Sense of Soul - The Witch Nextdoor

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

In this episode of Sense of Soul Shanna chats with Lacey Burbage who is a fourth-generation folk healer and hereditary/generational witch who follows a pagan/animist path. As an ordained priestess of the Goddess, she practices a nature-based tradition that has its roots in modern Wicca. Lacey specializes in domestic magic, including hearth, cottage, hedge, green, and kitchen magic. These practices are deeply ingrained in her family’s heritage, and she is honored to carry on these traditions and pass them down to future generations. She’s devoted to helping others develop an authentic practice that’s uniquely their own.   In Lacey’s new book Naturally Modern Magick you’ll be guided by the wisdom of green witchcraft as it reveals the secret healing and magickal powers of plants, animals, insects, and minerals. This knowledge comes from generations of people who have tended to their relationships with the natural world, earnestly learning about each element. Naturally Modern Magick offers gratifying practices and everyday solutions for witches. This practical guide contains charms, spells, and rituals using natural objects and elements like herbs, crystals, flowers, earth, and water. Learn magick for protection, happiness, love, passion, health, healing, work, success, divination, spirituality, and more. Immerse yourself in these spells and rituals, and they will become your spiritual companions, magnifying the power that already resides within you.  www.naturallymodernlife.com www.senseofsoulpodcast.com

Hey Soulseekers, it's Shanna. Journey with me to discover how people around the world awaken to their true sense of soul. Now go grab your coffee and open your mind, heart and soul. Today on Sense of Soul, I have Lacey Burbage. It's time to awaken. Today on Sense of Soulive, Lacey Burbage. She's a fourth generation folk healer, hereditary generational witch who follows a pagan, ominous path. As an ordained priestess of the goddess, she practices a nature-based tradition

that has its roots in modern Wicca. Guided by the wisdom of green witchcraft, Lacey specializes in domestic magic including hearth, cottage, hedge, green and kitchen magic. She is also the author of the book Naturally Modern Magic, an essential compendium of spells, rituals for health, happiness and prosperity. This book is filled with charms, spells rituals and everyday solutions using natural objects and elements. And she's with us today to share with us her magic. Please welcome Lacy.

Hi. Hi, how are you? I'm so good, how are you? I'm so good. How are you? I'm good. Glad to be here finally. We meet. I'm so glad we were able to make this work. Absolutely.

Me too. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful. Oh, well, I am grateful as well. I love your book. It's beautiful. And I feel like it's going to be like my go-to. I have a few, but like even just holding it right now,

I'm kind of got the goosebumps all over. Oh, thank you so much. I had such a wonderful time writing it and cooking it up, I might say. And I refer to it lovingly like a cookbook, you know? A spellbook to me is like a cookbook where if you need a recipe for a roasted duck or yams or something, you go, do you find that recipe? And that's what I wanted it to be. You know, I wanted you to be able to open it up and say, I need a spell for this. I need a spell for that. And it's in your book. Yes, I love it. And it's also very aesthetic. It's very beautiful. I like it.

Thank you. Thank you so much. beautiful. I like it. Thank you. Thank you so much. You know, I always think sense of soul listeners are a lot like me. You know, I'm a mom. I live in the suburbs. I'm like totally normal and that's what's happening is like we're normalizing the woo kind of right. Absolutely. Absolutely. I like the way you said that we're normalizing the woo. I think that that happens quite often. You know, when I, I meet my readers or my followers in real life and get to know them and, you know, get to know them in our Patreon community

and things like that. We do zoom calls and once a month and, you know, like we're the witch next door. You wouldn't necessarily look at us and think anything other than basically pretty average, right? Just a mom. You get up, you go about your day and simply exist magically is really what I'm all about is how do we make seeing magic in everyday life, living in magic in everyday life and make it just a normal part of life? And you know, right in the book, it was like, if you have something going on and you need a spell for it, here it is, you know, grab your go to. So I'm glad you said that. Yes. And I feel like this is the time of that, especially for women. And you know,

we don't have to worry about being persecuted. And many of the practices that I have, and oftentimes people will say they're so new age. I'm like, no, they're very old age, actually. They're very, very old. Right. They might have been reinvented or rediscovered, but the bare bones of it, right? The foundations of connecting, connecting to energy, connecting to earth, connecting to spirit, that's been in existence forever. Ever since we've had a consciousness, we've been able to consciously do it. And without apology. And I have to tell you just to begin with, like I'm an ancestral genealogist. I have spent much of the past decade working on my own lineages and also hundreds of people, their lines. And so I've come across

so many stories historically and also in my own. So I have a infamous witch in my lineage. So I'm French Creole. My family's been from New Orleans and in that area since the late 1600s, early 1700s. And I have Marie Laveau in my treat. And I grew up thinking she was a boogeyman. You know, I grew up Catholic, but little did they know she did too. And actually she was a devout Catholic. And that's how the practice of Voodoo kind of meshed with saints and stuff because she went to church every day. She was even named in one of her obituaries, a sainted woman. And I had a Salem witch in a lineage that I worked with, not my own, but my best friends actually. It was almost like women who, whether it was wealth or power or mystery or whatever it

was, those are the ones who they persecuted, right? These are the ones they made into this Wizard of Oz green skinned witch, which I can't wait to learn more about green magic. So I'd love to, you know, just I wanted to just share that with you that I also have this in my lineage. However, it was something that was hidden and all the work that I've done, I know that I've healed many lineages.

And I'll tell you, as I did this work, they lined up like aisles for me to heal and to know them and to tell their stories. It's often called the witch wound because of that lineage of persecution, systemically, epigenetically, you know, all of us have that to a degree and especially women from being persecuted for so long that we're afraid, we're afraid one the word witch historically has not been a good word, it's not really been something you used as a compliment, so now we use it more in reclaiming the word in a sense, reclaiming it for those who were persecuted for working with plants, who were persecuted for believing

in different practices or religions, or those who even didn't. If we look at a lot of folk practices, they take into account their particular religion. So if it's a religion of Christianity or an Abrahamic religion, then that's what they're gonna communicate with. That's their higher power,

or I call it divine essence, right? So it doesn't matter what your divine essence is or your higher power that you're connecting to, if one at all. You might even just have energetic beliefs, right? You might just believe in energy and not necessarily like that creator or a deity or something like that, right? But you can look throughout history, magic has been practiced in one form or another, everywhere, every culture, every time in space.

And so again, to me, magic is the thing that connects us to the divine, whatever that divine essence is for you. And that's the thing that connects our physical world to the spirit world, whatever that is for you, right? And historically, many people who were persecuted as witches may not have called themselves witches, but to us in modern day, you know,

you and I in this conversation and others who probably think a lot like us, who are listening right now, would probably say those things are witchy, right? So those are things to kind of take into account when we're dealing with the witch wound and when we're dealing with sort of dissecting that. And you know, you do that to an extent and you're probably at this place now where you're sort of at a place of peace, you understand it, you understand how it all kind of weaves together. I love how you said reclaiming that, the witch.

I felt this way during my journey, and I'm writing a book as well on really my journey through the Gnostic Gospels, which, you know, were hidden and all this, but there was so much feminine energy in there and a mother god figure. And so as I was processing all of it, there was a lot of rewiring that I had to do to accept any of it. Because I was like, wait a second, what? And then it was like, yeah, no kidding. Like father, son and what a Holy Ghost? Like, no, there has to be a mother. How can you not? And then it was just like, what? Like, how have we been so brainwashed?

And I think about all of the dark mothers, right? Like Lilith, right? Is one that I've kind of connected with a lot, you know, or anytime there was any woman that seemed like she was a feminist of power and like a healer. I mean, even women who were midwives. I mean, doctors, healers, you know, this is even portrayed in Outlander. Have you watched that? I mean, just like there's always this fear I think people have, or men have really truly, and women who aren't stepping into their own power.

But today, like this is the time, like this is the age where we can do this. I feel like we're the first of our kind. It's such a great time to be a woman, I think. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's a very empowering time to be a woman, I think. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's a very empowering time to be a woman. You know, and for all of the things that you just said, we could look, if we're looking historically, even a lot of the ideas that we have about witches and witchcraft come from medieval Europe, where we have the cunning folk, that's

kind of the roots of this image that we have of the green witch or hedge witch in the woods or living at the edge of town. But at that time, magic was practiced. So the cunning folk practiced low magic and the trained astrologers practiced high magic and the court magicians and ceremonial magicians, things like that. And so again, people were practicing magic, but there was this idea of separation. And now there are also ceremonial magic magicians today who are witches who might say that they practice ceremonial magic. So it's a little bit more nuanced for today. But, you know, we're thinking of it a little bit more cut and dry in a different

period. But there was there was this idea that one was better than the other, or at least one was was more of a profession and education training. And the other was just, oh, you know, what the common folk do. That's what you know, the cunning folk, the common witch, the common magic. That's what folk really means. If you're looking, you know, to tie it to green witchcraft, you're looking at using things that are around you, things that you're familiar with. You're not gathering exotic ingredients. Again, that's where the folk magic or the folk healing comes in.

I mean, that's where it kind of can spiral, right? So if you know too much, you're too smart about your environment or things like that, you're a bit of a risk there. Maybe you're in competition with the royal magician or the ceremonial magician or the astrologer or what have you. And so we can kind of trace those lines historically and see where it sort of began.

And then Christianity, of course, Abrahamic things came about and changed those views and patriarchal. I think the patriarchy has always been around, but all of that meshed together and took these historical contexts and sort of spun them. And now, thankfully, looking back, we can see where some of these things have happened

and where these ideas have come from. And it is, it's a much more empowering time knowing that I can call myself a witch. If everyone might not like it and that's okay. I don't really care anymore. Exactly. That's that which means healing. That's where you feel open, you know, to be yourself.

And even in the, you know, the beginning of the book, to the little witch and all of us, may you always feel safe and free to live your life openly. Yeah, that's the inner sovereignty to be free to be magical, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Just free to live your life magically, simply exist magically. And looking to the past, you can use it to understand things.

And then, thankfully we're in a higher vibration now, right? We're in such a better place now, where we can get over our limiting beliefs, you know, move through those and come to a better place where we feel comfortable, feel comfortable to practice magic and be witchy. I post on TikTok all the time and on social media all the time. I'll say, I'm not a therapist, but have you tried witchcraft? Go ahead, you deserve it. Like you deserve to be yourself, right? If you're called to this. And you know what I think of witchcraft as looks like here. Okay. If you can experience your energy

or energy, and this is just like you said, a recipe to direct your energy to something specific, which we do all the time anyways. And I also think about how many times have you heard growing up your mom or dad or someone older than you say, you know, well, my grandma used to do it this way. This is what she used to do. And it's some total random thing you've never heard of. But it was something that was passed down from generations because they knew it worked. And so those things stuck. But we do rituals every day. We just don't, I mean, even brushing your teeth is a fricking ritual. I mean, these are things that

are done for a specific purpose and we do them every day. Do we not? I mean, ritual is, it sounds witchy, but it's not. It's really not. We do them every day. Yeah, absolutely. A ritual would really be anything that you do in a repetitive ritualistic way. So if you make that a special moment and you have some intention to it, then it becomes a ritual. And that's really the gift of presence, right? So if you can be present in that moment, then it it becomes a ritual. And that's really the gift of presence, right? So if you can be present in that moment, then it can become a ritual. That's one part of my method in spell crafting. Oftentimes, I'll say, OK, well, what are we already doing?

OK, now let's make it a spell. So if you're already brushing your teeth, then you might look at the ingredients in your toothpaste. So mint is very cleansing. And so you look at the symbolic action of brushing your teeth, you're cleansing. So I wanna make sure I only say sweet things today. If you do it every day, then it becomes a ritual. If you do it once, then it's a spell.

Ah, that's so interesting. So doing something once is a spell. Yeah, I mean, there, you know, different views could be we could split hairs about it all day long, but I think that's a simple way to think of it. A ritual, you're going to be sort of changing energy. A ritual you could be honoring, you don't necessarily have to be doing magic to attract something to you or repel something to you. And so when a spell would be different, where you have a specific desire, I want to attract or repel or cleanse or what have you. Sure, there's a bit of a difference

that you could really go into detail, but I think that's an easy way to really define it is a ritual is longer. So if you're doing it every day, it's going to be a ritual. A spell is going to be shorter and quicker. If you're going to do it once, maybe twice, then it's a spell. Okay. You know, when I was doing my ancestry, I did come across this old folktale that was passed down and that the old momos would tell their children at night, they'd scare them. I don't know why, you know, but they would. With this tale about how if you didn't go to sleep and didn't listen to your parents or whatever, this werewolf would come and get you. And this werewolf was called the Lugaroo. And so I did some research on the Lugaroo and I discovered that it was a story that was based off of a real event, supposedly

in this small fishing town that my family all lived in. This priest hurt one of the children and they all got together and they killed him. The rumor is or the story went that he turned into this Lugaroo that hunted and was scaring the crap out of everyone in the bayou. So I'm reading it more and they're saying that it's a curse and I mentioned it to a few cousins. They're like, oh my God, well, what are you gonna do? And I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Like, first of all, the story is coming to my awareness. Okay, and it's coming to my awareness

because of all the work that I'm doing, you know, and that I've been doing. And I felt zero attachment to it. I mean, I'm telling you, like any work that I had been doing over the years by that time, like this story was just almost like, I mean, I'm telling you, like any work that I had been doing over the years by that time, like this story was just almost like, like a feather just blowing away. That's how I was almost visualizing it.

But I was doing a little research, like, how would you undo a spell, which I love that you have at the beginning of your book, which I thought was really awesome. That's why I really love this book and I will keep it close because you never know when you need. I had found directions and actually was going to the root of how they would do this in Louisiana within those practices and that culture. That's kind of how I've been with all of my ancestry stuff. Like I had a shaman in Canada, he was a First Nation. To connect with him, I went in the way that he connected, right? So like, that's how I've learned different practices is actually through a lot of my ancestry. So I did find this unwinding spell. It was kind of like a prayer and it felt right.

You know, and I think that that kind of like is something that us as women especially need to start really listening to that discernment. Like if it feels right, then it is. If it doesn't feel right, then it's not like this is something that's been over generations, like combed out of us. Absolutely. I feel like we get so disconnected from our intuition. The thought just popped in my mind. Have you read the book, Women Who Run With Wholes? Yes.

Yes, I see you seem like you would have. So that's a good one to get that almost exactly what you were saying, sort of that animal instinct, that intuition. That's a really good one to get that inspiration and spark back. We get so disconnected from our intuition because we have so much from the actual physical world that we live in. So in the introduction to the book, I talk about to simplify focused intention is that there's the physical world that we live in, the mental world, and the spirit world. And so our spirit is connected to the spirit world, but we've also got that influence from the mental and the physical world. So those two are connected, mental and physical, are very easily connected, right? We can think things into existence, but we also have this cognitive brain.

So we have those beliefs and things that might hold us back. So you might feel like you're really, really focused on what it is that you want. But you might have this underlying, you know, voice inside your head might be messing up your focused intention. And so I say, let's feel it. Do you feel it more in your chest? Because usually that's fear and that's anxiety. Or maybe you feel it a little bit more if you are their audience, clear buoyant, or clear sentient or whatever, I feel things.

So, okay, I know that I feel things sort of get tingly here, and that's more of an intuition thing for me, or more of like a gut feeling. Do I feel it sort of in my belly? And I try to tap into that, try to tap into feelings to get back to my intuition. And then I have a friend I actually,

she helped me do a lot of rewiring my cognitive brain. And I was like, wow, this is really, if you're trying to heal and really practice magic and make it work, I think that rewiring that cognitive function and those underlying beliefs is really the foundation, the core to being able to connect the physical world, the mental world and the spirit world. And that's really what you have to do. Well, you know, that's the goal when we're doing magic. You were tapping into that energy, that spirit world. We're trying to communicate what it is that we want to happen. We desire.

Let me give it up to the universe a little bit, right? This or something better. I usually try to end manifestations and things with a little bit of a clause there because I might not see the bigger picture, but the universe might see the bigger picture. But again, that's part of it. You've got to have a little part of that intuition. You've got to have a bit of, you know, feeling energies, knowing how energies work with you and surrender, give it up to the universe. And what I loved about when the book came together is I had so many people tell me that they wanted to stop

just reading and consuming information about witchcraft and they wanted to start practicing it. And so the book is really made in a way, one, to be like your go-to to make it really simple and easy for you to just pick it up like a cookbook, like you want a recipe for this is what I want to happen, but also so you can practice and learn at the same time. You can practice while advancing your craft, you can learn about witchcraft while you're doing it. Because that's why

it's a practice. I feel like we've heard that a lot about practice, you've got to keep doing it. Witchcraft is a practice, you've got to keep doing it. And that's really what witchcraft is, is it's your craft, based on your experiences. We talk about that a lot in our Patreon coven. I say how much I love this, by the way. Oh, yes, that's one of my favorite things, this little bookmarker. That made it special. And that's one of those things really that, you know, little

details like that matter, right? Make us happy. That's tapping into that energy, you know, that energy of joy and love and being able to shift into that mindset because before you cast a spell, you want to be able to ground and center your energy. You want to have the right mindset, right? That's how we're connecting those worlds together. I was very pleased to see that you started out with grounding, if I'm correct. That was like your first chapter. Grounding and centering, then protection. And I feel the same way. Any energy that I work with,

I feel like that's the most important, right? To kind of get into that space, because you do have that monkey mind, all of this cluster fuck in your brain, that if you just let it run rapid, it will. Yeah, definitely. And I suggested anytime you're gonna do magic,

you're into energetic work of any kind, but especially if you're gonna do magic to get in the right state of mind before all the spells, I say sort of start them the same. You want to cleanse yourself and everything around you, your tools, your materials, sort of lay everything out and just cleanse them, ground and center your energy, make sure that you're in the right space.

And then if there's some form of protection that you like to do, some traditions call for casting a circle, then some form of protection. And you don't necessarily have to do that before every small spell, because throughout time, if you're simply know you're simply

existing magically you're just living life as a witch you'll have different wards and protections up you know if you're in your safe space you're in your your sacred space then you might not need to cast a circle every time or whatever form of protection you choose you probably already have some protection up but you know those are sort of the three main things i would say you know especially for beginners, if you don't know, these are like good things to do. Okay, this is really actually kind of weird. I never thought about this ever.

So it is like my ancestors are teaching me because I've had to heal those lineages, learn who they were and all this. And through that, I learned these different methods of how to connect and how to protect all these things. But I didn't have parents or a lineage that I knew personally that could teach me these things, but you did, didn't you? Well, in a way I did.

I did come from a very witchy, magical family. I don't think that all of them would have called themselves witches. Again, folk healer is usually what we tend to go with. So my great-grandmother, my Nana, and my mom, and myself, all are just a wealth of herbal remedies and folk healing, you know, old country sayings, old wives' tales.

My mom will tell you what the weather is gonna be like six months from now based on what the caterpillar looks like or if it's going to rain or if you should go fishing this day, you know, she'll have all these things that she learned from her grandmother and have been passed down. And so, they really showed me a lot in terms of, okay, what folk magic is, what it really means like to learn from your environment, learn from the people around

you learn from your genuine experiences. And then as I got, I would say probably tween years pretty early in my life, because again, witchy things were just very accepted in my home. My mom got a book on Wicca like Wicca 101 or I or I don't know, Complete Idiot's Guide to Wicca or something, gosh, in, I don't know, early 2000s. And she didn't really take to it, but I devoured it. And so I started learning about Wicca. So that's when I say my formal studies began,

because they were more structured and there was this specific tradition that I was learning about and wanted to be initiated into and so I Wouldn't call myself wiccan now. I've sort of left those circles, but I have taken from my genuine experiences and Taken that and created my craft, you know, that's what witchcraft is It's what you create if you're a woodworker. That's your craft if you're a knitter That's your craft if you're a woodworker, that's your craft. If you're a knitter, that's your craft. If you're a witch, this is your craft. And so you make it based on what you learn

in your experiences. And so it's more than just reading and gathering information. I've heard, not my original quote, but it is a great one. If all we needed was information, we'd all be millionaires with six pack abs. And it's so true, right? So you don't need more information. You need to know what to do with it. So the book is really here to get you going,

get you practicing. Sometimes I'll do boot camps, or I've got a Patreon and you know, YouTube channels, YouTube videos that I put out and things that I want you to start to put that information you've learned into practice, get you getting experiences, gets you developing your craft, gets you looking at what ties you have. Are they ancestral? Are they a little bit more immediate? And so my family's from North Carolina and I've since moved to the West Coast

into the middle of the desert. So I've had to start from scratch, learning my environment, learning my region, learning what plants grow here, what plants naturally pop here, what plants naturally pop up, you know, what I can use in magic. And it's a beautiful experience, getting to know the weeds that pop up in the garden and going, oh, wait a minute, this is wild lettuce. This was used in Europe to make flying oil. This is special. This is very sacred to

my practice in a lot of ways, if I want to tie it back to the cunning folk and folk magic of the time. Some other nature is teaching you. Yes, absolutely. Many of the medicines even that, you know, doctors and the health professionals deal with are also from the earth. Many of them. Many of them start as plants or, you know, taking a constituent or compound from a plant.

Oftentimes that's what you're looking at in herbalism is you're looking at the plant as a whole because you can't separate it in herbalism like you can in chemistry. You could take the individual compounds out or the individual constituents. And in herbalism, you have to look at the plant as a whole and you do that in magic too. So you look at the plant as a whole. And you do that in magic too.

So you look at that plant as a whole in its whole energy, and what is it going to do? And how is it going to help you communicate? Because when you're taking it as medicine, you're communicating to the body, right? You're helping the body communicate better, helping it function better. And you can think of that in an energetic and magical way too.

You're using that to help you communicate your intention. All of your ingredients are helping communicate. When I write spells, I break them down really into two primary things. There's the symbolic action, so that's what you're doing. You're lighting a candle or filling a pouch, there's some symbolic action there. And then your communication, so what are you saying or what ingredients are you using? Because those ingredients have correspondences and they could be more traditional correspondences or they could be your personal correspondences. What in your tradition, your lineage, your experience works for love? Does lavender work for love for you or is lavender more protective for you? Getting to know the ingredients in the book I talk about less of a tool and more of spiritual kin.

These are your allies. These are, you know, you're going to get your top five plants that you work with all the time or top five things. They're not going to be tools anymore. They're going to become your spiritual kin. They're going to be things that you kind of have this mutual beneficial relationship with. And you learn that by connecting to the earth, just like you were saying, you do every morning, you connect. You know, I teach Reiki and I feel that way about all my tools.

Like I use my pendulum, I have one specific pendulum that really works good for me and I have others that suck, right? Cause the ones that I've worked with has become an extension of my intuition. And so I felt that way same about certain stones. I know all my stones very well, the gemstones that I have, but I know all my trees outside too, and they're also a part of my practice.

I know the birds actually around here. It's like they become part of your magic. You become kin with them. I love that you said that. Yeah, very much, very much. I talk a lot about deeper meaning. Oftentimes, I'll say, you know, living in magic or living life magically, as you have to see things differently, you have to see magic in everyday life. And it's deeper meaning. And it comes from a book I read a while ago called How to Read Literature Like

a Professor. And so you're kind of reading between the lines. I actually thought about it when you were telling the mythology, you know, what can we look at, excuse me, what can we look at and what can we dissect from the mythology there? And what we look at in terms of that is the symbolism. So do you have a collective symbolism or personal symbolism? Memory, are there memories tied to this? And are there memories of, you know, if you're looking at

that character or the story, are there memories tied in that character? Does something recall something? And then pattern is something reoccurring. So if we're looking at it in terms of, you know, a bird showing up to you regularly, well, what is the symbolism of a bird? What is the collective symbolism? What does that mean to you? Do you have a special tie to hummingbirds? Or a special tie to that particular bird?

And then what memories do you have that are associated with that? And is it reoccurring? So that's the pattern part. So if we're trying to connect more with nature or maybe look at signs and symbols, start a nature journal and then start to note those things. Start to note what shows up for you, what is the symbolism with it,

what are the memories you have tied and is it reoccurring, what is the pattern? Because magic goes on cycles and rhythms. So there's going to be a pattern. That's why we have seasons. That's why we have the moon, you know, working with those natural rhythms, moon cycles. It's so much a part of witchcraft because we understand the cycle and the rhythm of energy.

The triple goddess was a huge part of my journey over the past few years. I never even knew what it was prior. And it literally just happened naturally for me to know it and I even received it differently. And that's another thing I just want to say is listening to you, this is what I'm receiving. You can read as many books and you can be taught this by someone else how they do it, but really it's through your own experiences that's where the wisdom comes from. There's a huge difference. I mean the smartest people I know are also the dumbest I know. You know what I mean? So there's a difference between that knowledge and wisdom that you experience to be your truth and your magic. And you know I looked up what the word crone meant and sadly it said hag.

I'm like, this is so ridiculous. Like this is the definition of a wise older woman. And when I think about my grandmother, I mean, God, she was one of the most beautiful people in the world and always had, you know, the right answers. So, you know what I mean? She always even if she didn't, she came with like such wisdom. And I just, I think that it's time for us to start honoring aging in our grandfathers in that age. Absolutely, absolutely. I heard someone say one time that they explained it that, you know,

as humans, as anything that that reproduces, one of the most important things is to continue to reproduce, right? That's what keeps us in existence. But humans are the only ones that actually go through menopause. And it's thought that because grandmothers are so important, their brains, their wisdom and all that they have learned are so important that evolution says you need to take a break. You're done having babies now. Now you've stepped into that wise woman. Now at the time, you know, that's when you go through menopause is when you're ready to sort of transcend to that season. Even in my circle, I was on the board of Sophia Center for Goddess Study here

in Las Vegas. They're no longer here in Las Vegas, but they were for quite a time. So I was on the board there and we did a lot of goddess studies. I got ordained as a priestess to the goddess with them. And we would oftentimes do cronies ceremonies when someone had gone through menopause and it was time for their crony ceremony or their second Saturn return, if I remember correctly, whichever happened first. And then after that was the hagging ceremony. So when you reach 80 years old, that was when we did hagging ceremony. So there was plenty of birth blessings. I had two or three birth blessings there and ham fastings and all kinds of different rituals and ceremonies but I was very honored to be a part of several cronies ceremonies and

two hiding ceremonies. What an honor yeah. So my study and even my book is called Desperately Seeking Sophia so that is yeah that's very crazy and not many people know the story of so. And that's the other thing. So I study through Sophia through many synchronicities. I did not ever see her. I mean, seriously, like the very first time I ever even heard. You're counting.

Yeah, totally. There's this beautiful lady I was talking to and she was like, yeah, I teach this course on keys of Enoch and this is Sophia. And I was like, oh, I was so focused on keys of Enoch. So I get online and I ordered the book and then I'm like, I can't find the priestess of fear anywhere. So weird. I can't find it. And so then underneath the keys of Enoch was the Pistis Sophia. And all of a sudden

I heard in my head her voice. You know, she's from England and she wasn't saying priestess of fear. She was saying Pistis Sophia. I was like, Oh my God, who the hell is that? And that was like years ago. Call her whatever you want. You can call her, you know, Quan Lin. You can call her Bridget. You know, Morgan, whatever you want. I mean, it's the divine feminine and she's wanting to be heard, wanting to be known. I love though that you've been doing this. How long have you been even knowing about a goddess? So I would say my formal studies began with Wicca in 1999, or early 2000. So that was probably my introduction

to some type of goddess. At that time, my mother got the Wicca book and then she got another one that was like, every woman's a goddess or something like that. They sort of kind of went together, the belief in a goddess. So it started when I was quite young, me sort of taking to it and learning about this idea of goddess within Wicca. And many of the Wiccan circles

I was in were mostly goddess based versus in traditional types of Wicca, you might see a god and goddess oftentimes betrayed. And they're all women and all really love the goddess, divine feminine and all of that energy. And so that's really what we worked with most of the time. Only a few times were gods present on the altar or called into the circle or worked with. And then as I started to learn more, I found Sophia Center for Goddess Study when I first came to Las Vegas. And I had been working with many types of goddesses, you might say, had been in touch with working with the divine in different ways. But in a lot of witchcraft are more so wiccan circles. They will want you to find like a matron goddess.

They might say a matron and patron deity. And I just never felt like one really called to me, you know? You know, they might sort of pop up for a little while. And there was just this feeling of, okay, Earth Mother, Universal Dark Mother. And so I just, I remember being in a meditation and like they told me their names almost. I see it in the animistic way more so than a deity form, but you might simplify it by saying universal dark mother, like she's the universe. She's the creatrix. She's the one who fell, right? And created everything. And she created earth mothers.

She created the earth. And so those are really the energies that I work with the most closely. And I feel that spirits come to you in the form that you need them. And so maybe I didn't need one that was clearly defined, you know, and very much drawn to Venus of Willendorf and these faceless goddess figurines. And so maybe I didn't need a clear name. I needed it in my own language, in my own way. You know, maybe I didn't need a different language to say Earth Mother. It was just in what she wanted me to call her and the connection that I had with her or the divine, you know, universal dark mother. Okay, so I do have to ask you this though. Where did the green come in? Because that is one thing. So I haven't met many like you. Okay. I'll be honest. Thank you.

That's a problem. But the ones that I have who I love and hold deeply to my heart, because my journey is aligned with this. There's not a whole lot of us. Like, okay. So oftentimes I hear Archangel Gabriel is one that will come first for many people, but there's this green goddess. okay, it happened for me, it's happened for other people that I've talked to as well.

So what is the green magic and is there any connection to a green goddess? There is, there would be a connection in terms of how you see it and how you believe it or how your beliefs lie. Green magic is when you work with Earth, when you work with the earth. So you're working with Mother Earth and the elements from the earth and oftentimes

most closely the earth elements. So you're using a lot of plants, you're using a lot of crystals and maybe bones or animals, not necessarily all these animal parts, but maybe animal spirits, maybe you do use animal parts. A lot of us might find a tortoise shell in the woods or something like that. That's something you're going to find in a green witch's house is little trinkets and things like that because we work very closely with the element of earth, but we also balance that with the other elements too. And that might be a little bit more elemental witch, someone who works very closely with one particular element or a couple of elements.

I know, a lot of graced us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's different, you know, different ways you can work of elements. I know a lot of greats does, yeah. Yeah, yeah, there's different, you know, different ways you can work your magic. I always say, you might say, I'm this type of witch based on what closely resonates with you. So it might change and that's totally fine. Green witchcraft is when you're working really closely with the earth.

So not only do I work with earth mother, but I'm working with the elements that build the Earth. I'm working with the element of Earth and that energy from the plants, the spirit of the plants, the spirit of the rocks. That's what Green Magic really is. Getting your hands in the dirt, getting your hands in plants. I used to be a mass murderer when it came to plants.

It's taken me a while. Well, okay. So I never heard of Bridget in my life and it was all in one week. I had someone who wrote a book much like yours, but she's over in England and I didn't realize it at the time, but she even had rituals and prayers and all kinds of stuff to Bridget in that book. The next day I had on a Bridget, she was the one who, this is Sophia, actually her name was Bridget Finclair. And then I was having on this yogi band that

I love and he was going to release his song and actually he was coming on on Halloween. So I'm laying down listening to his song and he's just singing Bridget and I'm like who the fuck is Bridget? Like is it his girlfriend or something? Like he's a yogi band. I mean like what is this? You know and I'm like what is all these Bridgetts? And then I had gotten a new deck around that time. And I had this girl who set up a call and I said, I have a new deck. Can I pull a card for you? And I pulled Bridget. I mean, it was all in one week.

I was like, fine. Talk about a pattern. I forgot the most important part. So my youngest daughter at the time, she was little, in the middle of the night, you know, she just called me in her room, you know, and I'd go and lay with her. I wish she did that now. And so I went into lay with her and she's like, mommy, I have a new angel that visits me. And I was like, really? Tell me, tell me. And she's like, she has long red hair and she has a green dress with burgundy trim. Like after I left her room, I went and wrote down all this because it was so specific. And it was when I pulled the card for that girl who also had red hair, by the way, one

of my listeners, Donna, and I'm looking at this card and she's got the same freaking dress on. I mean, she's exactly what my daughter had depicted. Just like holy crap this is like a lot of synchronicity like really fast for me to know someone. That's how it kind of started with everything with the Divine Feminine with all of it. But yeah my entry to the Divine Feminine was through Brid who, yeah, I really had no idea, never heard of her in my entire life. And they'll come fast, the synchronicities, you know, when a spirit is really reaching

out to you, it's going to come fast. And that's, again, if we're looking at the deeper meaning, the symbolism, the memory and the pattern. And so this is where you've seen it. And then it shows up again, you're like, wait a minute, I'm recalling the information. Oh, wait a minute, this is and the pattern. And so this is where you've seen it. And then it shows up again. You're like, wait a minute, I'm recalling the information. Oh, wait a minute, this is what it means. This is the symbolism, right?

Yeah, it was so wild. And yeah, it was very brief though too. Kind of like what you said, which is why I mentioned it because, you know, she came in, it was like the introduction. Like I am a goddess, like this is a real thing and actually I'm kind of a scholar too. So I know that there was a Saint Bridget of Kildare but there's no proof of a Bridget.

And what I've learned is that happened with lots of them. I mean, when anybody worshiped somebody, even Saint Sophia is not actually a saint. I mean, you think it's a saint with her three children, hope, charity and love. I mean, they feared these women and so they sainted them. Right. So that way you would go to the church to worship them. The church always tried to like take claim with them. Yeah, right. It's a lot easier to ease people into a new belief if you can, you can kind of water it down and convert and to make it mirror what they're already doing.

If someone's already doing something, let's just make it easier for them to do it over here or do it in our way. So there's a lot of things that you can see when you parallel how culture has evolved, how the world and beliefs and religion and spirituality has evolved very much, very much. And I love that Bridget reached

out to you and it felt somewhat brief and I feel like it's like seasons where they will come to you when you need them. You know, that's that meeting the mentor. If you look at Joseph Campbell, maybe you're going to look at the hero's journey and compare it to that. I like to look at the entire of the fool's journey. And so each stage is of the major arcana is sort of a next level you get to. And so that goddess or that spirit or whatever you need in that stage, that season, that level is going to come to you, right? When you need them. And maybe it's a lifelong connection, or maybe it's one that it's there when you need them. And I think it's important, and like you've done, you've established that connection and relationship

with that spirit. It's not just a tool that you're extracting the need from anymore, now that's your spiritual kin. Oh, yeah, definitely. That's the scene. It's beautiful too, because I'm so happy that my children know that there is a goddess. Yes.

Of course there is. know that there is a goddess. Yes. Of course there is. Of course there is. How could there just be a God? That's been a huge part too is that polarity, you know, the dark and the light, right? That's been a huge part of understanding this energy coming through.

Yes. Oh yes, absolutely. I had the, I don't get very direct messages too often. I tend to have to read signs and nature and things around me. And again, that deeper meaning, the pattern in memory and symbolism. But I did recently go through a very traumatic experience. And I mean, I was just like in this trauma loop. And I'm like, how do I, I'm like, heal me, like, please heal me, goddess, please heal me, please. And she said, you have to heal yourself. This is much deeper than a surface wound, you have to heal yourself, you have to completely surrender and not exist anymore. And I thought, how do we do that? You know, and I just, I had this vision of just space,

just black and stars, just space and just vast expansion. You know, that's universal dark mother. It's just this never ending universe. And how do I feel nothing? And then when I did a lot of work with cognitive brain function and reversing beliefs and breaking through all of those blocks. Eventually it was like, I feel not like I, it was like detachment, I guess, you know,

I don't feel the same way. And it was like, wow, I've, I've surrendered. I feel nothing. And, you know, and it was like, bam, there was that vision again of space. And I'm like, wow, that it came full circle. And they will. Those messages that you get, they sure will. They will reveal themselves in time and due course. That's the hard part, being patient. It reminds me of the moon, right? Going through its cycles. You never know where the moon is going to be. It's not a guarantee. It's not like the sun rising and setting in the same and that's kind of how women are.

We never quite know where we're going to fall day to day. And we have to be fluid with that, right? It reminds me of the trees too and the seasons and just being able to, you know, let loose when we need to and be bare. Yeah. And that's that feminine energy, you know, someone doesn't want to gender it, you could really break it down to passive and active energy. So masculine might be more active, and feminine might be more passive. But of course, we are both right, we have active and passive energy. And there's a time to be active, there's a time to really channel that sun or masculine energy. And then there's a time to be passive, there's a time to really channel that feminine moon energy. And it's about balancing them.

Yeah, girl, I've been challenged by the sun over the past few years. So I've always been a moon person always. Like she's always been very drawn to the moon. But naturally, it's taking me a long time to realize this because especially I'm an Aries. So I'm fiery. So I've got a lot of that active you know masculine type energy and so I've had to learn that I really need to lean into the moon more really lean into that energy. Maybe it's because I'm a Taurus I don't know. Yeah it could be you know dig into that a little more because that is that grounding energy, you know? Well, I think it's also just like, you know, that masculine energy from the sun is so strong. And as the sun has been going through

its own cycle, at first, I was really affected. I mean, like very ill, like from it, I can call the solar storms like this, and my whole body is affected. And when I finally, someone has suggested to me one time and it was a friend of mine, Ellen, she's like, why don't you go and sit with the sun? And I was like, yeah, so I like that moment. I looked outside and it was getting like golden hour. So I just sat there with the sunset and made peace with it in that moment. And I've never ever felt the same with a sign. Now I go out and I sun gaze, but it was almost like me splitting

that toxic masculine and really connecting with the divine masculine, which is just as needed as the divine feminine right now. Absolutely, absolutely. You know, we tend to have this very particular idea of masculinity and masculine energy. And sometimes as women and living amongst the patriarchy, we tend to try to embody more of that masculine archetype and bring ourselves to that when really our power is honestly and not being so loud sometimes. The power is being quiet and being more silent, not in a shy sheepish way, but in that wise,

strong and steady stern sort of way. When someone says something and you stop for like 10 seconds and then you say, what exactly did you mean by that? Instead of flying off at the handle, right? That's really what that divine feminine is, I think. That dark energy, not in a negative dark way, but in that really embodied, strong, sovereign. Yeah, there was this one time I was talking to this guy and I had fallen into and love the work of Helena Protovena Blavatsky.

And I had mentioned that I was reading one of her books at the time and he was like, oh, be careful. She's dark. I was like, I mean, this is a powerful woman who, you know, had to write under her initials in the 1800s, who had so much wisdom and dared to do so many things. What's interesting too is they might look at you, they do look at me and think, well, she's the vanilla housewife. Oh, you have no idea the dark stuff I'm into. Well, that's kind of funny that you say that because I always make a joke. Like, I was like, I'm just like your normal mom sitting at the school, waiting for my

kids, studying Baphomet. Nothing to see here. Right. Yeah. Just like you said, your neighborhood witch, your neighbor next door. Yeah. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. You know, it's always so exciting to find someone who just might get some of the things

that you experience. You know, because sometimes I can't be lonely in this world of, you know, mysticism and magic and although it's getting more normalized, it's still nice to know that there's someone out there that thinks witchy like I do. Absolutely. I have had such a blast chatting with yeah and I feel the same. It is growing. There are many of us average every day which is out here that might just look like your normal girl next door or what have you soccer mom or mom with a SUV or whoever we are. There's

so many of us but it is always good to sit down and talk and chat and find another kindred spirit. So I've had such a wonderful time being here. And if you want to learn about spells, this is the recipe book and it's got this cute little bookmarker. Yes, good colors for spring, right? They're very bright and cheerful. Love it so much. And manifestation, right? This is such a great time to do any kind of manifesting spells or to birth something new into your life Yeah, the spring is upon us. It's a good time. It's some spring cleansing things you could do. There's manifestation I think there's even one with an egg. I can see plant seeds in an egg So if you want to get very seasonally appropriate there's yeah

And I get really seasonal on YouTube and on Patreon. I do a lot about living in sync with the seasons and living by the flow of the moon. So that's where I kind of keep a lot of that content. I highly recommend your book. And I think that it's just like a good for all. Like I don't feel that it leans into like one practice. I think that I saw stuff from like all cultures, all different, you know, lands and yeah. What is your YouTube and you know, where can everybody find you? Yes, on YouTube it's naturally modern witch, on TikTok it's naturally modern witch. Those

are the places I'm most active. I am on Instagram as naturally modern and then I have a website naturally modern witch or it's naturally modern life. Either one you could find me. All right. Well, thanks, Lacey. Absolutely. Thank you so much. I had a blast. Take care. Bye!