Episode 99 – The End

After 7 amazing, wonderful, magical years ranting, raving, and wand-waving as The Fat Feminist Witch, I have decided to hang up my pointed hat and shift my focus toward my health and independence. In my final episode I talk about what the show, and all of you, have meant to me over the years. I cry a little bit, just a heads up. 

Thank you for listening, sharing, commenting, supporting, blurbing, writing, laughing, and connecting with me. I hope that we find ourselves on the same witchy path again in the future.

My website, https://thefatfeministwitch.wordpress.com will stay up, as will the podcast here on Anchor, but no new episodes will be released. The patreon page is shutting down, but the private facebook group will be available for those who are already members. I will continue to use twitter in the same non-professional way I have been using it for years, haha! 

I have been compiling episodes into themed playlists on Spotify and you can find them all, along with playlists I made for specific episodes and witchy purposes, at the following link.

https://open.spotify.com/folder/47d561a1b54ebe92

I hope you all have a Happy New Year’s eve, and year, and a fabulous and magical future. I love you!

Show Notes

Hello my lovely, wonderful, magical witches, seekers, and yes – friends and thank you for joining me today for what I have decided will be the last episode of The Fat Feminist Witch Podcast. This is it. Episode 99. The End. I started the podcast in 2015 after leaving a job at a witchy store, which changed my life and made it clear to me that talking to people about witchcraft and magic was what I was meant to be doing, just not in the way I had been. I didn’t know if anyone would listen to it, let alone like it, and have been so shocked and grateful every single day that you guys like, loved it. If you’ve been listening for a long time I’m sure you noticed that I have released all of 4 episodes this year- 2 in february, 1 in July, and one in November that was supposed to come out in october. I have been struggling all year with this decision, even though I knew it had to be done. I didn’t want to let go. I still don’t, but I know it will be a while before I can get back to working full time, especially because I’ve never made a whole bunch of money doing it. That was ok because I didn’t need much money to cover my bills, and needed even less to feel happy and fulfilled with my job and with my life in general. The satisfaction and encouragement and camaraderie I got out of doing the podcast and writing the books was really the most valuable thing in the entire world for me, and that will always be true. But I don’t have the safety net of savings to carry me through what I need to do now, which is to get back onto the healing path that I started walking a few years ago. Like most people the pandemic really took a toll on me, and then for sort of unrelated reasons this past year has just been really really rough. It’s clear to me that although I made a lot of progress with the treatment and counseling I got and the changes I made in my life, I still have quite a way left to go and I can’t concentrate on anything else. I’ve tried. I tried to do both, I tried to dive into work and help myself, but I think I’ve just gone as far as I can on my own and it’s time to find some more help from people who just know a lot more than I do and than I can learn through self-help books and wikipedia. That’s actually a kind of common theme here, I feel like I’ve exhausted my own knowledge of mental health and therapy, but I feel a similar way about witchcraft and magic. The world has changed a lot, I’ve changed a lot, the internet has changed, and amidst all of it I feel like my fountain of knowledge is tapped. Of course I will always continue to learn, but it took me years and years to get where I am, I can’t really match that with 2 weeks of research time between episodes. I don’t want to put out episodes of the show or write books that have half the information I feel is necessary and desired on any given topic, and I actually was put in that position this year. 

I’ve released 4 books, but I’ve actually written 5. Earlier this year I wrote a book about using the tarot in magical practice that was, and I am not exaggerating here, absolute garbage and I just got lucky that it isn’t being released, as I have no control over that. Another thing that’s changed is my publisher and the kinds of books they wanted me to write. I knew that mentally I wasn’t in the best place to write a book, not even one on a topic I love and know a lot about, I also knew I was literally moving 2 days before I was due to start writing. But I let my anxiety about money cloud my judgment. I don’t know why, but in my entire life, money has never been a motivator for me. While I think that’s like a beautiful and idealistic personality trait, in the real world it has some very real consequences. But if I remember that money isn’t a good motivator and continue to allow my creativity and my desire to understand and learn new things and help people, I usually make enough to get by and even thrive a little bit. If I forget that, and let my financial fear drive me, I am almost never successful and that’s part of what happened. So I agreed to write a book I knew I didn’t have the mental or even spiritual bandwidth to handle, and then I allowed editors to talk me into writing a certain way that is absolutely wrong for me. I have always gotten super personal with you all, my books are personal, this show is basically like, my autobiography and the user manual to my brain, and I cannot believe that I agreed when an editor said “let’s take you out of the equation here, and just stop including so many personal stories and details”. Y’all. That book had zero personality. Soulless drivel. And then they needed to cut it down and cut it down. I am a wordy bitch, ok? With all of my books I have had to negotiate a higher allowed word count, and even had to change the layout and format of these books because I could not use fewer words. All the books are longer than they were supposed to be, and I had a lot of creative control in terms of changing chapters and topics, but this time I didn’t. They were set on these word counts and I could not fit enough information into those limits. I mean, 50 words to describe all of the magical symbolism of each tarot card was a preposterous limit to give anyone, but me especially. In the end I hated the book and I begged them not to release it. I was ashamed and embarrassed. Every day I felt this heavier and heavier sense of dread. Less than a month before the book was due to be released I got word that a bunch of shit had gone down with the publisher and a whole list of titles were no longer going out, including this one and y’all. I had been having a spiritual crisis and trying to decide if I no longer believed in magic, but I fucking believe ok? Magic is real because if it wasn’t a bunch of you would have a copy of a god awful book with my name on it in your hands right now and I would burst into flames from the shame haha. I’m so dramatic, but it really felt like the worst possible thing that could happen. 

I want to write more books about magic and witchcraft, I even would love to do a book about tarot, but not that book. That wasn’t mine, it wasn’t me. It had nothing to do with me. From the very beginning it was clear to me that I had made the wrong decision and now I need to make the right decision. I took that job because I have problems that need solutions. These are old problems I have been trying to deal with in tiny increments for decades, and it’s just time to really commit to finding a way to keep these problems from putting me back in that position. If I can do that, I know I will find my way back to writing and speaking about witchcraft and magic. I know it. I can’t imagine doing anything else. I wondered if I was mistaken in believing that I had found my life’s purpose, but I don’t think I was wrong about that. I think the world just changed in a way I could anticipate, and I didn’t have the tools to really cope with those changes or go with the flow. I no longer feel like my work is doing what I set out to do, and what that tells me is that I need to find a new way to do it. And one day I am sure that I will. 

I have not lived a very happy life, but these last 7 years showed me that I could. That I could find a way to be happy, that I deserved to be happy, that I could make other people happy and help them make themselves and others happy. Thanks to all of you who have listened and commented and shared and reviewed and bought books and showed up to live meet ups and even sent me angry emails I have come to see myself as a person with something to offer the world, someone who belongs here, and who has a reason to live. And to be completely frank, I didn’t really have that before. So I hope you realize how special and how important you all have been to me and will continue to be for the rest of my life. You guys often tell me that I helped you bring magic to your life, and I hope you know that you did the same for me just by showing up. How amazing is it that we all found each other and were able to affect each other’s lives in this way? I live in a small city in Canada that I often describe as a place where dreams go to die, and yet I was able to connect with all of you and bring mine to life. There’s nothing more important, more magical, than being able to make a connection with people. For the past 7 years we were all fat feminist witches coming together to make the world a magical place and I am honoured and proud to have been a part of it and I hope you are too. 

But this wasn’t a totally serious bummer of a show, this is a show where we had some fun so let’s do that! I want to look back at some of my favourite moments.

Unsurprisingly, pretty much every single year my favourite episodes were Halloween-themed. Not only was this just a time to kind of let loose, it allowed me to honour the thing that made me interested in magic and witchcraft in the first place: stories. Mythology. Folklore. The magic that’s woven into our history and holidays. The first time I did it I talked about stuff like eye of newt and Elizabeth Montgomery’s nose twitch in bewitched and flying ointments and went really pop culture with it. In the most recent one I got to talk a bit about my favourite north american folklore story, which is the blues man who sells his soul to the devil at the crossroads to become the greatest musician of all time. The episode where I talked about victorian seances and mediumship is still one of my favourites and I think it’s because a lot of that was so new to me. That was a vibe I knew from movies and tv and that’s IT but in researching that episode not only did I learn a bunch of cool history I learned there are 2 towns in the US that were founded and populated by psychics and mediums. TWO! Lily Dale in New York and Cassadaga Florida, both of which are super high up on my travel bucket list now. The halloween episode I am most proud of and was most excited to share, though, was last year’s with Lilith Dorsey about zombies both in film and in haitian vodou, where the entire concept originated. How fucking awesome was that? 

Lilith is a guest I had on the show a bunch of times, and every time was mind blowing and awesome. She was my favourite person to have on the show, and she is one of my favourite people in the world just in general. I recommend her books to everyone. I have all the ones I could track down. I use them constantly, they are my most used reference books in each of their respective subjects. When it comes to African traditional religions she is the first person I recommend looking to, especially if you are completely outside of that community, like I am. She made it possible for me to learn about those religions and traditions but gave me really clear boundaries so I could do it respectfully and every opportunity I had to share her expertise with all of you was a big treat for me. She’s also a very musical person, which is one of the reasons we get along so well, and the episodes of the show where I got to talk about music are so special to me because music will forever be my first and truest love. Having Fiona Horne, another musical witch and a literal rock star from the 1990s on this show remains one of the highlights of my entire life. Like, I’ll be bragging about that shit until the day I die. But I don’t think there is a single guest I had on this show that didn’t change me and my practice in a profound way. The first person to ever be a guest on the show was Lasara Firefox Allen to talk about their book Jailbreaking the Goddess, which a bunch of you still tell me completely changed your life. That book was the first I ever found that opened up what it means to be a goddess and a woman for witches of all different backgrounds and genders and places in life that I’ve found. And that interview means a lot to me as the first on the show. I actually was complimenting the book on their social media and they offered to come on the show, which was great because I was absolutely terrified to ask. I wanted to so badly, but didn’t know how. That bit of kindness and enthusiasm allowed me to have lots of different guests on here that I loved, and I think made the show really special. Sarah Potter the art witch coming on here blew my damn mind. She said something like everyone should have a nude portrait of themselves in their room and it got stuck in my head and I legit painted one and it hangs above my bed. I had to snap a photo for reference and then I turned myself into the star goddess, complete with glittery stretch marks and a starry background. It makes me feel great about myself and everyone who sees it asks about it. I have had the pleasure of hosting multiple different glamour witches – Deborah Castellano, Gabriela Herstik, and Michael Herkes, all of whom are living breathing works of art. Cory Hutcheson from new world witchery, which is one of the first ever podcasts I listened to, came on my show and invited me onto his and he is just so cool and fascinating. Just an awesome person to talk to. Stories and folklore are my bread and butter and him and the show really keep that feeling of magic being all around us alive. Kathleen Borealis, the one who works with literal volcanoes, I am still learning incredible new things about the earth every single day because of her and the fire she lit inside me. One actual regret I will carry with me is a guest I never actually had on the show, but whom I love and cherish as a friend and whose books I find endlessly inspiring – Lisa Marie Basile. Lisa. I feel like every other month I thought “I’ve gotta have Lisa on here to talk about this!” and It never happened and I don’t know how I did that and I am bummed. It’s like it always felt so weird that you hadn’t been on that I was sure it had to have already happened!

I am so grateful for the friends I made and the people I met doing this show. I can’t imagine my life without them now. Lilith and I talk about music and miss Cleo on facebook all the time. Gabriela is my sexiest friend. Mary Grace Fahrun, who wrote Italian folk magic, I mean. Of my god. I had never felt a part of my family and my italian heritage until I found her and her community of other magical italians. That book feels like a family bible to me. When I’m sad and lonely I read it and feel warm and comforted. Same with Honoring your Ancestors by Mallorie Vaudoise, I feel like I have a real relationship with my Noni who passed on when I was a young girl. When I’m going through dark times, I look for the light magic in Lisa’s book. Joanna Devoe is another music lover, and she still makes me smile all the time. Like, her positivity feels like… sunshine. It;s never felt fake or forced, and I am really grateful to her for that because she is an antidote to toxic positivity that isn’t a bummer. My creative fire is constantly being stoked by Laura Tempest Zakroff, who I also didn’t get to have on the show, but whose books I am always recommending and using for research. Thank you all so much for sharing your magic with me. My life is significantly better because of you all. 

In general, the work I was able to do here, and the things I was able to learn because of the witches I met and the books I got to read, allowed me to live an extremely creative life filled with enthusiasm and excitement. I have always been a creative and even artistic person, and while that was something people loved when I was very young, the older I got the less appreciated I felt because of it. There were always small little moments, but when it came to stuff like work and home life and friendship, my wacky creativity and desire to learn seemed to hinder more than help. In my jobs my creativity was only appreciated like… in tiny ways, ways that didn’t shake anything up. You guys, guests and listeners, you guys let me shake up whatever I wanted and got right down into the details with me. I really needed that. And I really needed to know that doing that, could help other people and put something good out into the world. You also not only let me go on my little tangents, but you encouraged it. God, that is like, the number one thing that should have tipped people off to my ADHD way sooner in life. I get obsessed about something and need to let it consume my life for a little while, and you all never complained. The year I got into astrology you guys tuned in DROVES. Aliza Einhorn’s episode about saturn still gets tons of listens every month. The episodes I did about baneful bitchcraft, aka cursing and hexing, remain some of my most popular of all time. You guys really never crawled up my ass about hardship. About difficulty. You let me be angry. I literally had a whole episode about anger that you loved. My episode about fatphobia and how hard it is to be fat is still popular, and I mean… I could go on forever about how much your fat positive support changed my life. Even those of you who are literally thin have been fighting for fat people over the last 7 years. I’ve seen you. It’s incredible. It’s meaningful. It’s literally changing my world for the better every single day. 

You know, I’m really glad I did this because I have been obsessing over all the things I didn’t get to do, the things I didn’t get to say, the books I didn’t write, all the plans I had that never came to fruition and it has been really hard. I feel a lot of guilt. Like I let myself down, but remember everything we’ve accomplished together is really lifting me up.