The Menstruality Podcast - 183. The Connection between Cycle Awareness, Witchcraft and Magic (Mimi Young)

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Many of us feel more intuitive and connected to the mystical and the magical in the second half of the menstrual cycle and today I’m directly exploring the connection between menstrual cycle awareness, witchcraft and psychic capacities.Our guest is Mimi Young, a Taiwanese-Canadian, Daoist, animist, spirit worker and medium, who serves her community through ancient Chinese esoteric practices, dream interpretations, unconventional tea ceremonies, and occult education with her witches coven community. Mimi first experienced her intuitive and psychic gifts as a child, but they went underground until five months of bed rest while pregnant with her second child. And together we share a very unfiltered, raw and wild conversation about how Mimi works with the different skills and capacities that awaken in the four phases of the menstrual cycle in her divination and spellwork.We explore:Why you can’t work with spellcraft or psychic gifts without being fully present and connected with your body, and how menstrual cycle awareness supports this. How to work more consciously with the premenstrual phase of the cycle as a gateway to your intuitive, psychic, magical and shadow work capacities. Mimi’s animist approach to building a relationship to your menstrual blood as a conscious, alive, intelligence, and some ideas for working with our blood in magical ways. ---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyMimi Young: @shopceremonie - https://www.instagram.com/shopceremonieYou can explore Mimi's work on her website here: https://shopceremonie.com/

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hi there, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for being with me today. I have to apologize up front, I have a cold so I'm a little bit bunged up here but what we're talking about is so exquisite and mystical and practical and real and wonderful and I can't wait to share it with you.

My guest today is Mimi Young. She's a Taiwanese Canadian Taoist animist spirit worker and medium who serves her community through ancient Chinese esoteric practices, dream interpretations, unconventional tea ceremonies and occult education within her witches coven community you know so many of us feel more intuitive more magical connected to the mystical in the second half of the menstrual cycle and today Mimi and I are directly exploring the connection between the menstrual cycle, our intuitive capacities, our psychic capacities and witchcraft. Mimi's first experience of her intuitive and psychic gifts happened as a child, but like many of us, they went underground until she had five months of bed rest while she was pregnant with her second child. And together we have an unfiltered, raw and quite wild conversation about how Mimi works with the different skills and capacities that awaken in the four phases of the menstrual cycle and how they can be used for divination and spell work. So let's get started with the connection between cycle awareness, witchcraft and magic with Mimi Young. So Mimi, welcome to the podcast

and thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. I have a thousand questions for you. I can't wait to get started. Oh, Sophie, I'm so glad to be here. I've been looking forward to it as well. The first thing that I was saying before we pressed record was there is an amazing array of magical bottles and all kinds of instruments behind you for your craft. I can't wait to dive in and hear all about it. But before we do, I'd love to hear where you're at in your cycle and start us off with a cycle check-in. Yeah, what day are you on? How's it feeling? I'm on day 10, so I feel fabulous, vibrant, energetic, emotionally easy, feeling momentum building up now. Yeah, beautiful. I'm on the other side of that.

I'm on day 20. And it's just so clear today, just everything becomes slightly more annoying. And something cool is developing with my husband where we can play with it more. And so I was I was literally like pretending to be a vampire. Because I was just like so frustrated by what I like played with it and let it come through my body and play. And that just eased the whole the whole thing and so I'm yeah but that's one of the things I'm working with in my inner autumn lately is playing with the big energies of rage and grief and rage and rage and rage that come yeah and it's yeah it's it's helpful there's so much energy there isn't there so much power yeah exactly yeah the the question I'd love to start us with is really about your calling, you know, your work here in this lifetime on Earth. of the things that you are so I just want to share some of them animist spirit medium educator in studies of the occult a person with extrasensory gifts you're also the founder of ceremony this

beautiful brand focused on psychic readings and studies of the occult and I just the word occult was coming up a lot and I know you teach around like you have a coven right yes this word witch is really big for so many of us I think so many women especially who feel they have big intuitive gifts but are kind of thwarted or their voice feels blocked or they feel like a disconnect from their power. And so I guess my question is, can you tell us a bit about your journey to becoming the witch that you are, how you've claimed and embraced that? I would say that if I had to sum it up with one word, the word would be permission. And if I were to elaborate on that, it would include menstruality as part of it. Because I mean, you've touched on it, you go through this cycle. It's to a degree, a predictable cycle, up to a certain point until you enter perimenopause, it's a whole other game.

But there is this power that is you. And there's this power that connects you with other menstruators, the ones that are here with you in your daily life, perhaps your girlfriends and such, but also your mother, your grandmother. And really for me, finally responding to that call to sorcery was to, number one, embrace my body. And just for context, I grew up, so from a heritage perspective, I come from a line of Buddhists. And when we emigrated from Taiwan to Canada, as a way to, you know, build community and to feel integrated into the new society. We can, well, my mother converted and we became Protestant. And so within the churches that I attended, there was, and I'm not saying all churches are this way. I just, I'm really wanting to be specific, the ones that I attended. There was this teaching that the body is dirty and the spiritual is of a higher order, a higher, it's perceived as more pure, more powerful. And part of that witchcraft is to say, I. And this is powerful. And I can actually make plans based on what my body

knows that she will need. At any given time, I can plan vacations, I can plan when I want to engage in certain types of social activities, or when I know I'm probably going to be too pooped, and I'm going to I don't want to cancel. So I would rather just not commit those days. Because I know I'm going to have certain physical sensations. So it's this beautiful way where you can relate with your body and time in a more compassionate sense. Where you can attend to your needs. And I think a lot of that does tie into witchcraft. Wow. you can attend to your needs and I think a lot of that does tie into witchcraft wow the embracing of your body journey I imagine that unfolded over some time right were there

sort of key moments in that path and did it involve a separation from that upbringing in the church? Right. Some of them didn't feel like key moments at the time, right? So a key moment could be, wow, self-pleasure is really fun. But it's, you know, it's not really talked about for so many reasons, whether it's because, you know, as a girl, you're not supposed to do that. And, and of course, as a member of the church, you're definitely not supposed to do that all these things. But also, you know, key moments as during pregnancy, or as a mother, and I'm responsible for my body, but also responsible for the well-being and the

bodies of my children. So they're decisions. There's these moments where you are at a crossroad and you ask yourself, well, what am I going to do? And what would the potential impact be? And sometimes you do it out of instinct and sometimes it's a it's a very um present decision a present meaning you are well aware that this could uh be a pivotal one um so i think it's it's a combination of of the two you know i'm thinking of as you're talking i'm thinking of the scene in wicked where Elphaba is standing on the ledge like if you haven't seen Wicked just go and see it at the cinema that's what everyone's telling me she's standing on the ledge is this might give a bit of a spoiler and she decides to

practice her which her the deepest form of witchcraft she ever has and defy gravity by flying on this broom and it's a moment it's such a pivotal moment in her life where she embraces her own truth above the truth of everyone else and that's what i'm hearing in in what you're saying you know those moments those small micro moments throughout the day where our connection to our body our intuition our cycles our cyclical wisdom allows us to make a choice that comes from the core of us in the center of us rather than what the world would have us do i love that you're naming that as witchcraft that's very exciting for me well you can't perform efficacious spells you can't engage in any form of mediumship um without it i think that's why i have to name that as a vital ingredient

the embodiment is yeah we can't stir the cauldron without being fully fully present wow that's so cool I knew this conversation was going to be cool and already it's blowing my mind a little bit but to stay with your story did you always hear like feel connected to beings from other realms as a child or is that something that's developed as you got older? I did as a young child and then it went into suppression or hiding. And I don't really want to say it was entirely the church. I think it's also just as a way, a mechanism to fit in. You don't really want to be labeled as the odd one or weird one.

And it came, it started to come back in my early 20s. But I still had it throughout, you know, late in childhood, adolescence, I just try to ignore it. How did that go? Well, so if my intuition says, this is happening, don't do it or be cautious. And I resisted that truth. I paid for it later through some hard lessons. Yeah. And then when you did start to embrace it again, what did that path look like?

Where did you get the permission from to really embrace that part of you and make it your life's work you know that moment and I think many of us have confronted this at least once in our lives where I mean some people call it the dark night of the soul right like where you literally have nothing else to lose yeah was that is that and I thought well I guess I'll give this a shot because I tried everything else you know and none of it really worked powerful before we get into exploring like the different phases of the menstrual cycle and witchcraft I feel like it would be helpful to hear a bit about um because you're holding so many threads from your lineage and from different cultures and it's all fused together in this

amazing set of offerings that you you create that's how the daoist side how the wu side how the tea all works together to bring your witchcraft through like it feels like they're not separate like they're all one thing but different expressions of the same thing is that am I getting right absolutely and I would say that it's because nothing really is separate I love how you use the word strings and reference weaving because that's what it is it's every thread reinforces the greater net or tapestry that one is creating um and so for me uh the various branches of my work all do relate and some of them are still understood as an occultic practice, such as cartomancy, pulling cars to divinate. That's one example.

Or spirit travel, you know, shamanic spirit travel to be able to see something remotely or speak with spirit beings. That's another example. But then also something like tea, which as a plant medicine of my culture who has lived a very very long time and seen all sorts of things happen to her as a plant into her people and you know how this ties into globalization and agriculture, but also war and colonization, like all these things. And of course, going back to witchcraft, oftentimes we're drawn back into that sense of power when we

have tried all the options that we were taught to believe would work and they didn't and so you have nothing left to lose you you have only something to gain and so I feel like that's that's part of it um and that's what strengthens that weaving I can feel that you're a poet philosopher too I feel like you're weaving spells around me with your words so true and so beautifully articulated this vast interconnection that we're experiencing and I love that through the lens of tea how it connects to so many different threads and topics and important themes of particularly of our time like colonization and decolonization and wow yes it's all there within the tea beautiful well let's start looking at the the cycle and how you work with your cycle in your craft I think there's a lot to say about menstruation and you know that

we definitely want to speak about menstrual blood and how you use that. I do feel called to start with the pre-menstrual maybe that's because I'm on day 20. It just it feels like a positive place to start because well loads of reasons but one being I know I can imagine for a lot of our listeners it's when we feel closest to our magical capacities closest to our wild selves you know I I have a my own coven I guess we don't call ourselves that but we are we sit around a fire every six or seven weeks at the different Celtic festivals and we howl and we i never feel more myself than when i'm there particularly when i'm premenstrual and when i'm there with my women it feels like it's a timeless thing we've been doing this and it does feel like we're weaving spells even though we might not necessarily call it that when we're doing it consciously i'm curious how your premenstrual

consciousness impacts your work or how you work with it, with the gifts that you carry? Yeah, I think that's when I'm less interested in my intellectual insights and more interested in the emotional insights that come through and the physical sensations that are speaking to me. I think it's during that, like, yeah, when you're premenstrual, it's an opportunity to really confront perhaps shadows, because a lot of uncomfortable feelings

can come through during that time, whether if it's insecurities or full blown anxieties and fears or things that have been bothering you for a long time and you're feeling frustrated. And it can also be just that that resistance towards rest. So all the all the beliefs we've inherited around productivity, how our worth is tied to productivity. So it can be this beautiful time to really go deeper into that, to do your inner work, to ask for help, whether if it's from community or family members or help from spirit guides. I also tend to dream a lot more during that time. I don't know about you. So it can also be a time where I receive a divinatory guidance. And it may not necessarily make a lot of sense when I receive the dream, dream but I you know I jot it down in my journal and I'll keep meditating on it and sometimes the

the messages become clear as days progress yeah and it's also a time for preparation you know that's when I'm like okay if I'm low on this herb or that herb this is a good time to to gather because those are little cues like I'm gonna need it when I'm you know laying down in bed with um with a hot compress or something and I want to sip something herbal yes my version of that is soup I just in my pre-matchation, I just start making soup. I know I want that at that time of the month. And also I know I'm going to want it when I'm menstruating. Yeah. What would you say to someone who wants to connect more with their intuitive

knowing in the pre-menstruum? What kind of tools or guidance would you give to someone well I would just say take in the information um don't filter it don't add a label of good or bad I think that's the first one um yeah give space to everything give acknowledge everything um and I actually would start allowing if if one's uncomfortable handling the actual blood when the flow comes is start speaking with the blood itself. It's quite powerful. And in the beginning, it might feel even forbidden because it's seen, unfortunately, in society as dirty or unacceptable for, you know, to touch. And yet it's, it's so powerful. It's literally what gives life and maintains life. You've, you've beautifully ushered us into menstruation. And I do want to go there. But

just before we do, there was something that you wrote that I want I wonder if I could read out go for it it's from your blog so it says my days 26 to 28 in particular I noticed my instinct sharpen my mind clouding scent radar amplifying and my body assuming the posture of shedding my internal skin just Just love all of this. Like a serpent, I coil, hiss, bear my fangs, protect who and what I fiercely hold dear and crave warm touch. My emotions and discernments, though at times exaggerated, are rarely wrong.

I retire for the evening roughly two hours earlier than all my other days within my cycle. I awaken in the middle of the night, either rousing my partner to make love, even if we just did hours prior, or lie there playing out scenarios relating to topics on my heart. My legs can sometimes feel like lead, belly bloats, head tightens, breast swell and cervix softens. I've come to rely on and expect myself to shift and shape shift. I yield. Permission again. Yeah, say more.

I mean, you talked about this before, this wildness, this is when we become fully animal. And for me, I can't filter filter it I literally cannot hold it back and the power remains right like it's not like the minute you shift out of those first well either the premenstrual or the actual menstrual days it's it's still there it just takes on a different look um and I think the task is also to always remember that and I say this because I'm I realize that we all eventually will will stop bleeding but that power always is there can't be taken away and maybe even rises to an apex at menopause just a little aside you did mention perimenopause earlier do you feel like you're in that terrain I would say yeah the the early stages and you know everywhere you look they say it can last up to like 12 years or whatever so who knows how long it's gonna last

um but I say that because things are changing. Alexandra and Shani, who created and run Red School, speak about the 40s as the autumn of the menstruation years. So we've had summer and now we're moving into the autumn. And often, and we hear this again and again from women and people in our community there's a premenstrual tone to everything in the absolutely are you experiencing that oh yeah oh yeah well that's the thing it's um it's a micro if you look at our actual literal cycle that's a micro um glance and then you can pull it out and look at a decade at a time or maybe it's not a literal like 10 year decade but you know I mean and then it's it's a it becomes this macro lens and it still applies because like everything else in nature we're fractals including our menstruation

we're fractals okay let's talk about the. You were bringing us into it really beautifully there. You were saying if we might feel uncertain or afraid or queasy about working with our blood, you were describing how we can talk to it and start to build a relationship to it. Could you share more about that yeah um so as an animist and just i wanted to provide a bit of context or definition around how um how i approach animism so this idea that all things are very much alive and carry an intelligence and a consciousness. And you can say that about obviously humans, you can obviously also extend that to animals and to plants and to rocks and nature forms, such as streams or the wind or whatnot. And then you could also zero into components of what makes us who we are. So our blood is alive too. And the consciousness of blood that comes out of our bodies from a cut, let's say, is a different type of energy than the blood that comes through our menses. And so it's about speaking, literally speaking, with menstrual blood, developing a relationship.

And I would say if one desires to relate with blood in a more occultic fashion is after introducing oneself oneself maybe make a statement or an intention and I think a really beautiful one could be I would like to be a student of this this ancient life force that connects us from generation to generation and also um to so much more than that and then from a practical perspective i i work with uh menstrual blood in in very specific rituals. And I talk about this within my coven. And also I am offering an upcoming spell casting series

where we will be discussing body as ingredients for spells, which doesn't just include menstrual blood, but it can include saliva. It can include semen if you can access it, or if you, you know, produce it yourself, or hair, or, you know, other components. And then actually, I should add one more thing. I know I'm going on and on here. There's just so much to keep going, keep going. Because I recognize that I am in this perimenopausal phase and even the quantity of my blood is shifting from cycle to cycle, I'm collecting my blood and freezing it. And also just because sometimes if you're mid-cycle, you know, if you're ovulating, you don't have menstrual blood readily available and you know you need to cast a spell, we can always go get more in your freezer. Mark of a true rich, I suppose.

Tackle away. Yeah. I'll just get the contents of your freezer, I would. Yeah. Yeah. A couple of practical questions. How do you collect your blood? Do you have a, like a, a menstrual cup or do you use pads and then rinse them out? How do you do that? I do both methods. And depending on how, I don't always love using menstrual cups. Sometimes it's uncomfortable.

So if that's the case, I'll just listen to my body and I will just wring it out of a cloth pad. I don't use disposable menstrual products. I just find that my body really prefers reusable for many, many different reasons. But it just feels better on my body really prefers reusable for many many different reasons but it just feels better on my body um and yeah when my body's like yeah let's use the cup then that's also just great because it's so easy right you just pour it out into little jars put the lid on it away they go into the freezer yeah yeah we have a whole wonderful conversation actually with a woman jasmine alicia carter who's a menstrual blood artist so she used to paint her lineages tibetan buddhism so she paints these huge mandalas from her menstrual blood beautiful another beautiful use of this sacred substance

could you walk us into some of the spells that you use menstrual blood for or some of the ways that you work magically with menstrual blood so menstrual blood has a few different energies and so those types of energies lend well to specific types of spells so one of them is creative so one can use menstrual blood in ritual, in spell work, that is designed to call in inspiration, call in the fruition of a project, and that the project will, you know, launch successfully and will be well received. One could use it to call in ancestors who perhaps have a similar makeup as you in terms of interests or passions. And one could use the blood as a form of mediumship and then use that as anointing on oneself when in creative practice. And by creative, I don't mean artistic only. It can be so much more than that. Problem solving is a form of creativity, right? Because you are finding a way forward that maybe did not exist before. There was a block. That's the

problem. And how do you flow around that block, essentially? Menstrual blood is also very protective. So it can be used in spells to set boundaries or to place markations on homes or spaces. I've used menstrual blood even to protect my children. And I know I'm thinking, what are your listeners saying? I'm just smearing blood over their faces. No, no, no. But the fact is, it's to say, I mean, think about it in the wild, we use parts of our to say this, this is my territory, or this is under my protection so it's really not that different so you can do that you one can use blood and just anoint in tiniest amounts and of course you know do it with from a place of ritual and with very very clear intentions another way is to build community

so i would say that that would be the third sort of bucket of spell as a category or theme where i would engage so um within uh the cutman um that i hold space for we've created sigils and painted them with menstrual blood what's a sigil sigil is an emblem that holds magical intention and power and many family crests were you know of nobility were at one point sigils. Sometimes you'll see those old fashioned fancy rings that men wear on their pinky that almost has a stamp attached to it. Those are actually sigils, they're seals. And one could even argue that modern day logos

for businesses and brands are also a form of sigils but it's a it's a way to show up in the world with a very specific intention and yeah so so and there's different interpretations of what sigils should and shouldn't be some should always be private some should um you should release the form right after the ritual so you have no memory of it. And some believe that certain sigils should stay and should be visible. And so it all depends. Okay, I'm going to pause this conversation with Mimi just for a moment to invite you to join Red School's Cycle Power course. So I was speaking with Alexandra and Sharni about this in a recent team meeting with Louise and Lauren as well.

And Alexandra and Sharni were saying just how proud they are of this course. They really feel like it's the best and the most comprehensive menstrual cycle awareness course that they've ever made. And the feedback has been phenomenal people are receiving real practical benefit from having a deeper connection to the inner seasons of their menstrual cycle however they show up for them so one of these people is Becky we're going to hear a little bit of her story now and then we'll get back to the conversation with Mimi. I recently took part in the Psycho Power course. So before I took the course and before I started reading Red School's work, I was really scared of menopause and taking any route that I could to reduce those symptoms. But now I've seen that instead of being scared and shutting those symptoms out,

I'm learning to stop and pay attention. And the course has really helped me to tap into some really straightforward tools and practices to access the power that is there within the cycle. And I think it takes some time and some effort and some discipline but whenever I come back to noting my daily check-in and remembering what self-care practice I need I sense my access to those powers growing taking a course like cycle power I think for, dropped into a much deeper level of knowledge that you learn through the exercises and the experience. You take that knowledge into your body and that's a whole different level of understanding and it's quite fantastic. So I really would encourage you to have a look at the course, a look at everything that red school does and hopefully you'll gain some knowledge and some sense of power through that process

there's a form that i've long seen like a specific swirling shape of a woman that I've I've noticed myself draw again and again and come back to again and again since my 20s so for 43 years now you're making me think that that's you know it's something for me to work with magically and I haven't thought about it in that way before thank you you're inspiring me and I'm sure you're inspiring our listeners as well I'm thinking of a few a few different examples um of what you've been sharing in terms of working with menstrual blood like I know a woman who created a temple space on her land and underneath the four in the foundations underneath the four posts that were holding up the temple she laid menstrual blood there as part i imagine the intention was for protection protection absolutely yeah yeah and to delineate you know what maybe the activities within the temple are very sacred yes it's um what's the word not sacralizing that's not the word sanctify yeah that's it yeah thank you

this is my brain it's a little late for me here too um I was also thinking of something that many of us might have quite spontaneously and naturally done is give our blood to the earth and I've never thought of that as a spell before but hearing you speak it's like I often give my blood to the earth with my intentions for the month or I give it to the river but also there's always this undercurrent of an intention for peace in the world because I can't remember who I heard this from but I I believe it's a, it's a belief that's held by probably many different indigenous peoples, which is the menstrual blood is one of the only forms of blood that is shed in peace. So to then give it back to the earth, it's a, as a peace offering.

That's, that's a spell for the collective, isn't it? It is. And, and yeah, I, a as a peace offering that's that's a spell for the collective isn't it it is and and um yeah i i do offer it also to the land spirits and sometimes it's uh also a way to give thanks so i mean offerings have many different functions from a from a sorcery perspective one is to to offer gratitude or offer respect and sometimes it's also to offer payment um or to you know make a pact with the spirit um here here's your payment or here's your your i don't know your deposit more later um yeah yeah beautiful so if there are beings that we're connected with you know we might understand where they are or not like intuitively have specific beings i feel connected with i could i could yeah make an offering of my blood to them in gratitude like

protective beings i mean oh absolutely um this is so exciting I wanted to ask you about your own menstrual consciousness and how you work with that are there specific kinds of consciousness that you enter when you menstruate when I am on my bleed i tend to not ask myself to do too much nice yeah so it's a time to receive it's a time to rest um and by receiving sometimes it is guidance that i receive um because i am quite like i'm i'm really open during that time yeah um one is a lot more vulnerable um so in a way it's just to and i think it's because i mean in so many of us like we work so much and so hard any other time of the cycle that this is the time to to be to just be um and I think that in it of itself is so I mean it's beautiful and necessary and it's a time to fertilize everything else when you

miss that every week kind of feels the same there's no seasonality in your cycle and there's no seasonality even in the four seasons um yeah yeah it's like when we try and work the land until it's completely desiccated grow and grow and grow without letting it go fallow you know we need to let our fields go fallow sometimes and we need to let ourselves go fallow sometimes absolutely yeah what what's your favorite kind of menstrual rest what does it look like for you in your you know actual life with all of the different responsibilities you have um I would say it's really like stepping away from the usual household duties, letting my partner take over. You know, he can figure out what we're eating. He can figure out how the boys are going to get to this place and that place.

Being in bed or in the winter, especially, it's nice to be by the fire. Laying down being, I think, warmth and heat is really lovely. Sometimes if, if it, you know, if the schedule sort of works out, I may go see my massage therapist. Maybe not even during the bleed per se, might even be i know i'm kind of hopping back into premenstrual now but just sort of it will be that span yeah i may spend some time asking questions to the spirits and engage in some divinatory work but i don't go too specific it's it's much more general at that time because I'm I'm intentionally keeping it quite open is that because you know mysterious things could come

through that you don't know you you don't yet know that they're coming yeah yeah it's it's almost like because if you it's like I want that window to be totally open, because if it's just a crack, I might miss out on something important. Yes, yes, that's such good advice. Yeah. Yeah, I'm so often completely surprised by what I receive when I'm bleeding. Like, okay, that feels very left field, but then it becomes apparent. Like in November and December, I kept hearing this word, receive, receive. I was like, why, what, why, what does that mean? I don't know. And then I sat with it over my really deep winter drop, as deep as you can drop with a four-year-old, which is, you know.

Yes. But I did have moments by the fire and I got to understand just how fast I've been moving for these last four years especially and how ready I am to now receive some of the fruits of what I've been building and creating and it all started to make sense but it needed that space and time to kind of marinate and become itself. So that's kind of a spell, isn't it? Like I was being enchanted by an energy or a thought and I let it work in me. Yeah. Beautiful. It was guided to move into that next phase, right?

To see what you've grown. I'd love to speak about inner spring, inner summer, inner summer ovulation and your work. Just before we do, is there anything else that you feel called to share around menstruation, spell work and menstrual blood with our listeners? I think shape-shifting is a powerful component because that's something we as women naturally do throughout our entire cycle. But I will say that who we may choose to shapeshift into, even just from a make-believe,

fantastical perspective, it says a lot about who we are it says a lot about the powers that we have or and maybe don't grant it once again that word permission to go there it's sort of like halloween i mean halloween's really big in North America and I yeah um it's a big big deal and there's so much preparation around it um and the costume not only just the decorations but the costume and um we get this opportunity all the time it's not just once a year um and I think with menstruation there's that power that we're always, always shifting. And we can, if we choose to hear once again, those deeper voices, maybe even some of those darker, more uncomfortable voices, we may learn something about ourselves and access those potencies if we allow I'm thinking back to what I was bringing at the beginning of the conversation around like having that jokey vampire moment with my husband that was jokey

and was not jokey like I did actually totally feel like I had fangs and I did actually want to drink his blood because he was frustrating the f out of me and it's like I can feel I felt so alive after that after playing and allowing myself to shape shift in that moment he wasn't so sure he was just here we go the next week is going to be fun you know it's you know having having had years where my premenstruum was debilitating and I know a lot of our listeners are still many in this place of just overwhelmed and by really challenging emotion it's like I want I feel like this shape-shifting offers some yeah potentially some new avenues for exploration

of how to open up some of the challenge that can come in the premenstrual yeah and potentially I guess too with menstrual pain and menstrual symptoms as well potentially absolutely and also some I don't know like we all get those menstrual thoughts where we believe them and they it's really just a weather pattern passing through and there there's a charge to those thoughts that we tell ourselves um and i'm not saying they're all wrong sometimes they do contain some truth to it but they can be skewed they're they're sometimes there's a distortion and um i think the pause is very necessary. And also the accumulation of the information that's gathered from cycle to

cycle to cycle. We need that richness of accumulation so we can start understanding what those patterns are and where our tendencies may go and to, to step back and maybe invite the vampire or another archetype to come through it makes it a little more playful it gives us a sense of power and also a non-commitment we don't have to be that all the time but we can be that if we want just one day it's like it shows us it's part of us it's not all of us yeah it's part of us and then we can work with it as a power rather than be overpowered by it i could have done by telling myself that 10 years ago oh i know right

yeah you're right about the accumulative wisdom it's a long game isn't it cycle awareness it's a long game okay how about your ovulatory time and pre-ovulatory time? Is there a specific, are there specific practices that you tend to do at this time? How does your ovulatory energy feed into your work? Sometimes it doesn't always work this way. It aligns well to a specific offering I'm holding for the online community that's handy it is it's so handy because you're just so much more charismatic and energized and generous and present beyond oneself and so I love that and I do my best when I can, it doesn't always work that way. Because if there's a, you know, a festival or a lunar observation where my cycle happens to not align with, then I may have to make a choice between, okay, are we going to do something for a solstice

on or near the solstice? Or are we going to do something to a solstice on or near the solstice or are we going to do something to mini cycle i think most people would want to do it on the solstice but this is a really great time to be casting spells ovulation yeah especially casting spells of attraction and building um and of course celebrating gratitude these sorts of spells um spells that perhaps need to be fed um for some time so spells that require more building um obviously not release spells i mean i would do that sort of in the latter phase um um and i i would yeah if you're wanting to invite a new opportunity like all these sort of themes of late spring summer or even early early harvest not quite autumn but like the the you know like the juicy fruity time um it's really

great and of course one could also do that if they're no longer menstruating or just don't menstruate in the first place you can time that to the moon right because i mean we really are mimicking the moon so this is around that full moon time what can one do um especially days leading up to the actual full moon yeah I imagine spells around expression as well I'm thinking of us as sort of big right juicy peaches like dripping with our juice like yeah spells and enable us to bring ourselves forth into the world it's just such a theme in our community of feeling blocked and stuck and wanting to break free and be able to bring our gifts forward. I can imagine that ovulation is a potent time to work with that kind of spell work. Yeah, well, it can be. If one has identified that there's something that needs to first be released then i would

recommend um creating essentially a two-part spell um so one would be almost like premenstrual or just before you hit that premenstrual because you'll probably be too tired and cranky to do it um to release um to invite things to shed to ask for allies to give you the strength to close that door, because sometimes one needs that encouragement. And then the part two of the spell would be to invite, to ask for that wayfinder, to show that way for the road to open, to begin, you know, committing into that new iteration of expression beautiful drawing on your all of your amazing studies and travels and explorations over these years that have led to this point what would you say to someone who is longing for what you're speaking about, but feels fear and a fairly reasonable fear given the history of,

particularly for women and witches in our world. What would you say to them about that fear and how to move towards the longing? Eventually the longing will be so loud that it'll overpower the fear so there's that approach um the other approach is just jump into the deep end right away because once you're in it's not that easy to swim out of it um and then you'll acclimatize, right? It's sort of like, okay, well, you know, you could slowly dip one toe into the lake and just one toe at a time, or you could just cannonball in, right? And sort of, I'll deal with it later. But I will say from experience, because nobody really likes that initial shock and the fear will the fear wants to preserve status quo. I think that's really what it is. It doesn't always protect us in the way we think it should.

Because we outgrow things and we outgrow mechanisms that are designed to protect us. But like we've gotten bigger, we that our protective mechanisms don't fit anymore, but we still think they work. And then, but all they do is just start hindering us and it feels clunky and it blocks us from receiving more abundance and more joy and more wisdom in life. And so, yeah, I would say you could just wait also.

Let that discomfort and that longing build up. It takes a little longer. But what happens is when you do that is you can't always control how the universe wants to force you out of it. Right? I mean, you're laughing because it's happened to all of us. It's like, okay, I waited. I procrastinated. And then the universe kicked me in the butt. And it was, it really, really was not great. So I've learned sometimes we just have to proactively say yes, even if one is scared. And the fear is in our heads. You know, we're not at school anymore, where we might be embarrassed or punished by some principal or schoolmaster or whatever.

It's our life. You know, we're adults. We can make choices. And I'll say that, I mean, in my community and we're all weird in our own way and we love it and we accept it in one another and admire in fact not even accept it's way better than accept because accepting is almost just like tolerance it's like no no we we admire it and we celebrate it um yeah I'm really enjoying the potency of your expression i'm really loving it if um listeners are loving what you're sharing and would like to connect with you how could they do

that um my website is shop ceremony.com ceremony is spelt with an ie instead of a y um and there you can sign up for my newsletter and you can browse through the site and see all the fun cackly things i'm doing um there is an upcoming spell casting series uh it's a 12- series, we gather once a month online. And we talk about different aspects of spell work. And we do in a way that really offers depth and embodiment and responsibility. And I did create a promo code for your listeners. The promo code is all caps menstruality. Yes, of course. And it does it gives listeners 250 off the series. And there's a few different options, whether they want to do a one time payment or a payment plan, but regardless, they will receive the 250 off the series starts in middle of February but people can join anytime because I am offering recordings and they'll have access to the

recordings and so the code is actually valid for the entire year they can also follow me on Instagram it's the same handle so it's shop ceremony with an ie at the end and we follow each other so people can always look for me through through your fault through those that you follow and those that follow you as well yes yes yes it's simple though isn't it shop ceremony that's that's what you are on instagram and i will say mimi like the poet philosopher part of you really comes out on your Instagram. Like you bring messages forward that are very disruptive in that gorgeous way. Like there was a great, I'll link to it in the show notes, but a great conversation you had about ethics, ethics and spell work.

You know, I really appreciate your capacity to have nuanced explorations rather than polarizing explorations of things. Thank you. And it's so important, right? At the end of the day, we all bleed. We're all humans. We all have things that we love. And actually, most of the things we love are the same. We love our children. We love our family. We love our children we love our family we love our neighborhoods we you know we love the trees we love we love holidays I mean and I think polarizing sometimes it does happen um and it's almost inevitable and at the same time if there's an opportunity to bring people together and remind people what life really is about. I'm all for that.

Wow, it feels like a beautiful place to end this conversation, though I would like to talk to you for about three more years. Oh, Sophie. Thank you so much, Lili. It's been wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I feel like cackling with you at the end of that conversation I loved it my cauldron definitely felt very stirred I'm curious to hear how it landed for you I know there are a lot of intuitive empathic people who perhaps have psychic gifts here in this community so curious to hear how that landed and if you know someone who you think would benefit from this conversation please please forward it to them or share it on social media and help more people discover the podcast we'd really appreciate that and I'll be with you again next week and until then keep living life according

to your own brilliant rhythm