Singing the Magic: A Welsh Witch's Journey with Mhara Starling

Mara Starling, a Welsh witch and author, shares the magic and lore of her culture while exploring how voice, breath, and relationship with the landscape form the foundation of her practice.

• The Welsh language has multiple terms for magical practitioners beyond just "witch," including suin raig (one familiar with enchantment) and gwyddan (one familiar with trees)
• Welsh magical tradition is deeply connected to bardic practices, where poetry and song function as powerful magical tools
• The concept of "awen" – divine poetic inspiration that flows from the otherworld – can be accessed through singing
• Living in accordance with "the wisdom of the forest" means building diverse, supportive communities that mirror how trees protect and communicate with each other
• Witchcraft is inherently "queer" in the sense of being transgressive and existing beyond normative boundaries
• The voice is a powerful magical tool – singing incantations with full power rather than mumbling them shows devotion and connects to ancient practices
• Building community begins with simple gatherings that grow organically, but must include clear boundaries against harmful behavior
• Much magical knowledge can be found through conversations with community elders rather than just books or formal instruction

Click here to visit Mhara on the internet!

Chapters

• 0:04 Welcome to Your Average Witch
• 4:35 Meet Mara: Welsh Witch and Author
• 9:29 The Etymology of Witch in Welsh
• 17:51 Mara's Welsh Magical Practice Explained
• 31:26 Singing the Awen: Voice as Magic
• 39:41 Living by the Wisdom of Trees
• 51:44 The Inherent Queerness of Witchcraft
• 1:02:16 Building Magical Community
• 1:07:44 Three Major Influences on Mara's Practice
• 1:22:10 The Stone of the Ghoul: A Spooky Tale

Transcript

Kimothy: 0:04

Welcome back toYour Average Witch, where every other Tuesday we talk about witch life, witch stories, and sometimes a little witchcraft. Your Average Witch is brought to you by Crepuscular Conjuration. For monthly spell boxes, magical jewelry, and witch-made altar tools, visit crepuscularconjuration.com. This week I'm talking with Mhara Starling, an author and witch from Wales. We talked about the magic of song, returning to the forest and the inherent queerness of witchcraft. Now let's get to the stories. Mhara, hello, welcome to the show.

Mhara: 0:41

Hello, thank you so much for having me.

Kimothy: 0:44

It is lovely to have you here. I've really wanted to have you on the show for so long. I'm really pleased. Can you please introduce yourself and let everybody know who you are and what you do and where they can find you?

Mhara: 1:01

Of course I'd love to. So my name is Mhara Starling. I am a Welsh witch, I'm an author, I write books, and I love to teach the world about the magic and lore of my culture and my landscape. So yeah, I'm a little bit like a rash. Once you've rubbed up against me, I kind of pop up everywhere and it's almost impossible to get rid of me. I'm like one of those venereal diseases that just keeps coming back. So if anybody is listening and they've never come across me before, I am so sorry, you're stuck with me now. I think I'm most well known these days for running around like a maniac just over on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube, sharing with the world as much as I can about Welsh magic and lore. So I roll down hills talking about how pigs are actually fairies and that's a true fact or about how Welsh women used to curse people with their magical tits. So that's probably what people might know me from, but I do also write books and run courses and I just love to share as much of the magic of my culture as possible.

Kimothy: 2:11

And you were just over here recently, right?

Mhara: 2:24

Yes, I came over to the United States for my first ever time, which was terrifying. I was absolutely terrified, but it was beautiful.

Kimothy: 2:25

I was thinking. When I saw you here, I thought why did you come here? I love you, but why did you come here?

Mhara: 2:33

Oh my gosh, it was an intense trip. We started off, we flew into Chicago and then drove up through to Wisconsin Dells which that place is bonkers, I loved it there. And then from there we headed up to Minnesota. So we spent a lot of time near Minneapolis and the Twin Cities and went to Paganacon and then ultimately ended up somewhere near Baltimore, just outside of Baltimore, until eventually ending up in Washington DC and New York City and it was just an absolute whirlwind of a trip and I met so many amazing people and got to experience so many wonderful things. And yeah, it was a bit terrifying heading over, especially with the climate as it is currently, and I had a lot of people who were constantly messaging me going oh my gosh, are you going to be safe? And it was very anxiety inducing.

Mhara: 3:26

But it was a beautiful trip and I'm very glad I did it because I got to meet people that I've been acquainted with online for a long time but now finally have seen in person, and I got to go to the Llewellyn Worldwide offices in Minnesota. So that was a highlight, definitely. And I love New York City, I love Washington Dells, I love everything. Washington Dells, Wisconsin Dells, I love it all, and Washington DC as well. There might be one person there I don't like, but there's definitely something beautiful about that city.

Kimothy: 3:59

I used to spend my summers in DC because I have family there, so I love it too, but I don't want to visit it right now.

Mhara: 4:08

Yes, I don't blame you.

Kimothy: 4:15

Can you tell me what the word witch means to you when you use it in relation to yourself?

Mhara: 4:21

So when I turn to myself and call myself a witch, this is a bit of a complicated question because obviously I speak a different language as my primary first language. My native language is Cymraeg, which most people would know it as Welsh. The Welsh language is a celtic language and it's the language that I was raised speaking, which I love. I love the fact that I grew up speaking a different language because it means that when I make a bit of a tit of myself and I say strange things, I can just go well, you know, English is my second language, so you have to give me a bit of grace. I love being able to do that. But yeah, I went through my entire schooling and everything like that via the medium of the Welsh language. My family predominantly speak the Welsh language as the primary mode of communication. So it's only really in the last, I would say, maybe 15 years, maybe 10 years, 15 years that English has become a more predominant language that I communicate in, and that's just because I tend to travel the world these days talking about magic and such and in my native language I don't really call myself a witch, I call myself a Swynraeg, and Swynraeg is a term that is rooted in the magical traditions of our culture, in the very specifically folk magical traditions of our culture. So the practice that I carry out is called Swyngefaredd, and the practitioners of Swyngefaredd are referred to as either Swynraeg, if you are a female, so Swynyrhaig, a woman who practices magic, Swynurg, if you're a male who practices magic, and Swynedd, which is a third option, which is completely gender neutral and the translation for those terms it's like. So Swyngefaredd is the practice, and Swyngefaredd translates to a familiarity or a closeness with the art of enchantment, essentially. So it's those who are familiar with the enchanted aspects of life. So Swyngefaredd is the practice of the enchanted aspects of life, and then those who practice it Swynraeg, Swynurg, Swynedd they are a woman who practices enchantment, a man who practices enchantment and a thing that practices enchantment. So I tend to fluctuate between calling myself either a Swyenraeg or a Swyenedd, and I love those terms because they're just so beautiful I find. I find that there's something quite poetic about them. Like Swynraig, you can just imagine someone saying it in a sensual way and it just makes you cream yourself just a little bit, just that tiny bit and it's a very good alternative to the more well-known term for witch in the Welsh language, which, if there's anybody listening now who is also Welsh and speaks the Welsh language, they're probably thinking that's not the term I grew up hearing about, when I was hearing witch. And you'd be correct, because that doesn't mean witch. Suinraig is somebody who practices the art of enchantment, who creates charms and spells and magical recipes and such to aid their community.

Mhara: 7:29

The term for witch in a more standard setting within the Welsh culture is gwrach, which is not a very lovely term. So, in contrast, you've got Swynraeg, which is this almost sexy, sultry, lovely, gorgeous and magical word almost sexy, sultry, lovely, gorgeous and magical word. And then you've got gwrach, gwrach, and it's almost difficult to say that word without making a bit of a face of disgust, and that's because that is exactly the etymology of the word. So, as Welsh people, when we exclaim disgust, when we vocalise that we're disgusted by something you know how English people they go yuck or yucky or something we tend to go iwch or iwch, and you can hear that sound in gwrach, gwrach, iwch, something disgusting. And that is what the term originally meant. It was originally a word that meant anything that is disgusting and vile and putrid, and then, ultimately, it ended up being associated with disease, with sickness. From there, it became associated with these spirits that cause sickness, which ultimately led to the idea of them being associated with witches, these feminine creatures who cause illness and disease and discord within communities. And then, from there it became a slur used against mostly women who didn't fit the mold, and now it's cemented as being the word for witch, in the very caricature, halloween-y style of the witch. But it doesn't quite match what I do in my practice. So, though there's a part of me that wants to reclaim it, because it's, like you know, reclaiming the idea of being called something disgusting and vile and transgressive, almost there's also a part of me that thinks it's sad that that term is very well known across the world.

Mhara: 9:11

Anyone who learns Welsh will learn that term if they want to know what the word for witch is. But we have so many other terms to describe magical practitioners that get ignored or overlooked, and Swynraeg, Swynedd, are some of those terms. We've also got Gwyddan, which translates to they who are familiar with the trees, and that describes a magical practitioner. Again one of the oldest terms in our language to describe a magical practitioner they who understand the wisdom of the trees, which again is almost linked to the word for druid, because derwydd in Welsh, which is the word for druid, because derwydd in Welsh, which is the word for druid, means they who are familiar with the oak, they who are wise as the oak. So there's almost a fitting kind of thing there. And then we have like gwerin gyfrwys, which just means cunning folk and such. So I like to use one of those more traditional terms than gwrach, because I would rather educate people about the variety of words we have in our language to describe magic.

Mhara: 10:09

But of course in English I call myself a witch and I'm very happy to claim that term in English because of the meaning behind it for me, and I kind of define witch in two different ways. There's two primary reasons why I call myself a witch. Number one is because I've always existed on the margins. I've always existed as somebody who was on the outside looking in, and because of that I've gone through a lot of bullying and harassment for being who I am, not just from friends at school and such like that, but also from my family, from people who are meant by default to love you, being a queer person, being somebody who's a little odd and also being somebody who's neurodiverse. I've gone through a lot of situations in life where I felt like the outcast and I feel like the word witch embodies a lot of that that transgressive, marginalized, outsider person who exists beyond the confines of what is acceptable in society. So for that reason, I take the the term witch and I reclaim it as being, yes, I'm a person who is weird and grotty and odd and transgressive, but there's a power to that. There's a power to being that force, that transgressive force in the community. But then, on the other side, I think the primary word that emphasises my relation to witch in particular is the word relationship, and being a witch to me is all about relationships.

Mhara: 11:39

So, as a witch, I very much believe that I am in constant relationship with various different worlds, various different ideas and concepts.

Mhara: 11:49

So I'm in relationship with the scene, world, the community that surrounds me.

Mhara: 11:54

Even if sometimes that relationship is a little shaky, it's there.

Mhara: 11:57

I'm in relationship with my neighbours, with my family, with my loved ones, with my friends, and that's one part of the relationship and that influences my witchcraft.

Mhara: 12:06

But then I'm also in relationship with the non-human neighbours that I have around me. So the plant spirits, the tree spirits, the entities that exist in the landscape that I commune with on the daily basis, who are seen, they're there but they communicate and exist in a way that differs to us, and then also the unseen aspects of the world, to the deities, the spirits, the people and the communities that I interact with, who are perhaps not seen by the human eye, by the naked eye, but are very much there and present. So my witchcraft is also very focused on this idea of relationships and my relationality to the world around me. So I suppose, if I had to narrow it down, I would say that being a witch to me means standing in my power as somebody who is on the margins, but also understanding and appreciating and dictating my entire life and the way in which I live my life to the relationships that I forge, and I hope that makes some semblance of sense.

Kimothy: 13:08

It all makes sense to me. I love the multifaceted way you told me, you answered that. Gosh. Do you think in Welsh? I’m guessing you do.

Mhara: 13:28

Yeah so most of my thoughts --so it's interesting because I went through the majority of my life speaking Welsh as my first and predominant language. So because of that, a lot of the kind of subconscious thoughts I have tends to be in Welsh and sometimes I understand things better if they're presented to me in Welsh. So like there's little things in life that come up where Welsh is much more, I suppose, useful in those settings. So one thing that really shocked me was that learning to drive when I was learning to drive and doing driving lessons, I did better when I was thinking in Welsh than I did when I was learning to drive and doing driving lessons I did better when I was thinking in Welsh than I did when I was thinking in English.

Mhara: 14:06

Because for some reason when somebody says go left and take the third exit on the roundabout, my brain can't handle that and I'm like, oh, my God, what is going on? Like, what do you mean? And then I have to translate it and figure it out and have to look at my hands to make the L with my fingers to remember which way is left. But then if somebody says [speaks Welsh] I'm like, oh, oh, yeah, I know what that is, that's done, I can visualize it straight away and I think that kind of shows that the very background of my head is constantly thinking in Welsh.

Mhara: 14:40

But also because I went to university in England and because now I write my books in English, I feel like it's more of a mixture now. So there are certain aspects of my life where English is more apparent and one of those places that I discovered recently is witchcraft. Weirdly, because most of the conversations that happen online and in witchcraft spaces tend to be very much through that Anglo-centric lens. So when I was doing an interview for a Welsh radio station recently and they asked me what's your practice? Explain your practice to me. Trying to think of what the Welsh word for animism and witchcraft and praxis and spirits, trying to think of all those words that don't come up in everyday conversation with my mother or in school. When I was, when I was doing my schooling in Welsh, that was like a moment of oh, oh, crap. I think I've I've really embodied the the language and terminology of witchcraft in an Anglo-centric way, which is interesting to discover that.

Kimothy: 15:40

Yeah, that is interesting. So you write your books in English. You don't have them translated.

Mhara: 15:48

Yeah, so I write them first and foremost in English because that's just what I'm used to and especially because, like I said, I went through my entire education system throughout the medium of the Welsh language up until I was in college, which for us in the UK college is different to your colleges over in the United States, and such College to us is kind of like the final years of high school for you guys. So it's like that period when you're between 16 and 18 years old. And when I was in college it was a bilingual college, so we did everything in both languages. Some of my classes would be in Welsh and some of my classes would be in English, so it'd be a mixture.

Mhara: 16:25

But then when I actually went to university which is the equivalent of your colleges and such, that's when I did everything in English all of a sudden, including writing my essays and dissertations, because I chose to go to university at Manchester, which is, of course, in England.

Mhara: 16:40

So that was a real shock to the system, but it helped me kind of get used to writing in English, and especially in a more kind of scholarly manner I suppose, in terms of, you know, sourcing my references and and making sure that I'm writing in a way that is accessible to whoever's going to be reading it.

Mhara: 17:00

So that helped tremendously, and so when I came to writing my books about witchcraft, I knew I wanted to write them in english, because unfortunately, here in wales a huge portion of the population do not have the privilege of growing up speaking welsh because of the effects of the suppression of our language. That is still very much affecting our culture to this day. So a lot of regions across Wales do not grow up with an education in the Welsh language and are not first language Welsh. So because of that, I wanted to ensure that my books were accessible to everybody who had a connection to Wales, not just outside of Wales, but also within Wales as well. So I wanted to ensure that that was very much on the forefront of my mind when I was doing it.

Kimothy: 17:45

That's so interesting. I just like talking about language. Can you introduce us to your practice a little bit? Do you have any consistent things that you do that you'll share?

Mhara: 18:01

So my practice is, as is probably guessed from everything I've said so far, is rooted in this kind of idea of being connected to the culture of this region and also the landscape of this region in specifics. And I started having an interest in witchcraft when I was very, very young, very, very young. I first started kind of dipping my toes into witchcraft when I was 12 years old and I found a book called Spells for Teenage Witches in a charity shop and it was this gorgeous little yellow, shiny, sparkly book and it had spells in there that were like oh, how to attract friendships that last, or how, to you know, get over your high school crush, and things like that, and I loved it. It was so cheesy, so wonderful, and every now and then I go back and read it just to remind myself of how far I've come. And not long after that I found a mentor.

Mhara: 18:56

So around 13, 14 years old I found a mentor who was a lady called Julie. I called her Jewels and she was your stereotypical witch who lived on the edge of the village. She lived in this little cottage just outside the village and there were so many rumors about her in the village. She was this larger than life personality, with a blonde buzz cut, which sometimes she dyed in various colors. She dressed in velvets and was constantly dripping in this most elaborate costume jewellery and she would ride on a massive horse through the middle of the village and people had all sorts of stories about how strange and unusual she was, including stories that she was having all sorts of orgiastic sex parties in her little cottage, which of course were all true of orgiastic sex parties in her little cottage, which of course were all true. So when I started learning more about witchcraft and I discovered that she had a reputation for being a witch, I went up to her house and I asked her if she'd teach me everything about witchcraft. And, lo and behold, that rumor was very much true. When I walked into her cottage she had, like, these broomsticks everywhere and these cauldrons and all sorts. But when I walked into her cottage she had these broomsticks everywhere and these cauldrons and all sorts.

Mhara: 20:08

But when I entered into witchcraft, first and foremost through jewels and through a lot of these moots and gatherings and festivals and events that I went to, I kind of stepped into this very eclectic, very mixed world of witchcraft where everything was very much rooted in this pick and mix kind of idea where people would take gods from Greece or Egypt and mix them in with some Celtic like influenced incantations and such, and then there'd be like robes that looked like they would be from the set of some Vikings TV show or something. And it was rather strange and I remember vividly when I was about 15, I think it was I was sat in a ritual. I was sat in an open ritual and they were doing a calling to these goddesses and they were calling to all these different goddesses and the goddesses were ones like you know, Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali. Who else is in the song? That's always what comes to my head, that bloody song. But essentially we're calling to all these goddesses and I remember being sat there and thinking, okay, so that one's Greek, that one's Roman, that one's Egyptian, that one's Babylonian, that one's whatever. Where's all the ones from here? Why aren't we calling to the spirits and the deities that exist and reside literally here beneath our feet, in this landscape? Surely, if all of these ancient cultures have their gods and goddesses, we do too right? We're a landscape that has these ancient monuments that are thousands of years old, like Stonehenge and Bryn Celli Ddu, and all of these wonderful places, so surely we have deities as well, right? And when I started talking to people about that they were a bit like oh, we don't know enough about that, we don't know enough, we don't know how to approach that.

Mhara: 21:56

So I started doing some digging and that's when I found the Anglesey Druid Order, which was this druid order that very much focused on the history and heritage of Wales in particular and focused predominantly as well on the Isle of Anglesey's association with Druids. And the Isle of Anglesey is the little island that I grew up on, which is at the very tippy top of the north of Wales. So instantly when I met them I was like this is what I want to be. I want to be connecting with my landscape and my heritage and my gods and the gods that live here. I don't want to be calling to a goddess that's 4,000 miles away when there is one right there in that lake, when there is a story associated with one right here on my doorstep. Why am I ignoring her in favor of the one that's over there? And that kind of got me started.

Mhara: 22:43

But then, of course, when I met the Druid Order and they were fabulous they were headed by this queerer than anything person I've ever met, this drag queen and mortician who was like just fabulous, called Christopher Hughes, and they wore these most fabulous robes and they went out at the sunrise to these sacred places to conduct their rituals and I just loved them and I kept watching them and being like that's what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be one of these, but the problem was that I didn't identify as a druid. I identified as a witch, first and foremost. So when I was learning alongside the Anglesey Druid Order, I never fully joined the Order as a Druid because I didn't feel like that was me. I didn't feel like I wanted to be a Druid, I wanted to be a witch.

Mhara: 23:31

And because of that I started delving into more traditional forms of witchcraft from our nation and I came across people like Gemma Gary, who writes about Cornish witchcraft, and Nigel Pearson, who writes about English traditional witchcraft, and I was like, okay, so there is an undercurrent of witchcraft in all of these nations that are next door to me, in Cornwall, in England, in Scotland, in Ireland there are all these witches who talk about it. Surely it must exist here too, and it does. It does exist in Wales. So my practice is rooted quite firmly in connecting with the magic of this landscape that I walk upon now, and it's all about reclaiming that magic that is very much apparent to you, things that we have ultimately almost forgotten. It's still there. It's still there in whispers, but we've almost forgotten it, and so I made it my job to try and re-remember it all. So my practice is very much focused on that.

Mhara: 24:25

So there's a lot of influence from Welsh mythology, Welsh poetry and also the pre-Christian Brythonic origins of this landscape as well. So before we became Wales, we were one big island that spoke a Celtic language, which is often referred to as Common Brythonic, and that language was spoken across all of what we now refer to as Wales, England, parts of Scotland, Cornwall, all of it. So when I focus on my practice, I tend to look to those places for inspiration. So the main components of my practice involve an affinity and a devotion to the landscape. So I try and connect with the land as much as possible, try and with the land as much as possible, try and understand the landscape as much as possible and seeing the landscape as a living being and not as something that we are supposed to exploit, not as this thing that is separate from us, but instead as something that constantly feeds us, nourishes us and is part of us and part of our community. So that's a big part of it. Within that, I'm very much in relationship with the spirits of my landscape. So tylwyth teg, which is our version of the fair family, fair folk, or the fey as some people might refer to them, they very much feature as a big part of my practice. And then the deities of this landscape as well. So to those of you outside of Wales who might have never heard of our deities, you've probably heard their names in a couple of different contexts. So one of them is Rhiannon. Rhiannon, who is a goddess of sovereignty, goddess of horses, all of this. Ceridwen, who is a goddess of witchcraft and magic, but also a goddess of the Bardic arts. And that brings me to the next part of my witchcraft, which is, I'm, very much focused on the Bardic traditions and Bardic history of this landscape.

Mhara: 26:09

Our culture is not one that really enjoyed writing things down. We passed our knowledge via stories, via poetry and orally, so we didn't write it down. We love to just transfer it by performing them essentially, transfer it by performing them essentially. So a lot of my magic looks to a lot of people as a very performative thing and I think a lot of people hear that word and they're like, oh, that's a bad thing, your witchcraft is not meant to be performative, and I challenge that and I go. What's wrong with it being performative? Because theatre and performance and you know being very much in that state of presence as a performer is the oldest form of ritual that we have on our planet. You know, ritual preceded theatre and performance and we know from many parts of the ancient world that the ancient Greeks had plays that had a spiritual undercurrent to them and within our culture, specifically in Wales, we have poetry that was recited, we have songs that were sung and we have words that were echoed into the world in front of an audience that were essentially forms of magic.

Mhara: 27:15

So in my practice I have a focus on working with my voice, working with the way in which I speak and present, and I work with how I would utilize my voice in a ritual context. So I have what is referred to as my witch voice or my bardic voice, my llais barddol as I call it in Welsh, my bardic voice, which is that when I do a spell or an incantation or anything during an open ritual. One of my biggest pet peeves is when you go to an open ritual and somebody is reciting an invocation to the gods and they're just reading it off a piece of paper with the limpest voice possible, as if they don't really want to be there and they're like we call to the goddess of brain and we love you today. Be here, please. I cannot stand that. I'm like give it some oomph, give it some power, show some love to it, and that in and of itself is a devotional act being vulnerable and being able to stand there and go. We call to the spirits of this land and we sing to you with joy. And being able to recite it in that way and I know it feels silly, but it does show a sense of devotion and it's something that I link to my culture as well.

Mhara: 28:27

So a lot of my practice that I could share very easily is rooted in that vocal work, that voice work, that working with the breath. So one thing I do is sing the awen. So within Welsh culture there's this concept called awen, and awen is the force of divine, poetic inspiration and it starts its life in the other world. It is formed by divine hands and then, via the cauldron of Ceridwen, the witch goddess, it flows into our world like a river, or, more specifically, like a breeze. And as that breeze flows through our world, we breathe it in. And once we breathe it in, it takes hold within us. And once it has taken hold within us, through this symbiotic relationship between this mystical, otherworldly force and our own experiences as humans, our own deep humanity, we then have the power to birth something incredibly profound, prophetic and transformative in nature thing. Incredibly profound, prophetic and transformative in nature, and usually within Welsh culture that comes out in the form of poetry.

Mhara: 29:29

So something that I like to do is I like to sing the awen, and it's something that I do every single day, and all I do is I sit with myself for a moment, I centre myself, I sit up straight, I take a few deep breaths into my diaphragm, making sure that that stomach area, which we're so used to sucking in every single day of our lives, that when I breathe in, that stomach expands and fills with air and when I exhale it completely deflates. That exhale is completely coming out. And then, after I do that about three times, I then let out a song of the word Awen-a times. I then let out a song of the word Awen-a. So in a lot of Druid traditions there is this practice of singing the Awen, but they tend to do this very strange thing where they sing the Awen as the word as it exists, so they go Awen. But the annoying thing about that is that Awen ends in an N, which closes off the vocal cords. So when you sing it, you go, it just stops, it just completely stops at the end. So it causes that kind of guttural stop at the end.

Mhara: 30:32

So the alternative that I think is better is instead to sing the verb of Awen. So rather than singing inspiration, we sing to inspire, and the verb of Awen is Awenna, which ends in an A, which is, you know, very much opening of the throat, so you can keep it going on a breath. So rather than awen, it's instead awen na, and it can just keep going. And there's something about singing it with the fullest of power, especially if you're in a group setting, that activates something rather old, rather ancient within you, especially if you let yourself go. And a big thing that I tend to do if I hold workshops, if I hold any kind of classes and I teach people to sing the awen, especially here in the United Kingdom.

Mhara: 31:17

I always say to them don't be British about it, because the British have this tendency to go Sing? Me? I'm not singing, no, I'm far too special for that. So they'll stand in the corner twiddling their thumbs and they'll go. It's like no, give it your power, show your devotion to this force that inspires us and moves us on the daily and let yourself go. And yeah, so don't be British about it. Be open and loud and clear and sing with it and allow that Awen to touch you. And you don't have to be a good singer for it. I'm not a perfect singer and you don't have to be somebody who is wanting to go on stage and such, but something about using your voice in that way and using your breath in that way connects you with a current which is particularly ancient. Our breath is our most ancient tool, if anything, along with the rest of our body.

Kimothy: 32:13

I love that a lot. I unintentionally, like, unconsciously, add music to my practice, so I like that aspect. I like that a lot, actually. Hello, okay, every Thursday I work with Jupiter for abundance and I sing something to him. That's funny that I'm doing it and don't even realize it. I like that a lot. What would you say is the biggest motivator in your practice and can you contrast it with your biggest struggle? How do they interact?

Mhara: 33:02

So I would say the biggest motivator in my life is a phrase that I kind of concocted myself but also drew from the wellspring of my own tradition, which is what I was talking about earlier. So one of our oldest terms for magic is gwyddan, gwyddon, gwyddoniaid and such. That's a word that describes practitioners of magic and it comes from the root word gwyddan or gwyddon, which has its origins etymologically with words to do with trees. So when we're talking about magical practitioners in the oldest, most ancient state that they exist within our culture, we refer to them as those who work with the understanding of the forest, those who are very much in tune with the magic of trees, those who understand the trees, and strangely it's also in the modern day trees, and strangely it's also in the modern day our word for science in Welsh. So gwyddoniaid is our word for science and gwythoniaidd essentially translates to. So the gwyddon bit at the beginning is the same root as that magical word. It means trees or being in tune with the trees, and then iaidd, we add it to the end and that's basically like the welsh version of ology. So in the same way we say like biology and things like that in English. So Gwythonydd is essentially treeology, and that's our word for science, but also our word for magic. They are one and the same within our culture and my entire practice is rooted around this motivating idea of living in accordance with the wisdom of the forest, which sounds very out there and very strange, but there is an idea behind it, I promise.

Mhara: 34:38

So when we look at a forest and we look at the way in which the forest interacts with one another, we know now, through certain scientific advancements, that the forest isn't a group of trees which are all sat there separate from one another and just trying to survive in the best way possible. A forest is a network and it's constantly in tune with one another. A forest is essentially a community. It's the most pure form of community and through all sorts of fungal networks and root systems, they talk with one another and they protect one another and they stand with each other. They talk with one another and they protect one another and they stand with each other. So there has been recorded instances where trees have protected each other from threats that have come to the forest and such. So my entire practice is focused on this idea of trying to live in accordance with the wisdom of the grove or the wisdom of the forest. And the forest cares for one another. The forest takes care of its own. The forest acts as a full community and it doesn't matter how diverse it is. That diversity actually brings richness to that community. A good forest is completely diverse. It's a biodiverse area where all sorts of organisms come together and protect one another and exist peacefully together.

Mhara: 35:51

And I think that's a lesson that we all need in this day and age is to live in accordance with the trees. And of course that interacts with both aspects of my being, because I'm a witch and the oldest term for witch in my language has an association with wisdom, to do with trees. But then since I've grown up, since I've gotten older, I've also joined the Anglesey Druid Order now. So I technically am a druid and the translation of the term druid is oak, wise. A druid is somebody who is as wise as the oak. So it's that two kind of system going on in my life where my druid side and my witch side kind of coalesce within a Welsh cultural context, because they are both working in alignment with the wisdom of trees. So my main motivator is every day when I'm doing my magic, when I'm practicing my devotion, when I'm doing anything in life, I ask myself constantly am I living, am I working and am I doing everything that I'm doing in accordance with the wisdom of the forest? And that has really helped me in everyday life to try and live in that way, to try and live in accordance with the wisdom we glean and understand from the forest.

Mhara: 37:01

And I think my biggest challenge in my practice and in my life kind of goes along with that. And my biggest challenge is disenchantment, the disenchantment that the world can provide us. So we live or specifically in areas like where I live, we live in a very kind of colonial and capitalistic and almost empirical way of life where everything has to be quick, quick, quick. There is no slowness, there is no respite, there is no rest. Everything has to constantly be moving and grinding, as if we're some machine that's constantly needing to be making money. And if you stop for a second, if you take a breather for a second, then you fail because you're not making money, you're not going to survive, you're not going to pay your rent, you're not going to be able to live the way that you want to live. So you have to just keep chugging along and keep doing these things, and I genuinely do not believe that we were meant to live like this.

Mhara: 37:58

We were not meant to constantly be in this state of constantly moving, constantly trying to operate like machines do. And, in essence, what that has caused for us as a culture, as a community, as everything, as a society, is that we are completely disconnected from ourselves, but also each other, and the concept of community in and of itself is basically disintegrating all around us. We don't know each other and we don't care, because we're too focused on surviving. We're too focused on our individuality, our need to be unique, but also our need to survive and thrive in this world, and that separates us from that wisdom of the trees, the wisdom of the forest. Rather than being these cohesive groups of communities that stand by each other, we are instead just constantly screaming into the void because we're not allowed to live the way we do.

Mhara: 38:52

And I do have moments where the busyness and the constant hustle and bustle of the world and the way in which I can't live in alignment always with the wisdom of the forest, that sometimes knocks me out of my practice and disenchants me, and I think in those moments it's important that we do find the enchantment that still exists in the world and remind ourselves that we can, if we so wish, return to that state of being.

Mhara: 39:18

And strangely, within Welsh culture, when we feel off-balanced, off-kilter, the term that we use to say that we need to return to a balanced state of mind is a phrase that is essentially dod yn ôl at fy nghoed, which translates to return to my trees. So to return to a balanced state of mind is to return to my trees, and that, I think, just sums up exactly how I try and counteract that disenchantment. I remind myself, when I reach those pits of disenchantment where I just feel like the world is grey and cold, I remind myself that I need to return to my trees. I need to return to my trees, and that can be on a metaphorical level. I need to return to align myself with the wisdom of the forest. But it can also be literal just go to the forest, for goodness sakes, because the forest knows how to treat you, the forest knows how to heal you. So, yeah, I try and live in alignment with the wisdom of the forest and my biggest, biggest challenge is not allowing the disenchantment of the everyday world to drag me down.

Kimothy: 40:36

Okay, I'm going to show a little bit of my ignorance here. When you visited, was there anyplace here that was like the forests where you are?

Mhara: 40:50

 So do you mean like physically, or do you mean like more of a spiritual? 

Kimothy: 41:02

Physically.

Mhara: 41:03

So physically a little bit. So when we were in Wisconsin, I felt like when I was along the Wisconsin River and I was there with all the trees, there was this feeling of connectedness. I almost felt like I was at home again. The weather was very cold, so that was something that felt almost at home. But at the same time everything in the United States just felt bigger, like, like everything was. It was as though I was in a forest. So for example, we were walking along the river at one point, just outside Wisconsin Dells, and we came to this place where the river, kind of two rivers, almost coalesced together and came and joined and there were these cliffs going down to the, to the river, and there were these great big trees that were growing, and for a minute it felt like I was in Coedwig Niwbwrch, which is a forest that is just down the road from where I grew up. But at the same time it was almost like I was looking at this forest that I grew up near and it was like blown up to grand proportion and everything was much, much bigger, like somebody just expanded it hugely, and that was like a bit of a shock to me.

Mhara: 42:08

The roads are so wide and I think there were moments where I felt almost at home, but at the same time I was constantly just that little bit aware that I wasn't quite in Kansas anymore. I was somewhere else, and I love that, which is a strange phrase to say, isn't it, not in Kansas anymore when I was in America? But you know what I mean? I wasn't quite home anymore. So that was a strange one. And one of the kind of strangest things I think that I had to reconcile when I was in America was the way in which the oh is it?

Mhara: 42:39

Highways, the highway system works and such, because when we were driving from one city to the other, you would see nothing, because you're just seeing road and kind of maybe a couple of fields and trees either side, whereas here you can't do that. Our roads don't work like that. We constantly have to meander through all the towns, all the cities, everything. And you know people always make fun of the brits because we say like, oh, my gosh, you know I have to drive from this city to this city and they're like but your, your, your nation, your, uh, the United Kingdom in and of itself is so tiny. That's nothing compared to how much we have to drive in the United States.

Mhara: 43:17

But what I think people don't realize is how long it takes us to just go 200 miles in the UK because there are no direct, straight roads that take you through that 200 miles. You have to go around the mountains, around the towns, around the villages, through the bends, across the river, and you have to do it in such a zigzaggy manner, whereas in the United States it just felt like the majority of my time on the road was just boom, like a direct torpedo being thrown from one city to the next, and that was a bit of a shock to the system. That was a bit like I was expecting to have that road trip experience of seeing everything, but mostly what I saw were trucks and flags.

Kimothy: 43:57

So yeah, that's interesting, because I lived in Germany for a while and they have big highways I actually have never been to any English-speaking countries.

Mhara: 44:15

It is strange because Germany do, yeah, they have the autobahn and they do seem to operate in more that way, but we, for some reason, we have a few. If you want to travel between my island and the northeast of England, north east, northwest, the northwest of England we have like the A55, but even that it's just a dual carriageway system of two, two next to each other, and that's only from like Anglesey down to around the northwest of England and then it stops and you have to go onto another road and in order to get from that road to another kind of highway system you have to go around all these little roads and it's insane. So, yeah, it was kind of nice because it meant that we could get places quicker, but at the same time I kind of I hoped that I could get to see more of the United States when I was there, and I just didn't feel like I did unless I was actually there, you know, unless I actually was in a town or city.

Kimothy: 45:11

Yeah, it is like that. Oh gosh, that's a new way to look at things. Anyway, what's your favorite tool in your practice? And it doesn't necessarily have to be a physical thing, it can be like a song or a theory. What is your favorite thing to work with?

Mhara: 45:38

So the primary thing that I think I work with the most is, as I mentioned earlier, my voice and my breath, and I think those are probably the most powerful and potent tools that I utilize. In the Welsh language, when we say song, it's so the word that we have for song is can or canu. If we're singing, the verb of singing is canu and then the term for song is can. But the strange thing about the Welsh language is that the term can doesn't necessarily always just mean singing in the way that we tend to think of it, in that like la, la, la, kind of you know way. So we also call reciting words with power canu. So we sing poetry, we sing invocations, we sing prayers. We don't just say them, we sing them with conviction, and that's very much rooted in our entire cultural understanding of ourselves, because even in our national anthem we call ourselves gwlad y beirdd a'r cantorion, which translates to a land of bards and singers. We literally embody that into the very being of our essence. That's so good and I love it, and so my voice connects me to that force of awen, that force of awen that comes from the other world, that comes from Anuwen, and in old Welsh tradition it's stated that awen, which is the force that inspires us to sing, to recite our words, to create prophecy because that's the other thing you can sing you sing prophecy as well, and the word for prophecy in Welsh is darogani, which you hear that word singing in there, cani, gani. So dar o gani translates to hitting a song. So to prophesize you must hit a song, as in that song needs to hit really well, so you can hear it in that as well. So there's also this association between singing and voice and magic within our culture as well.

Mhara: 47:35

And I think when I try and recite any invocations, a poem, an invocation, a prophecy, anything it comes from Awen, and Awen comes from Annuwen. So Awen is that again, that force of divine inspiration, and Annoven is our native word for the other world, but its translation directly, if we translate the word Annoven, it translates to mean the very deep or the very depths. So when we sing it comes from the very depths, it comes from the very deep, and we can look at this in a variety of different ways. We can kind of perceive it in a variety of ways. So in one context we can look at it and think of it as literally, the other world is located in the deep. Because when we read our fairy stories, our folk tales, our mythologies, the other world is often located under the earth, so literally under the ground that we walk upon, or it's located via deep lakes. Almost everybody has heard the mythologies of the Lady of the Lake and such like that, which comes from our tradition, which is very much this idea of fairy maidens traversing through depths of the deep lakes and such, and then also through caves, cave systems, and by traveling over the sea as well, over the very depths of the seas.

Mhara: 49:08

So, on a literal sense, we have to enter the deep in order to enter into the physical otherworld. But we can also take it on a metaphorical level as well, because the bards of ancient Wales, who were very much obsessed with drawing inspiration from the otherworld to craft their poetry and their prophecy, they drew it from the very depths of their being as well. So they went inward and they entered into trance-like states in order to pull inspiration, information, poetry, prophecy from their deep. So not only is it accessed via the literal deep and those deep, dark, numinous, liminal spaces are access points to the other world but also it's within us, it's within the very depths of our being. So we have to enter into ourselves deeply in order to bring it forth. So when I sing, when I try and recite any invocations, when I recite prayers to the gods, when I sing with the landscape, I try and bring it from that depth of being, from that depth of place, and then just to kind of throw a spanner in the works and also mention something else.

Mhara: 50:15

My other favourite tool, if we're talking about physical tools, is the cauldron, and the cauldron pops up in a variety of places across Welsh mythology and folklore and if anybody goes on my YouTube channel, you will see that I am a bit of a cauldron hoarder. Like I say that I'm a bit of a cauldron hoarder, I have one literally right here. I have one literally on my desk in front of me right now, and actually in that one there's another one. So that cauldron just gave birth to another cauldron and then in front of me there's another one over there as well. I won't try to reach that because I will fall over, but it just showcases how much I love cauldrons and that's because the cauldron is the vessel of transformation. It's where transformation happens.

Mhara: 50:57

Within Welsh mythology it is said that the cauldron will never boil the food of a coward, if it's a magical cauldron. So you have to be brave in order to try and boil food in a cauldron, and what that means metaphorically is you will not glean wisdom, you will not gain inspiration and you will not be able to sing with the depth of the other world unless you are brave, unless you are willing to be brave and put yourself out there and be vulnerable and such. So the cauldron, to me, represents that force of the other world, that force of the deep end of transformation in a physical object. So it reminds me every day. It is there as a reminder to sing from the depth of my being and to be brave.

Kimothy: 51:44

All these things that you're saying remind me so much of all the stories I I read when I was a kid, like the White Heart and a bunch of other, so many. It's so good. I mean, obviously, what was it? The Dark Cauldron? No, I'm not saying Dark Crystal.

Mhara: 52:01

Oh, the Black Cauldron, the Black Cauldron.

Kimothy: 52:03

Yeah, that! I mean obviously that, but so many other ones, it's so good. Oh gosh, is there anything you wish was discussed more in the magical community?

Mhara: 52:19

Oh. So I think I will kind of toss something out there that might get some people annoyed, but I think one thing that isn't talked about enough is the inherent queerness of magic and witchcraft in general, and I say that as an openly queer person. I say that like that, and I think when I say it, people assume what I mean is that the powers of witchcraft, the powers of magic in general, are inherently, like you know, LGBTQIA+ in some ways. But no, I mean queer in the broadest sense of the word. Now I mean queer to mean that which does not conform, that which does not bend to the will of our usual communities and cultures, and such that which exists in almost opposition to anything that is normative, and witchcraft is inherently queer in that way. And I think we forget this because a lot of our traditions, a lot of our practices, a lot of the things that get written in books and published by big pagan publishing houses have come to us directly through this very mid 20th century lens, through this very mid 20th century lens, which was where we saw the rise of things like Wicca and such. And this is not a Wicca bashing moment, I'm not wicca bashing, I'm just saying that I think we forget how much of an influence that era around 1950s, 1960s Britain specifically, England specifically how much of an influence that culture had on witchcraft as a whole, especially because a lot of the big publishing houses published books that were influenced by those traditions and because of that, witchcraft has this personality that it presents online and such nowadays that can be very rooted in very strict binaries, that can be very rooted in very strict ideas of masculinity, femininity and this idea that is almost restrictive in its nature rather than explosive in its nature, and it doesn't match my perspective and my experience of witchcraft.

Mhara: 54:21

To me, witchcraft is very much a reflection of the world in which we live. Witchcraft is very much akin and attuned to the way in which our reality and our natural world operates. And our natural world is weird. It is queer, it is weird. It is out there. It is strange. It cannot be conformed, it cannot be stuffed into a very neat and pretty box. It completely defies any idea of trying to be something that can easily be understood. It is something that is full of contradiction. You know the natural world. When you try and shove it into these neat, narrow boxes, it laughs in your face and it tells you you are wrong, I'm going to show you 70 million contradictions to what you're saying. If you tell me a tree is this, I will find you 5 million examples of how actually it's this. And that's the way the natural world works. The natural world defies our need, our incessant need, especially in Western culture in particular, to try and shove things into boxes, and to me that is so queer, that is so out there, it's so weird and it's so wonderful and magical and I wish there was more of a conversation going on about that, about that inherent queerness that is apparent in witchcraft, that very inherent tooth and claw of nature and of the wilds. That is witchcraft in its entire form. And we see this reflected even in our oldest mythologies. So, speaking from my own culture, when we read our stories, our stories were preserved by Christian cultures and even they couldn't restrict the weird qualities that was going on in our stories.

Mhara: 56:04

So there's a story in the fourth branch of the Mabinogi, for example, which is one of our primary myths, where there's a woman who gives birth to a child, but she didn't have sex, not really beforehand. She just stepped over a magic wand and two children fell out of her. But one of those children was a unfertilized fetus, essentially, and the person who picked up this unfertilized fetus was a man, and he took it and he placed it in a chest at the edge of his bed and he basically brought it to life, which in and of itself is almost like a metaphoric way of saying he carried the child and he gave birth to it, but he's a man in the story. And we have these two characters in this story. One is a woman who rejects motherhood and rejects the roles that are placed upon her by the standard idea of what it means to be a female at the time. And then we have this man who essentially carried and nurtured a child to birth by placing him in his magical chest and such.

Mhara: 57:07

So it's like we read these stories and there are these queer themes going on. And in that same exact story there are two brothers. One of them is the same man we were just talking about, but there are these two brothers who do something rather nasty and vile and the king of the region, who also happens to be a wizard, decides that their punishment for this vile act that they carried out is that they are both going to be transformed into animals and they are going to mate with each other and they're going to create numerous babies with each other. And these are two men who are also brothers. So we have an incestuous relationship and two men who also create life after being transformed into animals. No need for that sense of polarity, they just create babies with each other just because, just because the story tells us and these themes are heavily queer coded, and yet they've been handed down to us and remembered in Christian manuscripts.

Mhara: 58:02

So even the Christian scribes, who were kind of writing these stories down, which are much older than Christianity, but they were the ones who scribed them onto manuscripts for us they couldn't even avoid putting in those very queer themes that don't conform to our very kind of narrow views of gender, of sex, of sexuality, of all of these things. And it just shows us that our oldest ancestors understood that the world was weird and could not be confined into strict binaries and strict black and white views and ideas. And I think my witchcraft reflects a lot of that. I try and reflect it in my writing, but it can be a bit hard and I'm very glad that there are better authors and better writers and better creators out there who are doing that, who are talking about these things, but it would be nice if it was being spoken about by a few more people as well.

Mhara: 58:51

You know, there's this obsession lately within the queer community of writing books and talking about witchcraft and saying that we need to queer our craft and queer our practice. And I always say, do we? I think it's already queer, I think it's already there. I don't think we need to, you know, add a few LGBTQIA+ terms into our witchcraft to make it queer, because it already is, it's already there. We definitely need to deconstruct those very cis-normative, heteronormative and very binary views that are embedded into witchcraft in general, that obviously are the effect of that 20th century, 1950s British mindsets, but at the same time we need to also accept that witchcraft already has this transgressive and outwardly queer aspect. So yeah, that's one thing I wish we spoke about more.

Kimothy: 59:42

This is sort of tangential. But aren't a bunch of Indian deities sort of gender-swappy?

Mhara: 59:55

Yeah, we see it in a lot of ancient cultures and it's something that I think we need again more deeper conversations about that as well, about the nature of deity, because we're a little obsessed with defining our deity as gods and goddesses, the divine feminine, the divine masculine. When they obviously do not conform to such ideas, they can transcend that idea very, very easily. They can switch, they can change, and they often do. And another thing we see in a lot of ancient cultures and I think this is important because, as an openly trans woman who does exist within the witchcraft sphere, I unfortunately do come across a lot of transphobia in witchcraft and yet there are so many ancient cultures which so many pagans claim to turn to for wisdom and experience and such, but there are so many ancient cultures who revered those who do not conform to the binary understanding of gender and sex in general, people.

Mhara: 1:00:49

You know there were priests and priestesses and presexes back in the ancient world that honored and devoted themselves to gods who would, if they existed now in the world that we do, probably be labeled as transgender, and yet we don't call them that in the past, because those terms are new to us, are somewhat new to us. They're only about 30, 40 years old, so we can apply those terms to them because we would understand them in that way in our context and I don't think that people acknowledge that as much either that a lot of queer identities that exist nowadays are not new. They've been here and it seems that in a lot of parts of the world they have been sacred and part and package of these sacred traditions.

Kimothy: 1:01:30

I'm looking at you Norse stuff, Loki and a bunch of other stuff. I can't remember the ones I was thinking about in India, maybe Kali, and I don't remember. It's not my pantheon, so I just sort of know about it. So we're going to come back to now. Have you taken any steps to build local community, like in-person community, and, if you have, do you have any resources to share in helping other people do that?

Mhara: 1:02:16

Yeah, so before I kind of put myself forth as an author and somebody who tried to, like you know, teach about the magic of my own culture and such, my primary focus in life was to build community in my local area, or attempt to build community in my local area. But of course there's not that many resources out there for us, not as much funding and such. And you know there is this tendency within a lot of places across the world where people will complain that a community doesn't exist but then they're not willing to actually support that community when it does start building itself up. And so I ran into a lot of those challenges and such. But I did. I built quite a lovely community. I started my own moot, I started my own gatherings, I run my own classes and I tried to organise things in that way.

Mhara: 1:03:05

And then COVID hit, then the lockdowns and such hit during the pandemic and that kind of eradicated a lot of the work that we'd done. The space that I used to do gatherings and such, in which I had a really good deal with the person who run that space to hire it out for these events, that closed down, sadly because of everything that was going on with COVID and such, and so when we came out of the lockdowns I was a bit bereft because it felt like I didn't have that sense of place anymore. And then that's when I joined the Anglesey Druid Order and now I try and do as much as I can to give some acts of service to the Order, to try and grant my presence to them as much as possible so that we can build community to them as much as possible, so that we can build community. And we do have that community in place now, which I love. I absolutely love that we can have those spaces to come together and such. And nowadays I'm very busy so I don't have always all the time to do all those things that I did and I wish I did. But my advice to anyone out there who wants to build community is just do it. Just put yourself out there and do it, even if it starts.

Mhara: 1:04:13

So when I was younger and I lived on the island, I actually was part of a moot, which is what we refer to as pagan gatherings. I don't know if it's the same across the world, but we refer to it as a moot. It was basically a monthly gathering where people would come together to talk, to discuss. Sometimes there'd be a theme, sometimes there'd be a speaker, but it was essentially a place for people who were like-minded to come together and feel at one with inner space, where they wouldn't be judged for anything that they said. And that moot that we started on the island actually took place in a friend of mine's living room. We started it off just going into their living room having cups of tea and chatting, and then it grew and expanded until eventually we could afford to hire out a space to do it. So it doesn't need to start by hiring out the most elaborate of space, by doing the most elaborate of things. It can start as something simple as that just inviting people over for a cup of tea and allowing it to grow, allowing it to reach out beyond just your friend group or whatever, and allowing space for people to come and share.

Mhara: 1:05:18

But, of course, another piece of advice I would give is that safeguarding these kind of events and gatherings is very important as well. There is a tendency in not just in pagan spaces, but in spaces like in any community or subculture that exists we have a tendency to overlook problematic behavior because we think that it's more important to be more open-minded or be more tolerant to people. But what we forget is that when we are tolerant to intolerance, all that happens is the breakdown of tolerance in total. So when we find out that somebody is, for example, a predator or somebody is, you know, some kind of bigot who is very much spreading all sorts of hatred, if you do not handle that straight away, that's going to fester and that's going to destroy the community. So don't let it fester, because we dealt with a lot of similar issues like that as well.

Mhara: 1:06:11

But the primary thing is the biggest advice I always tell people is if you are sitting there and you are whining and complaining about how there doesn't exist a pagan meetup or an event or a conference or whatever in my area, then do it, do it yourself, try and put yourself out there. But that's easier said than done, because not everyone is made to run such events, because it can be a bit of a gargantuan task, and I know that from trying to do it myself. So if you are able and you have the spoons and you have the availability to do it, then please put yourself forward, because we need people who are able to, and if you're not, if you're the type of person who doesn't have the energy to do and arrange these events, then support the ones that are going on around you, because people need the support, trust me. So, yeah, that's the only advice I could really give.

Kimothy: 1:07:03

So I'm going to take a second to say, if you are in Tucson, I am looking, especially the east side of Tucson, I'm looking to start a meetup at the library on Golf Links. So reach out to me, please, please reach out to me. We need to be having in-person meetings. Think about the three biggest influences on your practice and I would like you to, whether it's people or pets, or deity or a book, whatever, thank them for the influence they have on your practice.

Mhara: 1:07:44

So I think the most obvious one that I need to bring up first is, in and of itself, my own culture and the upbringing that I had and through that you know the people who actually shared that with me, the people who opened my eyes to it, and such are people like my teachers in primary school. So when I was six years old and just starting out in school and I told my teachers that I had an interest in mermaids and fairies and witches, and they dragged me over to a corner of the library which housed books on the Mabinogi, on Welsh mythology and such. So I'd love to extend my thanks and my gratitude to the stream of tradition which has carried these stories down to me, but also the teachers and the people who opened my eyes to it as a child. That very much, first and foremost, has been the biggest influence on my life, especially because I grew up, as I mentioned right at the beginning, I grew up as a bit of a weirdo who existed in the margins and never fully felt like I was allowed to feel proud of my being and my heritage and my place in the world. I never felt like my Welshness was good enough, even though I spoke Welsh and I grew up in Wales. And all this, there was still this voice in the background that was like you don't fit. So it was through magic and through this stream of tradition that I finally found the courage to say no, I am allowed to feel proud of all this and I am allowed to feel like I fit in all of this as well. And if I don't fit then I'm going to make myself fit. And so it's with thanks to all of that stream of tradition and those teachers who led me to that that I'm even here today talking about any of this.

Mhara: 1:09:25

The second kind of influence that I think I have to extend my thanks out to is my old mentor, Jules. Jules, who was absolutely batshit crazy, who was off the walls, you know, loved a cake. She absolutely threw me into enchantment. She would take me to these ancient burial chambers where we would sit and stargaze under full moon nights and then we'd perform rituals and magic. And she turned to me at the end of the ritual, after this extremely ecstatic and beautifully magical experience, and she'd say to me oh, we need to ground ourselves now. And I'd go oh, okay, how do we ground ourselves? And she'd say the easiest way to ground ourselves is to eat something, and I'd go, okay, what shall we eat? Ritual food? And she'd go, the easiest way to ground ourselves is to eat something. And I'd go, okay, what shall we eat? Ritual food? And she'd go, do you fancy a trip to McDonald's? And I'd be like, yes, then the sacred trip to McDonald's after ritual. And it's become a thing now where I can't go to a really intense ritual without craving McDonald's at the bloody end of it, which some people think is a travesty. But to me, because Jules is no longer with us, she's no longer on this earth, she died a couple of years back I see those moments as moments where I remember her vividly in my practice, the moment when ritual comes to an end and all of that magic starts to dissipate and you're starting to feel that ritual hangover, and then suddenly I just want a double cheeseburger, oh my gosh. So those moments bring me back to her. So I'd love to thank her for that.

Mhara: 1:11:00

And then the other influence is, of course, another person who has been hugely influential in my life, which is Christopher Hughes.

Mhara: 1:11:07

Christopher is the head of the Anglesey Druid Order, but I know him as the fabulously openly queer druid that I met at a pivotal turning point in my life, where I was told constantly that you could not exist in this world happily and be queer, that you could not do those things, that in order to be an openly queer person you had to live a life of depression, of repression, of all sorts of self-hatred and loathing.

Mhara: 1:11:36

And then I walked into a ritual space and there he was, just living his life openly and joyously as a druid, as a death professional and as a drag queen. Death, druidry and drag. Those three things that made him all that he was. And he showed me that you can live in accordance with the spirits of your land, in accordance with the stream of tradition that we have been handed down through our culture's legacy, and you can also be a larger than life queerdo who lives brightfully and colorfully. Is brightfully a word, I don't know, but it is now. So he showed me that life can be explosively colourful and also incredibly magical. So it's those three influences, that stream of tradition, and my teachers, my mentor, Julie, and my current teacher, who's still around and still inspiring me to this day, Christopher Hughes. Those are the three things that I think, the three things, the three inspirations that keep me going and that, I would say, are the main things that constantly keep my cauldron overflowing with joy.

Kimothy: 1:12:46

Jules sounds like I want to be her. 

Mhara: 1:12:53

Yes, she was insanely beautiful. I love her, loved. But she's still here. She's still influencing me in everyday life.

Kimothy: 1:12:58

Both of them actually sound like I would want to model myself after them. Now that you have talked to me and seen how I'm like to, how I am to talk to, and heard the questions, who do you think I should have on the show? Who would be fun and interesting to have on?

Mhara: 1:13:22

oh gosh. Well, I definitely would suggest Christopher, as I've already mentioned him so much during this show. I think you would absolutely love him. He's essentially just a slightly more masculine version of me who is also very open to talking about the magic of his culture. But one thing I think about Christopher that's really interesting is that he is known publicly as the Druid. He's the Druid guy, you know, because he runs a Druid order. But he is and don't tell the druid order that I told you this but he is a witch as well. He is very much a witch and he will tell you that openly. And it's a criticism that we get as a druid order, the Anglesey Druid Order, that we're a little too witchy in our druidry, but it's something we wear with pride. We are very witchy in our Druidry.

Mhara: 1:14:11

But beyond that, Chris has a breadth of experience in life that I could never even possibly try to emulate because he has lived such a full and just weird life. So he, like I mentioned, he started his life as a death professional. He was a mortician who worked in the mortuaries, who treated the death, who dealt with the dead. Then, of course, he's also a drag queen. He is Wales' most famous drag queen. He's on the television as the prima drag queen of our culture.

Mhara: 1:14:44

He has his own television show and such, and then also lately he has retired from working professionally as a mortician but he still works within the death industry because he is trying to bring human composting to the UK to try to legalize the human composting process and because of that he's also been on television in a documentary series doing that and through all of this he is also a hugely successful author and writer within the field of Druidry and witchcraft and I have no idea how he does it all because I am so tired just writing my books and doing my silly videos. So how he has the energy I don't know. But he, I think, would have a very interesting perspective on witchcraft and life in general.

Kimothy: 1:15:29

I would love that. I would love that. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about? Anything I didn't ask you or anything you wanted to ask me. Anything happening with you that you want to promote?

Mhara: 1:15:46

Well, as I mentioned right at the beginning, I'm a bit like a rash, and now that you've rubbed up against me, you won't be rid of me. So please come find me everywhere. Trust me, if you don't come find me, I will find you eventually. So I do run courses online via my Patreon. So please come and find me via my Patreon If you'd like to learn more from me. Sometimes we get a little chaotic and we get a little strange, but I also have so much that I love to share about the magic of Wales. And even if you don't have an interest in Welsh witchcraft and paganism specifically, it'll be quite surprising for you to realise that so much of contemporary paganism and witchcraft as it exists today has been influenced by Welsh culture, and our influence can be seen in so many different places. We've influenced Wicca, traditional witchcraft, druidry, so if you're in any of those kinds of circles, you will find some Welsh influence in there somewhere. So if you're interested in learning more about that, come seek me out.

Mhara: 1:16:49

Beyond that, my books oh my goodness, I've got three now. So my first book, Welsh Witchcraft, is already out now and available wherever books are sold. My second book, which is better than the first one, I think Welsh Fairies is also out wherever books are sold. They're both published by Llewellyn Worldwide, so yeah, you can get them literally anywhere, absolutely anywhere. I personally suggest you call your local bookshop or library and ask them to order them in um. And then my third book, pagan portals, a map in naki, which is all about the wisdom and the enchantment of welsh mythology, published by moon books. That one is releasing in just a few days from when we're recording this podcast, so probably by the time you're listening it's already out there and you can look that up by just searching either my name or by searching Pagan Portal's Mabinogi, which is spelt M-A-B-I-N-O-G-I I think I'm not very good at spelling, so do have a lookout for that if you're interested in something that is easily accessible, smaller, affordable and easily digestible to get you started on learning about Welsh mythology.

Mhara: 1:17:58

But beyond that, come find all my free stuff too. I've got YouTube videos, I've got TikTok videos, I've got Instagrams. I've got all of these things and also a podcast of my own, which I post very sporadically to, but it's there nonetheless. So come find me. I am literally everywhere. And beyond all that, I am probably coming to a venue or event near you soon. So I love to talk and share my talks and my presentations at conferences and events, and I've traveled to most parts of the United Kingdom and even to the United States now, so you might find me one day and we might bump into each other.

Kimothy: 1:18:37

I hope, so we can go get McDonald's yes, sacred McDonald's trip so I have kind of a nerdy question. When you say the name of that publisher, there's like an H sound. Is the double L. Does that have an H sound?

Mhara: 1:19:15

is Llewellyn, Llewellyn Worldwide, and that's a Welsh name. So Llywelyn Worldwide actually has its origin in Wales. Its founder was a Welshman and his last name was Llywelyn and in Welsh culture we say it's Llywelyn, Llywelyn and that double L makes a H noise H. But the strange thing is and this is what some people always ask me is there's two double Ls in Llewellyn. So why do I not pronounce the second double L the same as the first one? And that's because the spelling of Llywelyn that you see on the side of my book and such is the anglicized version of the name.

Mhara: 1:19:46

The original spelling of Llewellyn was double L-E-W-E-1-L-Y-N, so it would have been pronounced in Welsh Hywelyn, hywelyn, like that. But when it was anglicised into, when people travelled to the New World and they had to put their name down on documents, they changed it to that spelling which you see on the side of the books. Nowadays we as welsh people still say it the traditional way that it would usually be spelled. So Llewellyn, we don't say “Lou-ellen”, we say “Hugh-ellen”. Um, so yeah, it's always a bit of a party trick, because when I went to the Llewellyn offices they were all like tell us how to say the name.

Kimothy: 1:20:43

I learned from The Silver Tree, the woman who wrote those books. My brain has gone. His name was Bran and he had a white dog. I don't remember. Those books and they. They were like the g's, this and the two l's and and w's mean something else and it's very wet sounding. Remember that part, I just. I think your language is so pretty, I love it. 

Mhara: 1:21:01

Oh, thank you. 

Kimothy: 1:21:02

So I have two more things to ask, well, more than that technically, but two more things in this case. Thing number one is please recommend something to the listeners. It doesn't have to be witchy at all. Whatever you are into this week, whatever cool thing you're, recommended to your best friend recommend it here too, oh goodness, Well, currently, oh, what could I recommend?

Mhara: 1:21:33

Actually, I'm trying to think now. One thing I would recommend to people and this is something that I've been kind of passionate about for a long time, but it came up this week because of an event I went to and that is that when you are learning and this is a witchy thing, because apparently my life revolves around bloody witchy things these days but, um, when you are studying witchcraft, when you are learning witchcraft or paganism, polytheism, animism, any of it, the learning doesn't always need to come in the form that we have always been kind of hardwired to believe learning must come in. When we grow up in the UK, in the United States, in most of Western Europe and such, we are taught that learning comes in the form of reading, of listening to podcasts, of watching videos, watching lectures and things like that. But sometimes learning comes from the most, you know, unexpected of places, of places, and the most unexpected of places that I learned something really valuable about some of my local magical traditions in the past couple of weeks was actually by sitting in a living room, which was my grandmother's living room, and listening to my grandmother and my mother having a conversation about the strange characters and the strange things they used to do from my village. So specifically, I learned about a woman who used to live in the village who used to cure all sorts of different illnesses by creating these little strange potions which looked like green slop, and in talking to them it set off alarm bells in my head. I was like this sounds incredibly magical and witchy.

Mhara: 1:23:13

So let me dig deeper into this and I found out that that woman was essentially a 1970s and 80s version of a cunning woman who used to help people heal their arthritis and their warts by mixing a certain mixture of herbs and such. And through talking to various people in the village who had connections to her family members and such, I actually learned the recipe. But I've been sworn to secrecy, I'm not allowed to share it with anyone. But it means that I have now learned an element of local tradition. And this mixture isn't just, you know, like local herbalism. It's not just mix these herbs together and it works. There's also words you have to recite over the potion, the concoction. There's also like little things you have to do, like you have to leave it out at a certain time of the week so that it absorbs the rays of the moonlight and such, which sounds so pagan and neo-pagan and witchy to me.

Mhara: 1:24:07

But this was something that she was doing and she never called herself a witch, this woman, she was just somebody who enjoyed helping and healing the community, and I learned that just by listening to a conversation between my mother and my grandmother and then taking that information that I learned from them and going out into the community and talking to some of the elders in the community, some of the family members of this person that they were talking about, and now it's going to be part and package of my practice that I have it at my disposal.

Mhara: 1:24:38

When one of my friends or one of my relatives complains now about their arthritis or their wart on their nose, I have something that I can turn to which is inherently magical and yet something that I learned, not from a book, not from watching a YouTube video, not from going to a $600 class or something like that, but just from listening to people in my community. So learn about your local law, learn about your local people, get to know your community and go out there. So that's my recommendation is talk to people, which I know is terrifying. So try it.

Kimothy: 1:25:10

I like that. Okay, yay, finally, will you tell me a story? It can be a story from your life or a story that you enjoyed from childhood.

Mhara: 1:25:25

Oh, my goodness. So I'll tell you a little bit of a spooky story. So, growing up on the island, we had a variety of ancient monuments, of ancient things that were just constantly littering the landscape. You can't kick a rock on the Isle of Anglesey without it being sacred to the ancient peoples who lived there. And this was something that I took for granted when I was younger, and I remember we used to go to this nearby town, Holyhead, it was called Caergybi, and we used to always go shopping. And then, directly after doing our shopping, we would go and we would get some fish and chips and we would drive with the fish and chips in our little bags and we would go to a nearby beach, and that beach was called Porth Dafarch, and Porth Dafarch was this beautiful little bay, this beautiful little cove, and we'd park up next to the beach, no matter what the weather was. It was usually at night too, so you couldn't see much, but you could hear the waves of the sea and we'd park up, even if it was blistering wind and rain that was just pouring down, and we'd sit there in the car as a family and we'd eat our fish and chips. But when you go down the road from the town of Hollyhead down to this cove, this little beach called Porth Davarch, there's a little section of the road where things get a little creepy and on the right of the road there's this huge standing stone. Looks almost identical to the ones you see in Stonehenge, maybe a little smaller. Just one lone standing stone. Looks almost identical to the ones you see in Stonehenge, maybe a little smaller, just one lone standing stone there. And that stone is called Caregg y Bwgan, which translates to the stone of the bogey monster or the stone of the ghoul.

Mhara: 1:27:09

And my dad was a bit of a prankster and he loved scaring us, and so did my mother. They were both a bit cruel in that way. They thought you know, if we scare them young, then they will be brave when they get older. So I remember vividly this one night. It was quite a cold autumnal night, it was close to Halloween and we were driving down this road with our fish and chips in bags in the backseat ready to be eaten. I was excited to have my fish, cake and chips.

Mhara: 1:27:36

And as we were driving down we reached Carreg y Bwgan and it kind of loomed in the background and it's this gorgeous stone. And as the headlights of the car hit it. It just looks like this ominous creature standing there at the side of the road waiting for you. And as we started driving towards it, my father started to slow down. He started slowing down quite a lot and I remember thinking what's he doing? And then suddenly he started pretending but I didn't know at the time that he was pretending that the car had broken down. So he drove the car as close to the stone as possible and at the very last minute switched everything off, all the lights, all the car entirely.

Mhara: 1:28:16

So we were just there in silence, rain pitter-pattering on the roof of the car and I was sat at the closest window to this stone that was just there on the right of us off the road, this huge gargantuan stone that we knew was called the Stone of the Ghoul. And as we were there and my dad said, oh no, we're stuck, the car's broken down. But I suppose while we're here I'll tell you why that stone is called Carreg y Bwgan, why it's called the Stone of the Ghoul, and he said to us once upon a time it used to be an actual ghoul and a magical person came and turned it into stone. But legend says that if you look at it for too long in the dark, it will turn back into a ghoul. And then he went silent and my little brother was sat next to me and I was looking out the window with him and we started screaming at my dad just go, just drive, please get us out of here.

Mhara: 1:29:16

We don't want to be with this stone and I swear I will hold my hand up and swear to every god in existence. I saw, as I was looking out the window from behind the stone, a strange shadowy arm just wrap around from one side and just kind of caress the stone and then vanish again behind it. And the moment that arm vanished behind the stone, my dad turned the car back on and we drove off and we had our fish and chips by the side of the beach. But that has stuck with me throughout my entire life and I wonder how long it is until somebody gets some kind of trickery from the ghoul that stands at the side of the road. And I'm pretty sure that's one of the reasons why I do definitely believe in fairies and bogey monsters to this day. So I hope that was entertaining enough.

Kimothy: 1:30:14

That's a good one. Oh, that was a good one. Holy crap. Is that really the story, or did he just make it up at this on the spur of the moment?

Mhara: 1:30:26

He just made that up on the spot, but it must have triggered something within us because there is an actual folk tale behind it. But I don't remember it very well now. I always remember his version more because of that experience. 

Kimothy: 1:30:43

Wow. Wow, thanks for that story. Can we try to craft a spell together?

Mhara: 1:30:52

Oh, how would we do that?

Kimothy: 1:30:54

I don't know. Okay, I'll tell you how I do things and then we can see if it meshes with how you do things. So if I need to do something, like if I'm going on a trip and I want to be protected on the trip, then, um, if it's the car, obviously I'm going to do something with the car, but if it's like I'm going on a flight, that I might grab a feather that I find outside, I have chickens and we have, like you know, birds, so I'd I'd grab a feather and maybe some cactus spines, because I live in Arizona and there are tons of them. Maybe there are these really tough weeds that live here, so I might grab one of those and say, okay, can you please help me by donating some of your determination to stay alive, so that sort of thing.

Mhara: 1:32:00

Oh, yes, no, definitely. That links up with a lot of things that we do here. So one of my favorite pieces of folk magical lore that we have here that I try and talk about in my books and stuff but I don't do a very good job of it, I don't think, so I always try and promote this one as much as possible is we have a belief that the shed skin of a snake is inherently a magical thing. So we're talking about how snakes, in their natural life cycle, they shed their skin as they grow, and anybody who owns snakes will probably have an abundance of snakes' skin sheds. In their natural life cycle, they shed their skin as they grow, and anybody who owns snakes will probably have an abundance of snakes skin sheds in their disposal which they have no idea what to do with. Well, here's an idea.

Mhara: 1:32:39

So in traditional Welsh lore and this is something that we can trace at least as far back as the 11th century it was believed that the shed skin of a snake could be used for a variety of different charms, and the most predominant ones were protection charms, but also for a variety of other things too. It could be turned into a powder in order to, uh, create like this substance that worked as a lie detector. So if you sprinkled it over the head of someone they were incapable of telling a lie. If you took the powder and you threw it into your neighbor's doorway without them knowing, that neighbor will leave, so very handy for a nasty neighbor. They will move house within the first three months of you doing that.

Mhara: 1:33:23

Then there's also the idea that if you put it into food just before you eat it, it'll ensure that there's no poison in the food, which I don't recommend doing. It probably doesn't taste very good and also if you sprinkle a little bit of the ashes along the windows or doorways of your home, it protects you. So what I tend to do a lot is I mix, snakeskin, I powder it up, I burn it with charcoal and then I turn it into a kind of powdery substance and I place that powder in a mortar and pestle and in the mortar and pestle I put about a handful of rosemary because rosemary (fades out)

Kimothy: 49:54

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