Missing Witches

Happy Litha! Happy Summer Solstice! Happy longest day of the year!! Today we gather with Eliza Swann and Tree Carr to explore a galaxy of 21st Century Alchemy, shining light on a technology of magic, a science of craft. Together we discuss the Witchcraft/Quantum Physics pipeline, telephone magic, consciousness, the creative process, dreams as source, art as prayer, the power of collective belief, imagination, and ideas about god(s). For the solstice, Tree and Eliza suggest noticing that Litha falls on Father's Day this year, and creating a Wake Up spell. Eliza Swann is artist, writer, and alchemist whose work explores mysticism and its relationship to contemporary arts practice. Eliza's latest book is The Alchemical Imagination: Creativity as Catalyst for Radical Transformation. Tree Carr is an author, educator, creative Witch who works in the field of Transpersonal Psychology with a focus on dreams, death, altered states of consciousness, and psychedelic-assisted therapy. Tree's latest book is Technomancy: Tech Magic and Spells for the 21st-century Witch. Tree wrote, “The more I explored, the clearer it became: ancient magic and modern tech weren't so different [...] Magic is all about energy, and I realized tech could amplify it, aligning perfectly with intention.” Eliza wrote, "The violence that capitalism enacts on time, nature, and our sense of connection is completely incompatible with alchemy and magic, which ask us to slow down, listen, and actually feel the soul of things." So let's take some time this Litha to slow down, listen to these Witches, and try to actually feel the soul of everything. https://www.missingwitches.com/21st-century-alchemy-litha-2026-with-tree-carr-and-eliza-swann

Jennifer Luxmore-Begin (she/her, @luxybeg1) is a creative, musician and educator, settler-Anishinaabe woman with roots in Mattagami First Nation. As an educator and facilitator of women’s circles, Jenn works to create community, connection and embodiment of culture in everyday life. Jenn is a sister in the Indigenous Women’s Collective, Grandmother’s Voice. She is an elementary music educator-making magic with song and dance, a creatrix who loves to make mixed media projects using reclaimed and natural materials; Jenn is a bead work and textile artist, drummer, singer, amazing auntie and mom of two almost grown young men! She is proud of her French, Scottish and Anishinaabe lineage, and is a member of Mattagami First Nation near Timmins, ON and currently live on the traditional territory of the Mississauga of the Credit First Nation. Jenn is also the creator of the 13 Moons of Creation, a lunar calendar and Planner! We talk about our shared deities, Music and Water! JOIN THE MWRF2026 TODAY!! How it Works Make a donation of $10 or more to your local Native Women’s Shelter or any Indigenous-Run Org, or the The Sixties Scoop Network. Take a screenshot of your receipt and email witchreparations@gmail.com with the subject line: REPARATION and you'll be entered to win one of more than twenty-five amazing prizes! Every 10$ = 1 entry in the draw, $50 is five entries and so on. Everyone who donates automatically receives discount codes from some of our favourite witchy business! Jenn would love for you to support: Grandmother's Voice is a community of Belonging and Understanding for Healing. Guided by the Ancient Wisdom of our Ancestors, Indigenous Grandmother’s and Grandfather’s, we aim to unite Indigenous voices while extending a warm invitation to individuals from all directions to join us in embracing Indigenous ways of being as a tapestry towards the good life together. Credit River Water Walk. Waterwalks are based on Anishinaabe ceremonial water teachings. We walk to honour all Nibi (water), to speak and to pray to her spirit; to offer petitions so there will be healthy rivers, lakes and oceans for future generations and our ancestors. People from all nations, all walks of life, are welcome to join the walk. Lead by Anishinaabe Kwe, Mary Anne Caibaiosai, prayers, peace, play, synergies, sunrises & support are woven into this walking ceremony to honour water & follow in the footsteps of Josephine Mandamin. Anduhyaun Inc. is a non-profit registered charity founded by four grandmothers - Vera Martin, Mildred Redmond, Mary Jane Young and Jeannette Lavell - in 1973 to respond to the needs of Toronto's Indigenous women. It first opened as a hostel, and now provides emergency shelter and second stage transitional housing to women and their children fleeing violence. We make culturally-inclusive, safe spaces available for those who come through our doors to focus on their healing and wellness journey. https://www.missingwitches.com/ep-298-teachings-of-odemiin-giizis-the-strawberry-moon-mwrf-part-4-w-jenn-luxmore-begin

In this episode, Risa speaks with Na'kuset, executive director of the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal, about the search for justice beyond the limits of the Canadian state, the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal hearings, and the ongoing work of truth-telling around genocide, colonial violence, and Indigenous resistance. If this conversation moves you, please consider supporting Indigenous-led organisations directly, sharing this episode, and participating in local acts of witness and solidarity.

The scariest thing about seeing a cockroach, they are after all, quite tiny and unthreatening, is that if you see one, it means there are likely thousands more hiding in the darkness. This is true of Witches too. Because our numbers are growing, and that’s scary. Because we know that for survival and evolution, adaptation beats control. In the end, our kinship with roaches is an invitation to notice a shared choreography of exclusion and return. Both Witches and roaches have been named as infestations, treated as signs of disorder, and targeted with rituals of removal that reveal more about the fears of the persecutor than the nature of the accused. The Witch, like the roach, is imagined as multiplying, hiding, slipping through the sanctioned boundaries of the home and the body. Yet what persists beneath these projections is a quieter truth: we mark forms of knowledge and survival that refuse central control. We embody our knowledge, our magic beyond our mere brains and into every cell of our being, The Witch carries herbal, communal, and embodied ways of knowing; the cockroach carries an evolutionary grimoire of endurance, adaptability, and life in the margins. We unsettle the fantasy of purity. We expose how systems define themselves by what they cast out. To view roaches as Witch kin, as OUR kin is to recognize that what is called unclean or dangerous often names a resilience and resistance that cannot be easily governed or exterminated. Remember Witches, survival, especially under pressure, rarely looks like virtue. It looks like persistence in the dark, a continued presence where one is not supposed to be, and a refusal to disappear. https://www.missingwitches.com/ep-294-we-are-cockroach-kin-slipping-through-the-cracks-of-control

Risa reflects on gardens, seedlings, memory, illness, friendship, and the fragile courage of beginning again. Braiding together stories of Montréal community gardens, queer friendship, cancer, parenting, lost commons, and childhood wonder, she asks: how do we stay hopeful when failure is inevitable and the work of living never ends? Through music, memoir, and magic, this is a love letter to all our small bright attempts—to the vulnerable green selves in each of us that keep reaching for light anyway. A song for the wild-hearted, the weary, the grieving, and the still-growing. https://www.missingwitches.com/we-are-seedling-kin-infinite-and-inevitable/

What to expect from KINSHIP Episodes of the Missing Witches Podcast. The Missing Witches coven is trans-inclusive, anti-racist, feminist, pro-science, anti-ableist, and full of AWE and LOVE. If that sounds like your people, come find out more. https://www.missingwitches.com/join-the-coven/

To celebrate the Spring Equinox of 2026 we invited the Missing Witches Coven to write and read spell poems, and we gathered together to conjure the magics of poetry, of protection, abundance and ease, to empower the powerless and bring conscience to the conscious-less. We hope that these rhymes will become mantras we can sing in our heads at night to replace the intrusive thoughts, the fear. This is our spell, to be transmitted across the waves and webs, to reach your ears and soothe you, to reach your heart and rile you, to experience the magic of becoming. www.missingwitches.com/ostara-2026-this-episode-is-a-spell

Imbolc 2026 with Lilith Dorsey, Loli Moon, Christena Cleveland, Zoe Flowers, OlaOmi Amoloku, Lindsay Braynen, and Caress Fitch!! We’ve reached that halfway point between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox we call Imbolc. We light candles as a symbol of the vow me make to our own enlightenment. To learn. February first also kicks off black history month and these two dates combined provide the perfect opportunity to celebrate where we’re going and vow to learn from where we’ve been. Each year, we gather for Imbolc with inspiring Black Witches who are creating Black History with their work. This year we're joined by Lilith Dorsey, Loli Moon, Christena Cleveland, Zoe Flowers, OlaOmi Amoloku, Lindsay Braynen, and Caress Fitch!! This year's theme comes from Nina Simone's song I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free, and I asked our guests: How would it feel to be free? 2026 has already proved itself to be a time when we need to consider definitions of Freedom, and to enact those definitions in our communities. For these Witches, freedom means to be undiluted, uncommodified, unobjectified and unapologetic. https://www.missingwitches.com/imbolc-future-histories-of-black-magic-2026-how-it-would-feel-to-be-free/

IMAGINE: it's the Winter Solstice, it's cold and dark outside, sintering snow blankets and quiets the world. But the Coven is together, celebrating the shadow time. Suddenly, the power goes out. The lights go off. The music stops. The only sounds we hear are each others' voices and the crackling of the fire. We gather to huddle around the hearth, wrapped in blankets, cider still warm in our mugs to read poems by candlelight, tell stories and laugh. We are Witches, we make our own light. Merry Yule. Happy talking together. www.missingwitches.com/its-the-missing-witches-yuletide-special-2025

We're thrilled to be in circle with one of the greats of contemporary witchcraft, Judika Illes!! Together we talk about her books and decks, the magical origins of language, the philosophy of divination, the Hermit's lantern and the ringing of bells!!! Judika Illes is an independent scholar, educator, and author of several books of folklore, folkways, and mythology about the subjects of magic, the occult, divination, diverse spiritual traditions, witchcraft, and the paranormal. From the bestselling author of The Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells comes the ultimate toolkit for practicing the healing, transformative power of magic. In Magic Spells Oracle, 36 full-color cards offer clarity and inspiration to focus your intention and rebuild your power—with guidance through life, relationships, career, travel, and more. Reconnect with the essence of nature and rekindle the magic within with cards divided into the elements of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. An accompanying guidebook outlines the framework for crafting your home altar and charging your oracle, reading and finding inspiration in the cards and their layouts, and connecting with your inner wisdom and deepening your magical practice. Discover the magic in everything—including you. www.missingwitches.com/ep-283-judika-illes-magic-spells-oracle-deck-launch-party

G. B. Jones is a Canadian artist, filmmaker, musician, and publisher of zines, known for her vast contributions to both queer and punk media. She initially gained recognition for her work in the fanzine J.D.s, which she co founded and co-published with Bruce LaBruce. GB also co founded and performed with the experimental post-punk band Fifth Column who became mothers of feminist punk. She has directed several films, including The Troublemakers, The Yo-Yo Gang, and The Lollipop Generation. And Her artwork continues to be shown worldwide. For me, as a punk kid growing up in Southern Ontario in the 90s, GB’s influence loomed large - someone whose work literally changed the world as I knew it. Kathleen Hanna said: Well if I can ever be of help to draw attention to G.B. Jones’s art-I mean she did so much for me in my twenties in terms of informing my identity as a writer and musician and performer, I really could never repay her. So the more people can learn about her, the happier I am. Zine Queen Vaginal Davis insists: there wouldn’t be a riot grrl movement without Fifth Column GB Jones invented the terms Homocore and Queercore in the 80s, kicking off the modern reclamation of the word Queer. So when GB put out a book earlier this year called Witches, i thought yesssss - here’s my chance to chat with a punk icon. The Zoom meeting was set, the coven gathered and GB’s laptop chose that night to bite the dust. No problem, we’ll figure it out... Remember how last week we talked about Killing Joke, and the potential contained within destruction? Here’s great example. GB’s laptop bit the dust, but it just so happened that I was going to be in her home town, Toronto, the following weekend. So GB agreed to meet me in person! The interview you’re about to hear is as old school as it comes. GB and I found a quite corner in her local public library - you’ll hear room sounds, ambient noises as we talk in half whispers that I recorded live with a field recorder balanced on a pile of books. After we finished recording, we went out for coffee and gabbed more about our lives. GB has offered to play xylophone on a track for my new band. I lamented how impossible it is to find Fifth Column on vinyl, and GB told me that a reissue is in the works, that she and Caroline could come on the pod together next spring as Fifth Column to dive deeper into feminist punk… So we had a disaster - zoom call fail - but that disaster led to something so much more - GB and I formed a face to face human connection that I know will bear future fruit. This is anti anxiety medication. To know that things going wrong might be making way for something better. I met up with GB at a public library, and we sat in this third space to talk about rebellion, making connections and building communities before the internet, the intersection of Witch Queer and Punk, self-fulfilling prophecy, adversity and courage. www.missingwitches.com/ep-281-wf-gb-jones-sacred-rebellion

"I'm an atheist witch who talks to the ancient sources. I'm not, but I am." Risa Dickens of Missing Witches joins forces with Liv Albert of Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby! for a deeply feminist, gleefully nerdy, and profoundly honest conversation about witches, overwhelm, ancient Greek goddesses, and what it means to “fuck with the patriarchy” across time. From Circe’s island of wild women to Rome’s fear of crones, from Helen’s potions to the politics of preservation, Liv and Risa unspool how mythology itself has been edited by empire and misogyny—and how reclaiming these stories might help us heal our collective memory.

Lydia Cabrera crossed boundaries of love, nation, and spirit. This episode traces her queer life, her recordings of Afro-Cuban sacred traditions, and the archive she built in exile — an altar of memory, care, and resistance.