atoms in the universe and we're all little bits of stuff hold together, held together by whatever something that wanted to be held together.

Starla: 3:38

Well, and the fascinating thing about Einstein's famous equation is E equals MC squared is that energy and mass are the same, they just interchange. So everything, like you know, yes, everything's like matter, but it's also energy at the same time, and energy is also matter.

Kimothy: 3:58

And that hurts my brain a lot, but it is also why witchcraft works. I try not to think about that part. Can you introduce us to your magical practice?

Starla: 4:17

So right now it's a lot of candle witchcraft. I've also, you know, and kind of to go with that is sigil witchery. You know, carving the sigils onto candles and stuff. I'm a mom to an eight-year-old and a six-year-old boys, so I don't really have time for the full high magic circle. Casting, you know, ritual that I enjoyed when I was younger and first starting out. So now it's more. You know it's like okay, let me just light a candle real quick and go about my day. And a little bit of kitchen magic too. You know it's like I do like to. When I'm making food for my family I do like to put that energy of. You know it's like give the, you know, health and you know happiness and all that sort of stuff. 

Kimothy: 5:06

If we have to do anyway, we might as well throw it in there.

Starla: 5:09

Exactly! like I'm already standing over the stove.

Kimothy: 5:13

What would you say is the biggest motivator in your practice and then contrast it to your biggest struggle?

Starla: 5:24

So I think my biggest struggle is, you know, like trying to balance all of the things, especially as a mom. Like I love my children, you know, and I would not trade them for anything, but it does make it difficult to schedule things. You always have to be ready to be interrupted and no matter what you're doing, and then my biggest motivator is to kind of like well, partially it's also my family, right, you know, it's like I want to give them the best kind of life that I possibly can, but also wanting to stay in touch with what my life's purpose is and feeling very called on this path that I'm on, even if I don't necessarily understand why. But I think knowing that I have to follow that call is part of that big motivation for continuing to pursue and study the craft.

Kimothy: 6:29

What is your big call?

Starla: 6:32

To write and cross stitch.

Kimothy: 6:39

Hello, what do you think I'm here for? I should have, I should, I should have guessed.

Starla: 6:53

Yeah, but to go more into that. For a long time I thought it was just writing, Like years and years ago, when I was sort of at that decision phase like do I pursue the sensible sort of math degree that my family had always pushed upon me, or do I follow the writing stuff, even though I know that, you know, right, Odds are you're not going to make a living and all of that? Whatever, whatever, whatever, and I had a vision and the goddess, she came to me and she was just like you know. I promise you right now that as long as you are writing, you will be taken care of, you know.

Kimothy: 7:39

That is freaking cool!

Starla: 7:42

And I can't say you know it's… I'm not a millionaire or anything, I'm not even like you know, I'm the typical millennial. No savings account. 

Kimothy: 7:59

You're not a thousandaire either. 

Starla: 8:02

Right, who is, Right? But it's like I've always had a roof over my head and I've always had food and really, yeah, that's what. That's what I need exactly. So it's just like you know. So she has kept up her end of the bargain and therefore I need to keep up my end of the bargain and continue writing. And then, you know, a couple ago, the cross stitch got added on. I was like you've been doing so well, let's increase the difficulty of things for you.

Kimothy: 8:31

Thanks for that. It is nice to know that you've grown enough to get that.

Starla: 8:42

Yeah, that's a really good way of looking at it.

Kimothy: 8:44

What would you say is your favorite tool? It doesn't have to be an actual physical thing. It can be like a song or a smell.

Starla: 8:56

So I guess there's… Can I say three? 

Kimothy: 9:01

Yes!

Starla: 9:02

So two. I'm just going to go quickly over like what is obviously a pen. I don't think I need to explain too much more about that one.

Kimothy: 9:26

They write, everyone!

Starla: 9:28

But then also a needle, and and I do have to say this, so it's like I've always hated like regular sewing, you know, like for clothes or pillows or whatever it's like. I always like the more art side of things, with the cross stitch and embroidery, but being able to sew has been the most practical thing. Like I have, I have hand sewn linen bags for all my magical tools to keep them in when they're not using and stuff like that. So I think that has been a powerful part of my practice. And the third thing would be this wand I have. It's literally a crystal wand and I use it to carve all my sigils into candles and stuff and it's great for conducting energy.

Kimothy: 10:23

That's cool. What is something you wish was discussed more in the witch community?

Starla: 10:34

In recent years this has been getting more and more attention. But I think you know the issues of cultural appropriation, especially issues with sage usage and that kind of thing. You know I think there's a lot of practitioners who still have this idea that sage is just kind of, you know, free for everyone to use and it's all purpose and all of that. And, you know, there's issues with overharvestation and and you know, potentially, you know, getting endangered or on the extinction list and things like that. And also, it does come from Native Americans and that is very much a closed practice.

Starla: 11:18

And there are things you can do, like I have a selenite wand that I have charged for cleansing and so I don't even have to burn incense anymore. Like, anytime I need to cleanse something, I literally just like wave the wand over or tap it and the selenite takes care of it. So it's also saving me money because I'm not constantly having to buy sage. But I think, as I said, you know, it has been coming up more and more in the past couple of years. But I do think you know that's always a conversation that people should be open to having.

Kimothy: 11:58

Especially since, apparently, we do keep having. We have to keep saying it. Use something else!

Starla: 12:07

Right, and then it's like you go into the local shop and the sage section is just huge and it's like, oh okay.

Kimothy: 12:15

I grow my own stuff. I have garden sage. It's actually Western sage because I live in Arizona and I don't think garden sage would like it here. But I don't use white sage, partly because it smells gross, but also because it's not mine.

Starla: 12:32

Right! And growing your own.

Kimothy: 12:33

That's even more powerful for you than it would be to just go into the store and buy something think of how many layers of magic you could put on it, like the, the moon, the phase of the moon that you planted under the water, that you water it with, that you've sat under whatever other moon phase you want to work with, or whatever sun, or an eclipse or whatever.

Starla: 12:57

And the intention as you are caring for this plant.

Kimothy: 13:02

Working with the plant spirit. I mean, there's so many cool things you can do besides go to a witch shop or Walmart and buy a bundle. 

Starla: 13:17

Yes, Absolutely.Now I don't have green witchery in me. I have tried to grow things. Best I can do is scatter wildflowers and those. I just let them do what they're gonna do. But that's why I got my selenite wand to do that, because I can't. 

Kimothy: 13:39

It doesn't even have to be smoke. Let's not pretend that I am good at gardening, because this is stuff that grows here. If it did not, then it would die. It's taken me about four years to get mint to stay alive. And people who do know about gardening know that’s surprising!

Starla: 14:03

That's an accomplishment.

Kimothy: 14:11

Have you taken any steps to build community near you? Because and I ask this because, uh, the world is terrifying right now. If you're in the US, yes, and you never know when they're going to shut down the internet, to be honest, look what happened in China. So building community is actual physical community close to you is important. Have you done anything to try and build community near you?

Starla: 14:41

So I am very fortunate in that there is a Universalist Unitarian Church near me and they have a CUUPS group. So if you don't know what CUUPS is, it's the Covenant of Universal Unitarian Pagans and there's actually like a big national group. And then, you know, the churches each kind of have their own smaller group, and so every month the pagan group gets together at our church and we just, you know, there's always like a topic about something, but we derail within five to ten minutes.

Kimothy: 15:25

Probably 80 of them are neurodivergent, so I'm not surprised. 

Starla: 15:28

It's really cool because it's like you know, we gather at the church for rituals for all the you know sabbats and espouse stuff and like for the summer solstice and for Yule. The ceremony on Sunday is actually run by us, the pagan group, and so we do a big ceremony with the whole church in attendance, and those are always really powerful rituals.

Kimothy: 15:51

That's cool, so everyone should definitely check to see if there's a CUUPS near you, because I know there's one near me.

Starla: 16:05

So yeah, because you're right, you know, with how things are going here in the United States, you know it will be very important for all of our numbers to band together. 

Kimothy: 16:23

Yep, so think about your three biggest influences. Whether it's a person, or a book, or a pet, how does it affect your practice? And thank them for what they do.

Starla: 16:38

So I want to thank this one woman. Her name was Sarah Beth Shepard and when I was a teenager and first getting into or walking, first started walking the goddess's path, she was really,  She helped guide and mentor me and I've always been thankful for her. She was in Denver. I have no idea how to reach out or contact her or anything. I've tried looking her up online and never been successful. I think I'm spelling her name wrong, but I've always been grateful for her guidance and mentorship at that kind of critical time when you're a baby witch. And then I think the second person I would like to thank is Deborah Blake.

Starla: 17:25

When I first came up with the idea of not necessarily the tarot deck, but how I wanted to do the guidebook it was my second or third version of the guidebook and it was a little bit different and I didn't know if it was going to work. And I reached out to Deborah Blake and she graciously agreed to read 20 pages of my guidebook and then gave me feedback. And not only was she like yes, she was like you know, yes, this is absolutely going to work, but you know, she also helped craft my proposal so that I could send it out to publishers. That's cool, yeah, I know. So I am hugely indebted to Deborah Blake and she is an awesome person.

Starla: 18:16

Everyone Feel free to reach out and you know she loves getting fan mail, like the rest of us. Oh so, and then the third. I know Buckland would like. His blue book was what got me into it. But Scott Cunningham's Guide For the Solitary Practitioner that really shaped my early development. You know, because I'm like a hermit, I like to be on my own doing my own thing, and it was kind of like that book was really the first one I read where it was like it is okay to be on your own.

Kimothy: 19:06

I love how, it always warms my heart when people thank him. Also I think it's kind of I think it's kind of sad that we don't, that we always that initially we think, oh, I'm not doing it right, because I'm not in a coven. We’re allowed to be by ourselves.

Starla: 19:21

We absolutely are allowed, and it's just like, kind of, when you think about witches back in the times, a lot of them were in the woods by themselves, you know, and they would only come together on very special occasions. And even now in modern days, you know, it’s just like… I think a lot of witches are a lot like cats and trying to herd us to get together on one day at one time is a challenge. 

Kimothy: 20:12

That's a nice way to put it.

Starla: 20:15
So yeah, but I think no matter what kind of practitioner you are, you know how wonderful and regularly your coven meets. I think every witch on some level is doing some solitary work

Kimothy: 20:25

I think you kind of have to, yeah you can't always wait for, you know, the coven to get together and the moon to be in the right phase, or whatever, to do what you got to do I couldn't imagine waiting for somebody to light a candle on Thursdays like waiting for other people when I I know I need to do this because that's my agreement with my being that I work with. I can't wait for Susie and Mary.

Starla: 21:06

And it's like oh, I'm so sorry that you're in the ER right now, but I can't do a healing ritual because we're not meeting until…

Kimothy: 21:13

I didn't even think of that. But yeah, Can I get back to you on Tuesday?

Starla: 21:22

Let me run it by the other eight people real quick, make sure.

Kimothy: 21:32

Well, now that you've seen what it's like to talk to me, who do you think it would be fun to listen to answer these questions?

Starla: 21:44

I mean, I think if you could get Deborah Blake, that would be amazing. I'm sure you think that too, though. Let me think, oh, you know what? There is a woman, her name is Leslie Snell. Um, I met her recently at CauldronFest. She runs the, the Chattanooga Witches Den in Chattanooga Tennessee. 

Kimothy: 22:07

Cool. Is there anything else you wanted to bring up? Anything I didn't ask, anything you wanted to ask me, or anything interesting happening with you.

Starla: 22:16

Well, as I've mentioned before my tarot deck, the butterfly wisdom tarot is coming out June 28th. So I did design and cross stitch the whole thing and each card features a real butterfly and kind of a fun trick for most of the butterflies. If you get one of those insect identifier things on your app, you know an app on your phone, it will correctly identify the butterflies, so that's.

Kimothy: 22:44

That is cool!

Starla: 22:49

But the other thing I didn't really talk about is the guidebook is a little bit different. Instead of doing just the regular, you know, it's like this card means this and this color is associated with this and the history. You know, what I did is each card has a little micro short story that kind of, you know, explores the theme and meaning of the card. And I did that because stories are vehicles for learning and I always just had an awful time trying to remember all the 78 meanings, but it's much easier to remember stories. So I was just like, okay, well, if I have a hard time remembering, then maybe other people have a hard time remembering and maybe they'll connect with the stories more than just, you know, the typical guidebook you usually see in a tarot deck.

Kimothy: 23:45

I love that idea. Stories and visuals combined together probably will help a lot.

Starla: 23:52

Yeah, there are like keywords listed and you know questions to ask yourself as you think about the card or whatever, just to help those people who have a hard time with the stories. But hopefully, if I did my job right, everyone should be able to, you know, get the meaning from the stories.

Kimothy: 24:12

Are there any spreads in the book?

Starla: 24:16

There are several spreads. I didn't do the Celtic cross because I feel like that has been done to death.

Kimothy: 24:27

I've done that once in my life, when I was first thinking hey, let me try tarot. And then it was so overwhelming I stopped touching the tarot for like four years.

Starla: 24:37

Oh my goodness. No, yeah, the Celtic cross never resonated with me, so I have one card spreads, three card spreads and four card spreads in the guidebook.

Kimothy: 24:53

That's about my speed. More than three, and I'm usually like I don't know about this. 

Starla: 24:59

It starts to get confusing, yeah!

Kimothy: 25:02

 I forget what I asked. What is your favorite card, and why?

Starla: 25:12

In general, or…

Kimothy: 25:13

In your deck. 

Starla: 25:14

In my deck, specifically… in my deck, it is the Judgment card, and that's because, right, there are butterflies with translucent wings. There were a couple ideas that I had that I wasn't sure if they were going to work, and several of them popped up in the judgment card. One of them was the butterflies with translucent wings. I was like, how would I make this effect happen?

Kimothy: 25:46

I was wondering how you would cross this.

Starla: 25:50

And so what I did was, right, if you, if you look at the cards, you know most the only things that are like stitched properly are the butterflies, and the rest of the design is done by, you know, black, black stitch. So it's like line work, basically. And what I did was, on the translucent part of the wings is, I didn't do any stitching at all, so, and then you just have the back stitch of the veins going through it and it. I thought it wound up looking really cool. So that was exciting because it was like, yes, that concept worked.

Starla: 26:25

And the other thing is that I also play the trumpet, and so the judgment card is right, that's the only one with a horn of some kind on it. And I was like, well, obviously I'm gonna make this into a trumpet, but that was a challenge. It's just like how do I do this with just cross stitch? Because you can't, right, there's no lines in cross stitch, so or there's no curves in cross stitch, excuse me, there's lots of lines, and you know, a trumpet is all just curved metal, yeah. And so that was one of those where I was just like I think this will work. And then when I stitched it, I was like it did actually work, yay. And so it made me really happy because it was just like, yes, all my concepts works for this card, which that wasn't always the case. And then also it has a little trumpet, which just makes my little trumpet player self happy. 

Kimothy: 27:26

That's so cool and sweet. I like that.

Starla: 27:32

But yeah, in most tarot decks my favorite card is the death card.

Kimothy: 27:40

How did you pick which butterfly to use for each card?

Starla: 27:47

So some of them it was obvious, like for the Emperor, the Empress, it is a male and female monarch butterfly, right, you know what's going to be a monarch, more than a monarch. Some of them it was based purely just, you know, on color association, like for eight of Cups. That butterfly, you know, is a very dark blue and it's kind of bring, you know, and if you look at the typical Rider-Waite-Smith card, you know, eight of Cups, then it is just this dark blue and stuff. And so, bringing in that color imagery. Others, like the Temperance card, you have, the top half of the butterfly is the wings are red and the bottom half is blue. So that's kind of, you know, like that combining of two discordant elements and stuff. So yeah, it would just depend on the card, basically.

Kimothy: 28:54

So you did use the traditional suits.

Starla: 28:59

Yes, I did. I. I didn't… designing and cross-stitching was enough work. I need to save myself some effort somewhere. 

Kimothy: 29:13

 I mean yeah.

Starla: 29:15

But, yeah, so but. So instead of pentacles, I do say discs, just because there wasn't enough space to do pentacles on all of the cards. That makes sense. So some decisions were just practicality versus.

Kimothy: 29:36

I've been told that I'm a very practical person and that makes great sense to me. Is there a specific place that you want people to get the deck?

Starla: 29:49

My preference would… okay. On one level it's like I don't care, buy it wherever, but if I had my choice, I would say go into a local shop and, you know, ask from them. So your local metaphysical shop, or Barnes and Noble, or what have you, Cool, I would push you more towards the local shops because you know support local.

Kimothy: 30:15

But yeah, back on that community thing. Exactly.

Starla: 30:24

Plus, while you're there, check to see what classes they're giving and then attend them and then make friends. And also you know you need a crystal of some kind.

Kimothy: 30:30

Always, or some incense, whatever.

Starla: 30:32

Chime candles.

Kimothy: 30:33

Or sometimes they have candy. Bath products.

Starla: 30:49

You need all this witchy stuff absolutely. I think that's another reason we're all witches. Right is like we like to go shopping.

Kimothy: 30:58

What do you wish somebody would ask you about your deck?

Starla: 30:59

I guess,  I guess that when we start getting into, you know like critical discussions about the guidebook and stuff like that, like I I know, like I don't want to discount the artwork because I put a lot of time and energy into that, but it's also very obvious. It's just staring right there at you in the face. But I think the guidebook is going to take a little like you know, some of the stories. It's going to take a little bit more, you know, like thought and introspection, and so it's like I'm kind of hoping that people buy the deck for the artwork and then they start reading the stories and then it takes them to another level that they weren't even thinking about neat.

Kimothy: 32:17

So the last two things I ask of my guests are thing number one recommend something to the listeners. It doesn't have to be magical or witchy related at all, just whatever thing you're into. This week that you like called somebody and said hey, you really need to try. Blah, blah, blah.

Starla: 32:32

Tell me what that is so I just finished reading a book of poetry, Winter Stars by Larry Levis, and if you ever have a chance to read anything, any poetry by Larry Levis, absolutely you need to do so.

Kimothy: 32:51

I love a good author rec thing. Number two is tell me a story, please. It can be a story from your life or your childhood, Like one that gets told like at a family reunion and everybody says I remember that time that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I love that kind of story or a story that you really love from childhood.

Starla: 33:21

Goodness, okay. So I was maybe about six months into my practice and I was doing, you know, the full fancy ritual and I was calling the quarters and I was in, I was facing west and I called west east instead. Oh, and it's like of all the elements to piss off, it's like you think you don't want to piss off fire but really fire will just burn you and then it's done it. You know, fire doesn't last long, but water…

Kimothy: 34:08

Floods are scary and water turns into ice.

Starla: 34:10

Yeah, and water remembers Still waters run deep. So, yeah, it was a good. Yeah, it took a lot of work to get, get you know, and even now sometimes you know it's like if I'm invoking water or west, it'll be like west, huh, are you sure? And I'm like…

Kimothy: 34:38

 I'm pretty sure?

Starla: 34:39

Yes! That was 20 years ago. 

Kimothy: 34:50

I said I was sorry! Okay, I don't know how you practice exactly, but I'm going to ask you to craft a spell with me okay so first let's come up with an intention. What do we want to do? Oh, you know what I forgot? I have these little little card thingies to like maybe, unless I forgot to write this part, let me just flip through them, unless you think of something that you specifically want to do.

Starla: 35:33

I think abundance is always good.

Kimothy: 35:36

Okay good, because I can't find them. Okay. So if I was gonna work with abundance, I would go outside and I am gonna pick brittlebush, because that plant is batshit crazy and never stops growing and will never, ever stop and it is. It grows in the desert like crazy and spreads everywhere, and that's what I want in my money. What would you bring? 

Starla: 36:14

Cinnamon.

Kimothy: 36:15

 Is this sort of how you do it? Just decide, hey, I need this to happen, and you wander around, pick stuff up.

Starla: 36:22

Yeah, so it's like I have a whole bunch of reference books, but it's like at this point, you know, it's like I've kind of like, you know, I have my favorite things that I gravitate towards too, so, and it's like I have some essential oils that are I'm not exactly sure what they are, but it's like, you know, there's this one essential oil, that's the blend. It smells really good, and it's Everything, and Then Some.

Kimothy: 36:48

Oh, that's a good name!

Starla: 36:52

Yeah, exactly! So it's like, not only is it kind of like my generic thing, but specifically if I'm doing abundance, I'm like, yeah, I want everything, and then some, so it's like I'll have that as like my oil. And then, you know, I do just kind of look in my kitchen cabinet and be like aha, there's the rosemary, there's the cinnamon, there's the, and I just I love cinnamon. It just makes everything taste so yummy. it smells. I wouldn't smell like cinnamon yes, like vanilla and cinnamon, it's the best.

Kimothy: 37:25

Okay, so I tend cause I have chickens and so we have 4 billion eggshells, so I tend to make things into a powder and then sprinkle it where I need it to be. But I remember you said you work with candles.

Starla: 37:38

Yes, we could do both. We could do both. We absolutely could do both.

Kimothy: 37:57

There's and you know, there's even I have this one incense burner where there's a tea light at the bottom, and then it has this like metal tray and you can adjust the height of it.

Kimothy: 37:55

Like a toaster? I mean not like a toaster oven, but like you can turn it into a toaster.

Starla: 38:08

I suppose you could, yes, use it, 

Kimothy: 38:10

I mean to toast the herbs!

Starla: 38:12

But yes, that way you're not just throwing the herbs directly onto you know, like a lit coal or whatever.

Kimothy: 38:31

Okay, we could totally do that. Okay, cool, so I'm going to not put eggshells in it. So generally I just when I'm putting things together, I just say and this, and you're going to be doing this for me, and I throw it in there. I don't, I don't, I'm not a big wordy, say a rhyme sort of person.

Starla: 38:55

 I'm not a rhyming witch, but I do like to. I do say an intention, you know like one sentence or a few words and I'll say it four or seven times. [fades out]

Kimothy: 

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