IMBOLC: Future Histories Of Black Magic 2026 - How It Would Feel To Be Free

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 future 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!!

Our 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.

Listen now, transcript below:

Celebrate Imbolc and Black History Month by SUPPORTING BLACK WITCHES, and start with our guests:

Professor OlaOmi Amoloku is perhaps better known as pro Witch and guiding light Got2BOshun. Find OlaOmi on her website, on Instagram and mostly on YouTube.  Buy her books Ona Agbani, S'Otito~Be Truth, and Raising Revolutionaries.  Check out her classes!!  Book a reading! Or just send some money magic to her Tip Jar.

Zoë Flowers is a poet, podcaster and the CEO of Soul Requirements. Find her on her website, on YouTube, Instagram and Linktree! Check out her podcast, Come To The Brink with Zoe Flowers!

Buy her Books: From Ashes to Angels Dust: A Journey Through Womanhood, and In Praise of The Wytch.

Schedule a reading or session (please note, I can personally attest that Zoe's readings are firm but fair hahaha - she is a gifted psychic, a beautiful human, a powerful Witch.)

Ways to Pay:

Cash-$souReq 
Venmo-@Sou-Requi1 
Zelle info@iamzoeflowers.com

Christena Cleveland is a psychologist, theologian, and author of God Is a Black Woman (HarperCollins) and the upcoming Black Madonna (out this July). She is a troubadour of the Black Madonna, guiding people away from white patriarchal conditioning and into deeper communion with the Great Mother. Christena is currently launching the Black Madonna Freedom School. Find her on her website and on Patreon. Sign up for BMFS today - registration closes Feb 5th!!

Lilith Dorsey (New Orleans, Louisiana) comes from a Celtic, Afro-Caribbean, and
Native American spirituality. They are the editor and publisher of Oshun-African
Magickal Quarterly and filmmaker of the documentary Bodies of Water: Voodoo
Identity and Tranceformation. They are co-host of the YouTube show Witchcraft &
Voodoo. Lilith is also the author of Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean Paganism (Citadel,
2005) and Orishas, Goddesses, and Voodoo Queens (Weiser, 2020).

Find Lilith on their website, on Instagram, their blog, and on YouTube.

Support Lilith's work: Venmo @Lilith-Dorsey - PayPal blackbrigit@yahoo.com - CashApp $LilithDorsey

And check out ALL of Lilith's books: 55 Ways to Connect to Goddess, Love Magic, Water Magic, Voodoo and African Traditional Religion, Orishas, Goddesses, and Voodoo Queens and Tarot Every Witch Way!

Caress Fitch is a co-founder and principal coach of Mindful Passions International, helping people learn to rest, play and remember who they are. Caress is a proud Black, Queer, Disabled, Non-Monogamous Leatherwoman who advocates for the BIPOC, LGBTQ+, Poly, Kink and Disabled communities in every aspect of her life and business.

Email: caress@mindfulpassions.co

Lindsay Braynen is a Bahamian born tarot reader, astrologer, artist and dancer living in Vancouver. Find Lindsay as Dark Lake Tarot on Instagram and as the Bahama Mama of Burlesque Androsia Wilde on her website.

Loli Moon is a powerful alchemist, the revolutionary astrologer of Mystic Moon Medicine. You can find her across social media, but she's currently focused on her Patreon, THE MUVASHIP which is a sacred passage for witches and mystics across the globe to connect, learn and craft together.

TRANSCRIPT

Amy: Hi coven. We've reached that halfway point between winter solstice and spring equinox we call Imbolc. We light candles as a symbol of the vow we make to our own enlightenment to learn. February 1st 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 in bulk with inspiring black witches who are creating black history with their work.
This year I'm joined by poet, psychic podcaster, pop culture punk rocker, Zoe Flowers. Professor omi. Amoloku better known as Pro Witch and Guiding Light Got2BOshun. Mindful Passions co-creator, helping people learn to rest, play, and remember who they are. A person who embodies their name. Caress. Caress Fitch.
Author, filmmaker, multi-talented Renaissance witch of the world. Lilith Dorsey, burlesque dancer and head witch in charge at Dark Lake Tarot, Lindsey Braynan, powerful Alchemist, revolutionary astrologer at Mystic Moon Medicine, Loli Moon and psychologist, theologian, author, currently launching the Black Madonna Freedom School, Christina Cleveland.
Black Madonna, who reminds Christina that the cheer of abundance is always louder than the clamor of fear. The prompt this year comes from Nina Simone, who sang, I Wish I knew how it would feel to be Free. So I asked our guests How would it feel to be free?
Nina: I wish I knew how it would feel to be free and wish I could break all the change hold.
Amy: Thank you so much to my guest tonight for joining me. I have in my hand this like stack of books and each one of them was either written by or contributed to by the witches that I'm in this room with right now. And that makes me the luckiest girl in the world. I'm so grateful that I have this room and that all of you have joined me in this room.
Happy Imbolc. Thank you. Normally. When I do these panels, at the very end I'll say, you know, how can our listeners support you and that, but we're moving that, we're putting that right at the front and center this time. I wanna start with some unabashed, shameless self promotion. Feel free to include your Cash app, your PayPal, anything that any, anything that anyone who's listening out there can use to support you, support your work, support Black Witches.
So let's start with my girl, Zoey Flowers. You're in my top corner on the Zoom rooms. So here we go. So my questions are who are you? How are you, what are you doing? What are you working on? How can the people book you pay? You, support you.
Zoe: Yes, thank you. You know, my Capricorn Rising loves that. Like how can.
Just support my work. I am, I'm really good. You know, I, I traveled from Montreal to the States last Wednesday, so I'm with family and I brought a century storm with me, kind of like when I moved to Montreal last year, and I brought, we got that a hundred year storm, and so the storms are following me.
But yeah, despite everything I'm, I'm feeling really, really good. Much better than the last time we had this conversation last year. What am I working on? The thing that's most present, that's most on my heart right now is obviously my new podcast Come to The Brink with Zoe Flowers which was born out of me unraveling the caretaking and then the eventual passing of my mother in 2024.
And so all last year I got to talk with other caretakers about what it's like to carry a bunch of people. And season two is different. I, I took a year to like hide in the snow and Montreal, and this season is about the disruptors, so I'm like coming back into the work. So I'm talking to like domestic violence advocates like myself and trans activists.
So I'm really, really excited about season two and yeah, I'm just feeling more grounded. I'm feeling good. I had a good reading yesterday. My mother came through, so I'm, I'm actually feeling quite good despite,
Amy: yeah. And what about if people wanna book you for readings? Zoe Flowers?
Zoe: Yeah, so I am Zoe Flowers on everything.
So just, I am Zoe Flowers. That's my website. That's my YouTube, that's my Instagram. And you can book tarot services through my website. I teach ritual classes. You can book all of that through my website.
Amy: And I think you might have several potential guests here for your podcast in the room. Maybe. We'll see.
I think y'all, we've all been to the brink at one time or another. Omi. I know you've been there and come back and been there and come back and been there and come back. It's so good to see you. How are you? What are you doing? How can people pay you?
OlaOmi: It's good to see you too, and good to see everyone in the room.
What am I doing? I'm currently very actively healing from burnout. But in the midst of that, I'm still an English professor and I'm still a professional witch, you know, for lack of a better term. Well, you know, I guess we don't even need a better term. That's the best term. So I still do readings with the Maringi logo, Oracle out of the al tradition or the Yoruba tradition.
I teach classes. The class that I'm teaching right now is called Dimension Hopping, and it is a class that talks about time travel, dimension hopping, the many ways that we move through dimension as black women and fems, and. The way that you can get in touch with me is on my website, got to be on u.org, GOT, the number two, the letter B-O-S-H-U n.org.
And I'm also got to be on sch, on everything, on YouTube and everywhere else. But I'm generally at this point in time just on YouTube. Every other social media has just been really draining me. So I'm mostly just doing videos now from time to time I may post something else, but that is how you can find me.
I'm also got to be UNE on Cash App, Zelle and all of those things. If you would like to send any sort of donation I'm very much leaning into the work of making sure that I keep my life as bliss centered as possible. I think that bliss is the fuel of life, right? We were all created from bliss. And so it's the actual fuel that keeps everything running.
So trying to not give anything else a lot of space in my head and just give mostly bliss and pleasure the most space in my head and trying to hold space for other black women and femmes and help them to do the same. So that's the work that I'm doing right now. In addition to, you know, teaching students working on the PhD please send good energy towards that.
The university where I am getting my PhD where I'm still working on my dissertation has recently suspended some professors who have views that are similar to mine. So if you can sing good energy, that would be helpful as well.
Amy: Yes, good uncensored energy and I mean all of you. Literally each and every one of you has changed some way that I go out into the world because of something you said, because of something you wrote.
And omi, I probably once a week think about that little, it was like an impromptu sermon where you talked about, you know, why were you put on this earth, why are you here? And your answer was to eat a fresh papaya and feel the juice running down my chin and have spectacular orgasms. And I was like, this person just broke my capitalist brainwashing in half.
And you also made me wanna introduce you once again to Caress, caress on your website. Before you jump in, tell me who, what, where, when, how, why there's something on your website that, again, I was like. Oh, why is she in my diary? How did she, does she have cameras in my house? You wrote, clients come to me when they're too burned out to keep up the performance, but too self-aware to check out completely.
Listeners who is feeling that too, burned out to keep up the performance, but too self-aware and I would say even globally aware to check out completely. Right. Caress, please expand. Who, what, when, how are you doing? Oh, are you burnt out? Are you just like you take the energy from other people who are burnt out and use it to fuel yourself?
Caress: No. No. It's even simpler than that. Yes, I am burnt out. I have been burnt out for a real long time because it's part of being disabled and living in a world that is not set up for you. So what I've been working on, other than recovering from three surgeries in the last 18 months is teaching people how to rest and play and getting them away from this idea that in order to matter in this world, you have to be producing something.
Amy: Say it again,
Caress: you, you don't have to produce anything in order to matter. In this world, you matter and are important just because you exist. We all are. We all are. And that's the position that I have always held in. It's the position I'm gonna keep holding and you can find me at mindful passions do co.
Where I'm minding my passions and helping other people find and mind theirs.
Amy: That's co right?
Caress: Absolutely. Absolutely. Dot co.
Amy: Yeah, because like our passions are important, but our passions are important and your work deals with both of those things, right?
Caress: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Amy: The, the letting the papaya juice run, but also the spectacular orgasm.
Yes. Yes.
Caress: Correct. Absolutely. Thanks.
Amy: And Lilith Dorsey, like Lilith is so prolific that I almost hope you're gonna tell me you're not working on anything right now. But I know that that can't possibly be true.
Lilith: I'm just, what am I doing? I'm trying to work my thumbs. That's what I'm doing. Yeah. No spoons, no thumbs.
Yeah. I'm Lilith Alafia everybody. It is so good to be here in this space. I, I am. What am I doing? I'm trying to do things that I think are important to me. And I, I know that's not always what other people think, but, but that means less and less to me. The older I get the younger my mind expands.
So I have been doing more of what I want. You know, I, I feel like so much of. Me for so long was about taking care of others and not even knowing what my needs were. So I'm trying to rediscover that. I'm trying to rediscover community. I'm rediscovering the plants and animals in my space, and they bring me joy.
They really do. So I'm happy about that. And I'm Lith Dorsey everywhere. I'm lith dorsey.com. I, I had somebody send me $16 and 28 cents for reparations, so I I appreciate that. In all forms. Oh,
Amy: yeah, yeah. Every little bit,
Lilith: right? Yeah. Why not? It's a good number. Sure, why not? But yeah, like I said, I'm just so happy to be here and I'm so happy to have words and breath and moments here this evening with everybody.
Amy: Thank you so much for being here, and thank you so much for all of your great work. Of course, your latest book is Tarot Every Which Way, which is my segue into Lindsay. Lindsay was on the podcast years ago, wrote a beautiful essay for me to read at a live event that we did, and it's currently in the process of relaunching Dark Lake Tarot.
Mm-hmm. So, Lindsay, who, what, when, where, how. And hi
Lindsay: everyone. Hi. So there's lots of people in this space that I don't know but I do remember Caress from our time together all those years ago. So good to see you caress. I am a Bahamian born witch, currently living in the unseated territory of the Musqueam Shom or SLA Tooth Nations Colonial known as Vancouver Canada.
I also have a lineage in surname and Barbado. So I'm a born bred Gade Caribbean gal. And I have at least initially been reading tarot professionally under the name Dark Lake Tarot since 2016. And shortly after that is how I found Amy in the Wi Missing Witches podcast. And it was such a delight to be able to connect with.
People there and talk about the many ways that I have been discovering magic intersecting in my life and how I was using it. Aside from my tarot reading adventures, I'm also a burlesque performer under the stage name Andro Wilde. And that has been what most of my attention has been taken up by over the last couple of years, especially with the pandemic and everything that's kind of been happening over the last five or six years since I found myself in new positions of management or mentorship and leadership.
I'm actually the artistic director of the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, making it the oldest one in Canada, which is actually really fucking cool. But. Pertinent to Dark Lake Tarot. I realized that I had hit a point of burnout as many of you all have already kind of established where I could not continue focusing my services on other people when I couldn't even work up the energy to read for myself.
So eventually it kind of stopped in the way that I was kind of working in what I would like consider in like the pre COVID era when everything felt normal or at least whatever definition of normal we were working with before. And then it shifted to more prioritizing community care in 2020, in the wake of the renewed Black Lives Matter protests and the connections of being one of the few black individuals in our local burlesque seen it's shrunk even further and further to I just need to take care of myself.
But over the last couple of weeks in particular, I've been feeling this call to come back. But to come back not attached to anything that I had built before, any connections that I had established in, in a society or in a way that no longer really aligned to the stuff that I really wanted to do, which was I just want to be able to help people rediscover the divine in their own terms, which was the motto that I kind of worked for myself, but I needed to prioritize rediscovering the divine in my terms first and foremost.
So I pulled everything that I did. I like archived everything. I pulled my website, I pulled my booking platform, I pulled out the journals, I pulled out anything that was just like, this is a great archive, but it's going on the locking key. I need to start over from scratch. And, which is why I was so surprised that Amy took notice of my starting over from scratch and she's like, come back to the pod.
So. I don't know what Dark Lake Tarot is actually going to look like for me. My work in burlesque still takes up a majority of my time and that will still be something that I promote and we match it to in my old way. So if you're interested in seeing me as a semi naked showgirl, you could follow me at Andro Wild on all platforms.
That's A-N-D-R-O-S-I-A Wild with an E at the end. But if you would like to see what Dark Lake Tarot it turns into, and I guess it's 2.0 then it's just Dark Lake Tarot on Instagram. Well, I figure that shit out.
Amy: Well, we're all figuring that shit. And once we get around the circle, I want to come back and talk about like how dance is and can be a re revolutionary act as well and an act of freedom.
But first lolly moon. Speaking of revolutionary acts, my revolutionary astrologer lolly moon. Who are you today? What are you doing? What are you working on? Or maybe what are you not working on?
Loli: Oh my gosh, good question. Who am I today? I am a powerful alchemist. I am so close to my sad return being finished, so the next time everyone hears from me, I won't be talking about my side of m return anymore.
But yeah, I'm feeling very powerful, very much an alchemist. Started my eighth house perfection year in the year of the snake. So my very sharp Scorpio stealing is very on edge and very excited. What else am I doing? I am slowly shifting out of the metaverse, slowly shifting offline and talking about all the things, and doing the things I talked about many years ago and really putting that into action now and, and leading by example, because everyone's afraid to jump, but I'm like, okay, I guess I'll go first.
Here's the path. So that's what I'm doing. And it's really hard because my Libra son wants to show up and still, you know, very self-aware, hyper self, self-aware, right? But the Aquarius moon is so resistant to the bullshit and doesn't wanna feed and train the AI and the whatever else is going on and be surveillance 24 7.
It's like, well, my goodness, you know I am very authentic, still very much zero fucks given very much. This whole shit can burn down. And I will light the match very much being censored online. And so I feel like I'm not being seen as much as I want to. And so that wound of not being seen when I want to be is interesting in this, in this climate.
And while doing all of that, still working a nine to five in the justice system, working with marginalized communities and doing that work, which is not easy. So yeah, that's what I'm doing. How to connect with me in this crazy space, I would say is Patreon. I'm still on Instagram. I'm still posting, I'm still, you know, reminding people of their anchors and the antidote of being a modern mystic, but.
I do not want to engage so much with the meta world and perform anymore. So I'm really not trying to spend a lot of time there and I'm really spending most of my time in the Patreon space or the substack space, and slowly trying to migrate the mystics over there and out of the metaverse. FYI, everyone listening to this, please download signal.
If you don't listen to anything else, I say download signal. Okay. It's like WhatsApp, but it's not owned by Meta. It's very encrypted, very cybersecurity friendly in the best way possible, and it's a step in the right direction.
Amy: Yeah, a lot of, a lot of my, terrified, politically terrified. Friends are on signal and I'm using it to I mean, these things that we use to connect to each other, if nobody's getting on them, then they're not super useful to connect with each other.
Right. So lolly as always, you know, the press aor of our future is also I'm glad you said Substack, because I'm holding this pile of books and there is no Lll moon book in my hand, which is a travesty and completely like, I'm, I hope that it's coming soon. It's coming, yes. Good, good, good, good. And if you need any tips on book writing, while Christina Cleveland has written one of my favorite book that I go back to again and again and again, you know, your, your papaya juice moment for me, Christina, is that the Black Madonna.
Welcomes our sacred mess. And honestly, like I've been considering it as a tattoo because I never thought of my mess as sacred until you said those two words together. And it's like, yeah, you know, if you want to do anything in this world, sometimes things are gonna be messy. And that's, that's the sacred mess of our lives.
How are you doing? Are, are you currently in Minneapolis?
Christena: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I live in Minneapolis.
Amy: Speak on it.
Christena: Yeah. It's been, well, I will say I'm really, I've never been more grateful for my fiery and profound initiation into the Black Madonna than now. I feel like she's been tracking me and preparing me for today.
I have more hope than anybody around, and so I've been spreading it. Just because I am connected to the Black Madonna of, of all Belgium, who while breastfeeding her child was up on the ramper of her village walls, catching cannonballs to save her city at the same time. So she is a nourisher and she is a fierce queen.
And so she's been guiding me. It's been really challenging, obviously. I mean, it's just bananas here. But it's been a day by day and it's really nourishing to be with you all. So I'm glad to just meet the newbies or the newbies this time. You're not like and to see familiar faces and people I've been following for a while.
Yeah, I am, I'm, I'm okay. I'm good. I'm, I woke up this morning. Thinking about Howard Thurman. My soul has grown deep like rivers. So during my Goddess Ong class today, I was working with hun. Connecting with my kundalini, my kundalini energy in her, with her, by her from her. And just kind of taking this experience as a chance to, to expand my cosmology of the divine and see the divine showing up in spaces that I didn't even know they were doing things there.
So yeah, good to be here. I have this is a fun year for me. We are launching a black Madonna Freedom school. I'm not sure when this will air, but it for in bulk, like the first, or, I don't know.
Amy: Yeah, it's a quick turn turnover. It's gonna come in
Christena: Sunday. Okay. Wow. Quick look at you all. So yeah, so we actually,
Amy: I have the flu.
Christena: Yes.
Amy: I can record a
Christena: Yes. It's an anti-racist, trans inclusive initiation into the Black Madonna and all things Black Madonna. So it's a really fun. I'm so excited. We have a wonderful first cohort already joining us, and people can join until February 5th, so there's plenty of time. It's black madonna school.com.
Super fun, just yeah, it brings together my background as an academic, but also my mystical side, and we have a wonderful wisdom council guiding us and amazing, oh, it's just, it feels like a capstone. So I'm doing that black but Banana Freedom School. And then also I have a book coming out this year.
I just, I finished it a few months ago. It comes out July 7th. So just right before I was coming to this, this gathering, I was sending out endorsement requests to the peoples. So really excited about that. It's called the Black Madonna.
Amy: There
Christena: you go. And the subtitle is icon of Resistance and Nourisher of Souls, which are two titles that Bell Hooks gave The Black Madonna. So it's really a book about resistance and embodying our holy audacity and our, I'm too sacred for this. And it's also a book about like just rolling up to the Black Madonna's teat and getting that milk in a non mammy way.
Right. So, and it highlights almost exclusively black voices on the Black Madonna. So it's a very different Black Madonna book. There's no. No mammy God in this book. So I'm really just excited, so excited. So
Amy: did you say July is the pub date
Christena: July 7th? Yeah. Yeah.
Amy: Shall we book it now for you to come back on the pod in July?
Oh, I'd
Christena: love to talk about it. Of course. That would be so fun. Yeah.
Amy: Wonderful. Thank you. And, and just, I'm gonna stay with you, Christina, for a minute because as you all know, and the listeners know because I mentioned it in the introduction the theme this year comes from Nina Simone and the question that she asked in song, or the statement that she made, I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. So I know that you've just written an entire book about this, but boil it down to a couple bumper stickers for me. Like what does the Black Madonna teach us about freedom? Why a Black Madonna Freedom School?
Christena: Mm-hmm. Well, something I didn't know was true until I met Black Madonna is that the cheer of abundance is always louder than the clamor of fear.
And she helps me no matter how loud the fear is, no matter like what, what it's saying, how many people are embodying it, how much the theology is preaching it. I can, if the fear is loud, I can always connect with a, a louder. More transformative, abundance. And so I actually start the book talking about my mythical ancestors who decided to leave the plantation.
Even though what was unknown was far greater than what was known. They had zero, you know, transferable skills. They didn't know the landscape, they didn't know the geography. They didn't know who were the good white people, who were the bad white people who to trust. They didn't know who was gonna betray them.
They didn't even know where they were going. They didn't know if they, if they had a language, they didn't. They didn't know anything. And yet one day they were able to overcome the unknown because they were connected to, as Harry Tubman would say, the North Star. That's all I need. I just need to know that there's a North Star guiding my next step.
And that, that North Star's never gonna let me go. So I just, that's what freedom is to me, is not, not, not not getting rid of the fear, but just being connected to a source that says, I'm with you and I'm not gonna let anything happen to you. And so that's, that felt, that feels like a new Black Madonna wisdom bit.
Amy: Oh, I cannot wait for this book. Olo Mason, Christina. Invoked hun. Tell me about what Hun has to teach us about freedom.
OlaOmi: Yes. Oh yeah. Oh, well, last year I actually taught a class on Han. And Han is, often ridiculed and not even spoken of within the lore of Hun because her name means hun, the prostitute.
In a diasporic translation and Ango translation, it actually meant, hun, the adulterer and ango culture was not a monogamous culture. So it just meant a woman who had more than one partner actually in its original meaning. But once we were trafficked here, hun Pusha became the hun. You didn't talk about her because hun ain't no whole, you know, so you didn't get to speak on her.
And she kept beseeching me to teach a class on her. And I was like, okay. And I knew that my elders would, would disagree, right? My elders in the, in the religious tradition would disagree. But you know, if you know me then you know, I didn't give a damn. I had to go on and do it. So I taught the class and as I was teaching the class, and I talked about black women's Battle with our sexuality due to the fact that our bodies have not belonged to us and we haven't had sexual autonomy or reproductive freedom since this horrible trafficking has occurred.
And so we kind of have created this v this version of ourself, which is mostly asexual, honestly, unless someone else is sexualizing us. Us. You know, if someone else is sexualizing us, we're cool with it. If we're sexualizing ourselves, we pretend not to have those types of appetites, and that's how we're raised.
You know, you don't show anybody that you have this appetite. So that's what I was basing the class on and you know, I'm teaching the class, I'm going through the historical things, and this is this book, and this is that book. And I got to a class. How does Ang liberate us? How does Oranga liberate us?
And she liberates us because when you embrace the totality of yourself. Be that your sexual self be, that the, the wideness of your mind be that the amount of space that you take up in the world, your actual physical body, the amount of space that that body takes up, be that the loudness of your voice when you embrace your actual self, that is the ultimate act for a black woman or femme in, in the global north in the western world.
That's the ultimate act of liberation. So oanda and being way back in western central Africa, the great mother who had many partners, many sexual partners, that was an act of liberation. And then bringing that over here and being able to use that magical skill in the work of sex work, which is work with no shame attached to it, but also use it as a protector for those of us who were pushed into that work.
She, she just stayed doing the ultimate act of liberation. She was like, okay, I had many partners here. I come over here to this place where people expect me to have one partner, where people expect me not to be compensated for the best work that I'm out here doing and giving and I'm still going to be me, right?
She is still her. Even in 2026, I went to a convention after I maybe I was almost done with teaching the class, honestly. And the convention was supposed to be about one thing. Y'all. I thought they was just bringing me up there to speak about Shun. I was happy, I was excited. Had this same t-shirt on, was going to Bali the next day to do some lectures so y'all know I was in a good mood.
'cause I love me, a good tropical climate, so I'm getting there all happy. And all that the elders wanted to talk about was how I shouldn't be teaching that class. And how you ain't even SU supposed to speak the name of S bsa. That's not real. Somebody made that up, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, yeah, it's time out for pretending that these parts of ourself don't exist.
Right? And it's time out for shaming other women and femmes for what they are doing to feed themselves and their children. It is time out for pretending that our sexuality is not so magnificent that it should not be duly compensated. Why are we still pretending that? I hate that for everybody. It's time out for acting like we don't have sex workers in our family who is a black woman in femme in the western world, who does not have sex workers in their family.
Because where are them people at? They don't exist. So Chenko was like, it's time out for all of that. The ultimate freedom. Is to completely be yourself. And at the end of that, all that rigamarole and you know, people telling me what I wasn't gonna say, which was hilarious to me. 'cause you know, my mother is an ancestor and even she couldn't tell me what I wasn't going to say after all of that.
One of the people who had created the conference came up to me and said, you know, that that is the type of work my sister does. And I said, no, I didn't know intellectually, but yes, I know because how are we existing in the world without someone in our family doing that? So it was the ultimate full circle moment and the ultimate reminder of how hun liberates and that liberation doesn't.
Have to and is not going to include the Master's tools, right? Liberation is going to be us being our full selves, unap, unapologetically, fuck what anybody thinks, fuck what anybody has to say. And always making sure that we are being duly compensated, that we are being cited and that it beginning for the beginning that we take each other seriously, that we give each other respect.
You know, I always say that I'm not just talking to the black women who have degrees and the black women who do this, that, and the third. We are all the same black woman. So I am talking to the hoes and the baby mamas and consider myself to be proudly all of that as well, right? So. That is that liberation piece that brings, when she sings a song, she's coming to play because she does not know how to fight.
So yeah, definitely.
Amy: There's just so like revolutionary joy just oozes out of you. I have a follow up question because I wanna know, I hear so much and, and I've been doing this too my whole life, just be yourself. But I feel like I meet so many people who don't know who they are and so don't know how to go about that being themselves thing.
How, maybe tell me a little bit about the freedom to discover who you are before you go forth into the world. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Oh, homie, please.
OlaOmi: The first thing is you gotta stop performing. Right. You gotta drop the performance, have a good time, enjoy yourself. You know, I'm, I'm an actress and a dancer and all of the things, so all the world really is a stage.
But we ain't talking about performance from that perspective. Like, stop performing, stop pretending to be something else. Once you are in a place, in a space where you can be you, then try your damnedest to do that. You know, I teach at a university and I love seeing the babies come on campus looking, you know, real put together, real tied up.
And then by that second semester you like, oh, here go the real. You look at you, you know, you got nine inch fingernails. Look at you, your hair is green. You know, I love that moment of them being like, oh, my mama really ain't around. Lemme get into some shit. Right? So I think we have to start there, stop performing and also stop.
Commodifying yourself. Stop commodifying yourself. I think it was caress that was saying that you, you here, be here, have the experience. So that would be my thing of where to start.
Amy: Chriss jump in. I see you having whole body reactions.
Caress: I'm, I'm, this is where my work sits. My magic is in helping people to rediscover who the fuck they were before the world told them to be somebody else.
There is a joy in watching the layers peel back. And experiencing someone experiencing themselves for the first time. And that's where my work around play and rest comes in. Because the way the world has got us all commodifying ourselves, one of the first things we do in culture is cut off our ability to play and our ability to receive pleasure.
So everything that I'm doing is about helping people, not just through burnout, but through burnout, by starting with play, rest, and recovery. Because if you don't have space to be who you are, the rest of the things don't matter.
Amy: What about people who have forgotten how to play? What's like, what would be like I come to you and I say.
You tell me to play. What, what does that mean? What does that look like? What do I do?
Caress: I I start with reintroducing recess. Imagine that you're through in third grade again, and you get a 15 minute chunk of time in the middle of your day to do whatever you want to with, and nobody can tell you that that time is not yours.
What do you do? And we start from there. Everything is, is it, it's about letting the, the, the person decide who they are again and helping them to peel those layers off so that who you really are can shine through.
Amy: Lilith, you are a person who, I get the sense has been embattled, but nonetheless has never once allowed any person to tell you what to do, who to be. Again, I talked about you being prolific, but you're also a, a multimedia, like you won't even be told a medium to stick to. Where does that freedom come?
Tell me about that freedom.
Lilith: I mean, I think it was born out of necessity, right? Like I think there's so much of magic and how I move in the world that was born of like trauma and if, if I was talking to my priest, she would say, if. Well, that's a good thing because you wouldn't be here otherwise, right?
Like, so it's really flipping the script about the things that have happened to you. Right? I mean, speaking on recess, there was always that kid in that had to sit there for recess and not do anything, right? Like, and we had this one kid in class and he just got up and he told the teacher to fuck you. And he ran out the door and, and they didn't lock the doors at that time.
He ran out into the street and didn't come back all day. And we were in kindergarten. And I thought, you can do that. That's the thing, right? Oh, okay.
Caress: Absolutely.
Lilith: Let's do that.
Caress: Absolutely. I was that kid that walked out of the classroom in second grade because the teacher was saying things that weren't true.
Lilith: Yes, yes.
Caress: You know, you've gotta find, find your freedom where it is. And a lot of that freedom. It's recess, it's a fundamental thing, but it gets us started again. I'll be quiet.
Lilith: Oh no, no, please go on. And I think that's beautiful. And the other thing I was thinking about like is, you know, they even have this, you know, scientific studies about how, you know.
Dance helps to heal PTSD and movement helps to heal PTSD. So like if they gave us that 15 minute recess, like what's the thing with the tomato? The Pomodoro technique, right? If they gave us those 15 minutes out of every 40 minutes where we had to do something else, because you know, sometimes you gotta clean the toilet, but like if they gave us those minutes, that would be so much better.
We'd be able to get through all of that so much easier. So I like this idea of having those moments, and for me it's, it's not dance like no one's watching. It's like dance likes everyone's watching and you're giving everyone permission to do that thing, even though it might look not like what they're used to.
But that doesn't mean we're not talking about binaries, we're talking about this is how I wanna move through the space and owning that.
Lindsay: Ah,
Caress: absolutely. A three song dance party fills up 15 minutes. Almost completely.
Lindsay: Hell yeah. You know how many times I'm putting on SoCo and I'm cleaning the dishes?
Caress: Absolutely. You gotta move,
Lindsay: gotta
Amy: move. Speak more on it, Lindsay, please.
Lindsay: Hell yeah. So while my tarot projects and focus has always been a little bit more insular nowadays, where I think my magic really, really comes through now is through my burlesque life as Aja Wild. And it's funny because when the prompt was given about like how would you feel to be free, I actually kind of caught myself.
'cause I don't think I've actually really considered that. I am not gonna like, call anyone's age here, but I'm gonna go on a limb and say that I might be one of the youngest individuals in this fall. So I have had the standard millennial realization over the last couple of years that this is not the world.
That our parents promised us. And coming to terms with that has been rattling me over the last couple of years. And it really isn't until I wanna say the last couple of months that I've come to peace with that. Because while it is not the world that we were promised, it is the world that we ended up inheriting nonetheless.
So what the fuck are we gonna do about it? Right? And similarly to what some other persons have said, trying to untangle the idea that we have to always be in service to other individuals or other ideologies or other expectations. Where I've had the most success in that has been in my burlesque because my tagline is, I'm the Bahama Mama of Burlesque because I love what burlesque has taught me, what it has allowed me to really realize about myself inherently.
But I also refuse to create burlesque that other persons expect of me. And it has noticed two things. Number one, it means that I don't get booked a lot, which is fine because usually the people who are out there being prolific on the international stage are not people who I want to perform like or be around.
And when I do have the opportunity to showcase who I am, it is almost always on the strength of the things that I create that bring me the most joy. And in my burlesque in particular, it takes two categories. Number one, I'm a huge nerd. I'm a pop culture girly, so I love creating acts that explore the franchises that I have adored growing up.
This April and this May, I'm going to Nova Scotia and Montreal for the very first time. And I'm bringing my act that I have based off of Storm from the x. Hold up. So that's very exciting. Hold
Lilith: up, hold up.
Lindsay: Yeah. I'm coming to your town, Amy.
Amy: I'm
Lindsay: gonna, I'm coming to your B girl. When is the date? So the one in Montreal is the big old burlesque expo at the end of April.
So hold to girl. Well, we could finally do a hangout.
Amy: Oh yeah. I mean, I've never been to bagel burlesque, but I'm intrigued
Lindsay: in my,
Amy: it's,
Lindsay: it's, it's, it's a great time.
Amy: Come right?
Lindsay: Hell yes. It's a great time. It's a full of unconventional neo burlesque acts, which things like nerd burlesque in particular really thrive on.
So whenever I get to do something that is like speaking to something that I have loved growing up, then I seem to have a lot of success with that. But the other acts that have been super successful for me is when I get to lean into the fact that I am a black woman, that I am a Bahamian woman, and if I get to combine those truths about myself, not only am I able to reach avenues and stages that I've never expected or never necessarily aimed for, like I'm not out here trying to be a festival circuit showgirl, it's now starting to become that. I've been performing now for just under 12 years. The only thing that has lasted longer than my burettes career is my martial arts career and my marriage at this point.
Right. But I managed to, I had my first lining gig in Calgary in November, and it brought an act that not only combined Calypso music from The Bahamas in the fifties to a Bahamas song that I grew up with in the nineties, but it was one of the first times that my parents got to see me perform that number several years ago.
And my mom was spotted by my dance peers dancing in the audience. Which was so warming to me, and y'all could probably imagine telling your parents that you want to do burlesque or that, oh, you're taking off your clothes on stage. It's already a choice. But my parents have been super, super supportive.
And again, it was like this actress, like, I'm gonna showcase who I am and I'm gonna showcase who I'm from because that is always so crucial to me. The biggest stage I've ever been able to touch was the burlesque Call of Fame in Las Vegas, which is basically like our equivalent of the Super Bowl. And I got to do that with a dear friend of mine.
Her performer name is Roxy Reverie. She's currently in Connecticut, but she got her burlesque start in Vancouver. She is my stage sister. She is the platonic love of my life. We did a number to black Parade and power by Beyonce, and that was just us recognizing the similarities and the differences.
Because of course she is an African American woman based originally from New Jersey and me coming with my Afro-Caribbean ness. But there's ways that we move that are different and there are ways that we move that are similar. And that number got to compete on the burlesque Call of Fame stage for best small group.
And even though we didn't win, it was still such a beautiful testament to just finding that freedom to exist amongst ourselves and in defiance of what people would've expected, I guess, from a duet. Because normally there is this expectation of, okay, you have two femmes dancing together in burlesque.
It's always going to be sic, it's always gonna be super sexually charged. And I'm actually ace, I realized this throughout my burlesque journey. So being able to instead showcase sisterhood and have that be exalted in the same capacity was. Extremely gratifying and extremely liberating. So right now, that message of what it means to feel free, being able to create something without apology, without compromise, even though right now it's only existing in these small four minute pockets, these five minute pockets, whenever I'm on stage, whether it's a local stage or if I am fortunate enough to travel nowadays it's figuring out how to stretch those moments longer, I think is what will end up being the true answer to that question for me.
So always a work in progress, which I love always. But yeah, that's kind of where I land to dance is one hell of a engine pusher.
OlaOmi: Well, I have, I have a question just so that I'm completely clear, because this is sounding like a fantasy. So you are out here doing burlesque dance to soak.
Lindsay: Hell yeah. I teach it too.
Oh my.
OlaOmi: This, this is a fantasy. This is,
Lindsay: yeah.
OlaOmi: Nothing that I literally, you're not dreaming.
Lindsay: Literally the very, the last class that I taught in 2025 here in Vancouver, as part of the Vancouver Burlesque Company, I have a class segment called Island Gal Flow, which I take Caribbean based music and I'm just like, I'm gonna teach y'all to move the way that we move and I'm going to, we're still gonna be burlesque.
But the song that I had my students do was bus Head by Marshall Montano and Bja Galin. And we had ourselves a time with that. I taught them about the history of Callum Bay and true origins of Carnival in the midst of that. 'cause obviously I'm not Trinidadian, but there's always some overlap. So it was a point of education for myself as well as my students.
And yeah, we had a time. But yeah, dancing, ba soka on stage, dancing to Calypso, dancing to Jon Kanu. My storm number is using Angel Kidjo from Ben. So got some Yoruba flowing up in there too. So wherever I can find the connection to shared ancestry is when I feel the most alive and the most free.
Amy: I love this track that we're on of like distinguishing between, you know, performing an identity versus getting on a stage. I've, I've spoken to so many people who feel I'm using air quotes here, but like the most themselves, the most authentic when they are on that stage, and that's so interesting to me.
Lindsay: Yeah. 'cause essentially we're in control of what that narrative is that you're consuming on the stage for the most part. Right? How I am as Lindsay and how I am as roja, it's not actually that much of a difference. The only difference is Roja has no problem flinging a bra in your direction. Lindsay don't wear bras and will be in her pajamas and for the entirety of the day if she can get away with it.
But when I am roja, I get to decide. You are gonna see a love letter to Michelle Nichols. You're gonna see a love letter to Billy D. Williams, or you're going to hear something that I heard growing up that altered my brain chemistry. Or I'm gonna take something that you might love and I'm going to remind you what its sources are.
So I get to be in full curation of that experience. And even with burlesque in particular, because sometimes I'm on a stage, sometimes it's a roving show. I also get to control how I interact with you, how you get to see me. And when that show is done and those lashes come off, Andro just packed away and Lindsay slips away into the night, it's great.
Amy: There's also this, like, Lili, this is the question that you posed, but you can do that. You know, anytime, anytime that you do anything, there's gonna be somebody out there who is saying You can do that.
Lilith: Of course, I mean, I was the dancer and choreographer for Dr. John for years, and we, when he brought me on stage for Bonnaroo and said, I want you to do Marie Lavos dances.
I want you to do these ritual dances. But again, I could do them the way that I wanted to. I could do them in front of, I think there were 30,000 people in the audience at that point. So for me, that wasn't about being a performance, it was about being myself, my authentic self, and letting people see that, letting people see the bones and the ritual and the magic and the spirit of what it is that we do.
But, but I have, I have a question since we're talking about this. Freedom for me, and you brought up Benin, right? Like I, I spent a lot of wonderful time in Benin. I saw Angelique Kidjo, we did the Voodoo Festival. And for me it was this kind of transformation of space and time. And when we think about freedom, there's a way in which our freedom today is so similar and also yet so deeply different than the freedom that Nina Simone had, that the freedom that our enslaved ancestors had, that the freedom that my daughter has, that the freedom that her daughters will have.
Like, it's just so profound for me how like that scene in sinners that everybody keeps talking about, where they're all existing in some way in the same space and time. And that to me is what I think true freedom is that we can see the hope of our ancestors and the promise of our granddaughters all in this big giant, wonderful mix that we get to be a tiny piece of swirling around in the universe.
Lindsay: I love that you've also seen Angelique Jo live. She came to Vancouver in 2012 and I got to dance on stage with her. It was so great. So, so great. I grew up dancing to her stuff and like dance classes in The Bahamas. So like, to be able to see her live is such a joy.
Amy: And all of you have, have taken your work public otherwise.
I I wouldn't have heard of you. I wouldn't, I wouldn't know who you are. So maybe lolly, I haven't heard from you in a minute. Tell me about that decision to be, I know you just said you're sort of, you're stepping away from the meta, but you, you, you have gone full force into that confrontational, and I mean that in a good way.
Mm-hmm. Confrontational manner of saying things out loud. Saying, saying the quiet part out loud in a good way. What, what pushes you to not just shrink back into the shrubbery?
Loli: Honestly, before I can answer that question, I wanna go back to the play and freedom because I'm a Pisces Rising who has seven Scorpio placements, and that means I'm constantly living a new life.
So I have been on the stage from the age of three to 20 years old. I have done the modeling, I've done the skating, I have done the dance moms competitions, the black swan on point. I've done it all. So when I'm in the closet and going backwards, it's because I've been front and center my entire life.
My entire life. I've been front and center, expected to be front and center, okay. Expected to be front and center expected to play the example, the trophy, the this and that. So to me, freedom is about saying enough is enough, and embracing. Who I wanna be for myself. And so when we're talking about reverting to the self, you were before the world told you who to be.
That was me at three years old, you know? All up until that time I was a performer and, and, and doing for others. So for me now, freedom to me is complete and, and expansion through the devotion of embracing our complete self, which is the mud and the lotus. To me doing the shadow work and looking forward to the future that is revolutionary with sharp machetes that I'm always talking about now, you know I'm not interested in performing for the re for the reels.
I know I'm outstanding. I know how to stand out. I am Venus, please. You know, like, tell me something. I don't know. I believe that pleasure is the only offering now that's where I'm at. Pleasure is the only offering I'm interested in. I'm not interested in anything else besides pleasure. Yeah. So in terms of having the bravery to like just get cut to the point we're running outta time.
I've been repeating myself now for six years. We are running outta time. And so while yes, I want to see everyone create amazing crochet saying rest is revolutionary respectfully, there's also real work to get done. And so if you're going to go and whimsy Max all 2026, the way that I am whimsy max, but also embody the sacred Rage because both are necessary deeply, deeply necessary, all I'm doing this year is whimsy, maxing, and embracing the sacred rage and making Nina Simone proud as the Obi woman that I am.
Okay. That's, that's it. That's all. I dunno if I even answered the question, but there was so much that we were talked about and I was like, oh my gosh, there's so many things coming in. How do I get this all out? I don't know much time. I have
Amy: no, you know me, I'm always more interested in your answer than my question, you know?
But that's the thing, you're so right, like we need to make a distinction between like, well, I did nothing for the cause and now I'm gonna go take a spa bath because rest is revolutionary. Like
Loli: Yeah.
Amy: No, the concept of rest is revolutionary is for people who are doing the work.
Loli: Yes. And have absolutely, or had no choice but to do the work because they are the work.
No choice. Yes. The physical existence is the sacrifice. To the revolution?
Caress: Yes, absolutely.
Loli: Okay.
Lindsay: Like there's nothing wrong with like recognizing that this, we are living in a very strange age and I think Molly, with you kind of pointing your decision to pull away from the metaverse in particular leads to that we were not made to consume news the way that we have been.
Loli: Mm-hmm.
Lindsay: In such rapid succession mm-hmm. In such a short period of time. Like all of our neurons are fucking fried. Yep. And it is okay to state that.
Loli: Yeah.
Lindsay: But it is what you do with it, with that particular energy afterwards that is actually kind of in important. Like if you recognize that you weren't consuming too much bad news truthful news, and it's stopping your ability to actually go out and find a small way to at least offset some of the damage being done, then that is disrespectful a you problem.
Right?
Loli: Absolutely. We are the algorithm, you know? Mm-hmm. We are in control, like we are the algorithm. So at the end of the day, like. We are the ones who decide what we are liking and subscribing to. We control the timelines we are creating. We are the doom scrollers, we are the chronically online we can check out at any time, you know?
Mm-hmm. And I'm very good at that. Like I am a public servant by day, so I have no choice but to separate my, my, my person to who I am at night. Like my name is not Lilly Moon. You know, that's a persona. But it's the la first of all, we're talking about inauthenticity and becoming ourselves. Neptune officially went into Aries as of yesterday, so I'm loving the timing of this conversation into areas yesterday.
Today it's Mars Day. Mars and Pluto are having their exact conjunction in exactly two hours from, from right now, Eastern Standard time. So there's a lot of activation, but with Martian energy, it's also eruption. And things coming from underneath the surface. And when we're talking about Neptune coming out of Pisces and going into Aries, a lot of things are being demystified.
A lot of things are coming out of the fog. A lot of people are realizing that who they have been is not at all who they were, who, who they want to be, right? This is why we see the wave of witches and workers, healers, et cetera, who are going back into the church now and panicking. And we're gonna see more of that in the next probably few months.
You know, now that UNE is officially in Aries. So yeah, I don't, I don't know what else to say next, honestly, but
the work is, the work is still working. And, and the metaverse is not the beginning. It's not the end. It's just a tool. And at the end of the day, we have to remember that we are magicians and we are constantly changing our wands. We are constantly shifting form, we are constantly shifting tools, right? So.
We're not gonna be connecting on the metaverse, it's gonna be happening somewhere else. The real work is happening on the ground. The real work is happening at the front lines. The real work is, is the sil work. It's, it's using the left hand, working that left hand sharpening the left hand, not being afraid to use it.
If you afraid to work your left hand, beloved, get back to the drawing board. I don't know what else to say. Okay. We're we're really past love and light at this point. Truly. So
Lindsay: we have a, we have a thing in karate, which was the traditional martial art that I spent most of my time. And it's like you don't train only one side of your body to work
Loli: Exactly.
Lindsay: If you are spending all your time, it's perfecting your perfect right punch or your perfect roundhouse kick with your right side, and someone catches you on your left, you're going to hit the fucking dirt. So you gotta train both sides at this particular point. Yes.
Loli: Yeah, absolutely.
Amy: Zoe Flowers, can you talk for a minute about the freedom to completely change your life?
I feel like a lot of people feel stuck and you are like this beacon of like, I mean, I'll, I'll, I'll start. You know, you were the caregiver for your mother. She passed. You were confronted with grief and also relief in a sense, and your decision was to pack up your car and go and join a punk band in Montreal.
So like, this is, this is, we are allowed to change our lives. Can you talk about that freedom?
Zoe: Yeah. I, I, I talk about it all the time and I, I think that it's not. It's not always cute. I mean, I think that when you do that, yes, there's a freedom in it. There's also a cost in it. My experience has been there's no shortage of people trying to discourage you from doing it.
And so the thing for me, this, this freedom conversation is like shining my light on myself because, and here comes my cat, hilarious. And being okay with that. And I've, I just have always had a very strong sense of self preservation and not listening to people's good advice. And there is a cost.
People don't like it. Especially in a woman's body, especially in a black woman's body, especially in a dark-skinned, dark-skinned woman's body. They don't like it. They don't like it, they don't wanna hear it. And so I think that when people feel stuck, I think it's fear. People wanna be liked, they wanna belong, which is a human need.
And yeah, I just think it's scary, you know? You know, I started packing the night of the election, you know that 'cause I called you the next day and I was like, Hey, can I come to Montreal? I was packing that night and I was terrified, but then I was like, oh, well my family, my father's Jamaican, like he left Jamaica at 18.
He didn't know my grandparents left rural Georgia. During Jim Crow, and I just found out that like my, his mother was having babies all the way from America's, Georgia to Massachusetts to finally Connecticut. So I was like, oh, this is, this is what people do. And it's what I've always done. I've just never been afraid of change.
I have a pretty stacked ninth house but I also have a stellium in the eighth. So I just think it's okay to change. It's okay to leave. It's okay to break agreements that don't fit, never fit. You know, I got to a place where I was like, wow. I went, I went into agreement. You know this, we talked about this, Amy.
I went into agreement with like all these people from high school or my family. I was like, I've gotta break these agreements. This is not. You know, all these things they said I was, that's, that's not who I am. And it's okay to break those agreements and it's okay to leave. And you know, I was very clear. I was like, listen, I've been protesting, like I've been doing that.
I'm leaving. Y'all Got it. I was riding bikes in Montreal last summer. I was like slow walking and like looking at flowers for the first time. I lived in Brooklyn for 13 years. I never rode a bike. And last some spring and summer, I was just like riding my bike and I felt bad for a minute, but then I was like, no, you deserve to ride a bike and sit in a park and fall asleep on a park bench and just be like, still and quiet.
And yeah, it's like. It's okay to live your life. It's okay to defend your life. It's okay to be to defend your joy and to be a sovereign person. And you know, again, lots of people ain't gonna like it, so get away from them and get around some people that's gonna like it.
Lindsay: Period.
Amy: I remember that conversation like it was yesterday and I remember saying like, it's villain era time.
And you and I had a very long conversation about how for women and femmes and specifically black women and femmes villain era looks like. I'm, I'm not gonna look after you anymore. You know, the villain is not villainous at all, but just someone who is now looking after herself and not looking after you.
I wanna turn to Christina because I have a feeling that, you know, something about being told that you can't or shouldn't and ignoring that and doing it anyway. Do you have, do you have any thoughts on that kind of freedom?
Christena: Hmm. Yeah. I was definitely discipled into believing that faithfulness means being faithful to everyone but yourself.
And so that was, I, I had to ask myself, what am I afraid of? Why am I afraid to not follow these instructions? And honestly, you know, when I was first on my liberation journey, my, my fear was, I'm gonna go to hell. Like, that's real. I am going to be eternally damned. So I have a lot of grace and compassion for people who are, who feel stuck.
'cause sometimes the fear can be really real. But then I, I asked myself, do I even like the people who are telling me this? Do I trust the people who are telling me this? Do I want to be like the people who are, do they have what I do? They have what I want? No. And so I do think I, I kind of go back to what Caress was saying earlier around play and connecting to the body.
Because when I connect with, when I connect with little Christina, she knows exactly. What she likes. She knows exactly what she doesn't like. She knows who's shady and who's not. I mean, there were so many people that when I was a little girl, I was like, I don't like you. And it came out that they were predators.
But little Christina knew.
Amy: No, you, you can't say no. When the man wants to hug you, you have to sit on his
Christena: own. No, but I had, I had completely, yeah, I had turned to, I mean, it was just like, go give your uncle a hug. Go da da da. You know, it's like zero body sovereignty, zero body. But through play, I've been able to connect with my little inner child and she has body sovereignty that I'm still trying to reclaim now.
And so it's been really powerful. To to do play. I do play dates with my inner child. I do play dates with my inner teen. One of my dear friends here in Minneapolis we're both, she we're both in our forties and we didn't know each other when we were teenagers which we, which is sad to us. So we, we took our inner teens on a date to the Mall of America and hung out and like rode the rise and ate the food court and went to like Bath and Body, bath and Body Works, and did all the things that we would've done.
But because I'm like, the younger versions of me still had that 'cause it's, it's, it's innate. It's, and so sometimes if I'm, if I'm trapped in my adult shoulds, then playing helps me get out of that. Yeah.
Amy: Our time has just flown by. I just looked at the time and I can't believe it. It's almost recess, but I do wanna go around the room one more time. I'll give you a second to think about it, but boil it down for me. Give me the essence. A few sentences, a paragraph. Again, we'll turn to Nina Sabone, who's saying, saying, I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.
I wish I could break all the chains holding me. I wish I could say all the things that I should say. Say 'em loud, say 'em clear for the whole world to hear. Let's start with Zoe Flowers. Say it loud for the whole world to hear. How would it feel to be free? And you are a poet, so I know you will deliver this answer poetically.
Zoe: How would it feel to be free? I feeling free to me was just what I was saying, riding that bike through the beautiful streets of Montreal, sun shining blue sky, beautiful flowers, slow walks that that felt like freedom. Laying on a park bench, looking up at the trees and saying, I deserve it.
Amy: I'm gonna be quoting L for I know I'm outstanding.
I know how to stand out. That's you too. That's all of you. Omi. How would it feel to be free? I.
OlaOmi: I was listening to Zoe's answer. I had an answer, but then I listened to Zoe's answer and Zoe's answer made me realize that, oh, I've felt it before. 'cause I was like some beautiful thing, you know, blah, blah, blah. You're a wordsmith. But then when you said yours, I was like, oh, I actually have felt it. So freedom to me is being at the clothing optional resort in Bali, walking around naked, which I've never been allowed to do, even from the time I was a small child and not feeling objectified, just being a human being.
And people just asking you regular stuff like, oh, did you drink your water? Oh, do you wanna come and do yoga? But completely unmodified. Completely unobjected. I was just me, you know, enjoying the sun, enjoying the food. So. That was freedom. Thank you Zoe, for letting my or re know that I've actually had this experience before.
Amy: Completely unmodified, completely Unobjected sounds like song lyrics to me. Lindsay, maybe you're gonna dance to this song. How would it feel to be free and dancing to the unmodified Unobjective song
Lindsay: like you already don't know that I have Obey a Woman as an act buried in my collective stuff that I need to revisit.
But to answer your question am going to borrow from Storm because whenever I have felt bogged down by the weight of responsibility of the roles that I occupy. The expectations placed upon me as an individual, as a black woman, as an immigrant to these lands I find myself relating to storm even more ev ever and ever.
And there is a quote in one of the more recent lines of the comics that really speak to me. Storms, Wolverine have a myriad of colorations no less than people. So long as I remain true to myself, I see no reason to apologize for how I appear to others.
So I need to lean a little bit more into my wind rider goddess, my weather witch, and remember that as long as I stay true to myself, I remember that more, that north star that hangs in my personal sky. There is no reason for me to apologize for who I am or how I appear to anyone else.
Amy: I added unapologetic to my list of freedom.
Uns. Thank you, Lindsay. Lila Dorsey, how would it feel to be free or in all Loomis case, how does it feel to be free?
Lilith: I like that. I like that. Well, you said I could bring something I wrote, so I dug something that seemed very Nina Simone inspired. This is just a tiny piece from my poem called When I Wake Up.
When I wake up, I'm hungry for trees that rain glittery blossoms, and support delicate butterflies when you're young. Blessings such as these are viewed as a welcome surprise. When I wake up, I'm hungry for clean water and delightfully delicious food. When you're young, the simple necessities provide the greatest strength and fortitude.
Because for me, I started thinking about, you know, I had a lot of early childhood abuse. So like this, this concept of going back to when I was two is unfortunately not a trauma free existence, right? So for me, there's this waking up to that moment when I was still myself, despite everything. And for me, that's going back to these simplicities, what do I need?
Right? And, and in that moment, what's been going through my head all tonight is Nina's song Alala, right? And when we look at Alala, Alala doesn't speak. It's one of the deities that doesn't speak just like Mama Bri, this ancient feminine that works on intuition and doesn't need words. So as much as I'm this writer that wants words, my freedom comes through that intuition of knowing this person is safe, I am safe.
And, and that to me is what real freedom is.
Amy: Safe, happy, and free. Hmm. Thank you for reading some poetry too. Caress. How would it feel to be free?
Caress: Hmm. I've been given, I've been thinking of the un word to give you undiluted. To be free is to be undiluted, to be full strength caress in my joy and in my anger, and to not have to temper it for anybody.
Amy: Listeners, I hope that this is sinking into your body, into, into your blood, into the neurons that are firing in your brain, into your nervous system that needs a fucking recess. Christina, how does it feel to be free? How would it feel?
Christena: Oh no, I, I think my concept of freedom is still so dependent on my concept of captivity, and so I, that's not free to me.
So I guess I wanna be so free that my freedom is completely illegible to the plantation.
It like, our society can't even make sense of it. Doesn't even know what to do with it.
Amy: You know, lolly said something once that, again, I'm always quoting Lolly Moon happens all the time. It, it was something to the effect of, you can only imagine. What you can imagine. And there's a whole universe of possibility that you can't even imagine, right?
And that's the kind of freedom that we're looking for, a kind of freedom that we don't even have the language or the capacity to imagine in 2026. That's the kind of freedom Christina Cleveland's looking for. I can get behind that lolly, invent us a new freedom. How would it feel?
Loli: To me, freedom right now is the ability to be soft in this day and time because of the presence of my ancestors and the dark mothers that walk with me.
And as I say that, I have to take up space for Nina and Simone very quickly because she's currently going through her nodal return. Her north notice is that the ninth degree of Pisces, sorry, the eighth degree of Pisces. And the note is Crow, the ninth degree of Pisces. She has Saturn, her first house, she's in Aquarius Horizon.
We are in Aquarius season. And. Her embodiment of freedom to walk with such authenticity and zero fucks given is what the freedom. I realize now I have the privilege to say I have that my answers did not have, and to say that, and to end with that, I will just quote her quickly and say that I am the OB woman from the me beneath the sea.
To get to Satan, baby, you have to get past through me. I know the angel's name by name. I can eat thunder and drink the rain. How you think I lasted this long? All right. All right. I kiss the moon and hug the sun, and I am Lily Moon.
Amy: I have it in my notes too. Lolly. I can, I can eat thunder and drink rain. I kiss the moon and hug the sun.
Happy in bulk, happy Black History Month. Celebrate both of those things by supporting black witches, supporting what you believe and know to be true. Support their work, support, their freedom to reject whatever it is that has been put on all of us. It's in bulk. It's the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.
This is our chance. We look forward to the future, but not without looking back and learning from the past. February is the shortest month. Of course, we know they would put black history month as the shortest month, but this time of year is also, it's like Lolly was saying, you don't have as much time as you think.
This is the shortest month. You don't have as much time as you think to be free to imagine a freedom that is unimaginable from these chairs, and not because it's impossible, but because we just can't even comprehend that kind of energy in the world. But we're conjuring it. We're conjuring it today. We're conjuring it every day.
We're conjuring it with dance. We're conjuring it with the stars. We're conjuring it with our books and our poetry, and our films, and our coaching, and our teaching, and our recess. So I'm gonna ring the bell now. Olly. Moon says the L in liberation. The L in Liberation stands for Limitless. I'm gonna play out the episode with some Nina Simone, and say thank you so much to my guests.
Thank you, Zoe. Thank you, OMI. Thank you, caress. Thank you, Lilith. Thank you, Lindsay. Thank you Lolly. Thank you, Christina. Thank you as always for sharing space with me. You know I love you all deeply. All of your information will be in the show notes. Support, support, support, support. We're all out here trying to buy our freedom.
And blessed fucking Be I guess. Please go play. Go have your recess. I love you all so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,
Caress: love. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Thank you.
Nina: I wish I could say, oh, I say
Amy: if you wanna support the Missing Witch Project, find everything you need to know@missingwids.com.
Intro: You aren't being a proper woman, therefore, you must be a witch. Be a witch. Witch,
Nina: witch, witch, witch.
Intro: You must be a witch.