Welcome to Good bones a podcast about living and dying well with Mallory Boudoir and Vanessa Irena. I mean like you could summon a demon to get a new job or you could just ask your grandmother exactly exactly. In this segment of the practice, we're going to be talking all about the dead people in our families because we're talking about ancestor veneration. Well Mallory, since you literally wrote the book about it. I'm going to let you get started on this one. So this is a topic that is so near and dear to my heart. It's the reason why I wrote a book in the first place. And the reason for that is first to tell us what the book is. Isn't where you get it, the book is called honoring your ancestors a guide to ancestral veneration and you can get it on Amazon Barnes & Noble really wherever books are sold. And the reason why I was inspired to write this book is because I hang out in so many kind of magic and occult circles. I met a lot of people over the years who were interested in engaging with spirit. Or spirits and often I think because we come from a materialist culture where we don't believe in spirits. We just believe in buying shit. Hmm. We forget that they're all around us. And so people try to LEAP immediately to being able to summon demons or talking to pagan gods or calling down angels and that's great. But also that's We hard right and I think it's important to keep in mind that we are all surrounded by certain types of spirits particularly our ancestors and the spirits of the place that we live in. Yeah. I mean like you could summon a demon to get a new job or you could just ask your grandmother exactly. Exactly and like eventually you need to deal with your dead grandmother. Yeah, that is kind of a requirement. We are already in relationships. And ship with our ancestors and the practice of venerating them to me is not about putting them up on a pedestal and worshipping them like they are infallible, which they're not they were human. They were flawed. They're still flawed and evolving beings but rather about taking this relationship, which is right now unconscious and probably unless you were very very lucky with the family that you chose to be born into. Probably a little bit wonky and maybe a little bit toxic or traumatic and taking that unconscious relationship shining a light on it and becoming more deliberate about how you show up in that relationship and because our ancestors are in us and we are a part of them. I believe personally that when the living decide to engage in this practice consciously, there's there's a mirror effect that is happening on the other side where the dead are kind of doing the same thing. So it's like we're reaching backwards. They're reaching for words in our hands kind of meet in the middle. Mhm. Yeah totally and like, you know, it's definitely been my experience that like, you know, it just feels like once you start doing this work if there's just like a ripple effect throughout your whole life and through your family even family that you're not necessarily like in contact with or living family. I mean, yeah, That was my experience for sure in that as I became more serious about this practice. I noticed that I was benefiting from it in terms of my physical and mental health and the stability that I had in this life and also my living family seem to be benefiting from it as well and over time, you know, I started with a certain amount of background information about where my family was from that was like white fuzzy to be perfectly honest and overtime. New information found its way to me. I didn't set out to discover anything particularly. I was fine knowing what I knew and nothing more but old family documents found their way to me a couple of heirlooms found their way to me opportunities to study the regional language and the music and dance from Campania, which is where my mother's side of the family. From just sort of came into my life. And since I wrote the book I have heard from so many people reaching out to me to say that they've had the same experience where they started not knowing anything and then through these weird synchronicities coincidences and signs, they discovered more and more about who their ancestors actually were mmm. That's amazing. I feel like you know, like one of the things that I remember a you posting this on Instagram a while ago that I really resonated with is like you're The High Priestess of this religion and it's like this idea of like ancestor veneration is an amazing place to get started because you literally like the ancestors live in your body and your bones and you don't need anyone else to mediate between you and them, you know what I mean? You can just get started doing this right away and that's like something that you and I talked about a lot in terms of like just like not really like Looking to other people to be a priest for us or to mediate between us and a spirit or whatever and like just doing the stuff ourselves. And so I really love this as a base practice for that anyone can do because everyone is already connected to their own ancestors. Yeah. Yeah, and we're usually on the other side of that argument, right because we are for the most part, you know, very respectful of people's expertise and You know the fact that like somebody who has had a lot of training or initiations into certain paths that's like kind of a requirement but with your ancestors, you know, the initiation already happened that you were born. You were born. Yeah, you have a body personally. I have a metaphysical belief that you chose the family that you were born into a and they chose you. I have the same belief as well. So it's like that that license already. Exists and it's not something that you need to seek out external to yourself. It's something that is already there and the power is in learning how to tap into it effectively. Yeah, and also it's like your ancestors are the spirits that are most invested in you living well and succeeding unity means so it's like sure you could ask like a random Pagan deity for like what you want or like Why not go to the people that are like more that are already connected to you and already very much invested in like you you like meeting, you know, succeeding with your goals and stuff like that, you know, yeah that there's not a time and place for like, you know, doing elaborate rituals with other spirits and whatever but you know, I mean, it's just like the past path of least resistance, you know, right and especially when we think about like Pagan deities, which is not something that we have access to directly in our present cultural. Moment but our ancestors were the ones worshipping them like they're the experts right? So I think you know often when we do have this desire to like explore certain aspects of spirituality. It might be better if we start with, you know, like tapping our Network on LinkedIn, right? Exactly. Yeah. Do I have an ancestor who worshipped Equity right, you know might be able to facilitate that introduction or interaction. And also, I mean, I think yeah and an ancestor practice can act as a buffer against like, you know things if you want to do the bigger crazier stuff, you know against sort of like the harm in that or you know can steer you in the direction of other larger more elaborate practices that might be beneficial or not beneficial to you as a person. Yeah exactly because there are certain magical practices out there in the world. Which require a very Very Firm Foundation to be in place. Otherwise, they can be very destabilizing. Yeah and destructive exactly particularly. If you're working with the types of spirits that we might think of as like hot Spirits so spirits that work very quickly, but also maybe a little recklessly or trickster Spirits. Yeah, or you know, what demons Maria darker Spirits spirits that are, you know intimately associated with some of the aspects of life, like even you know, certain dark goddess figure. Yeah, totally and and that's not a judgment against those Spirits at all. But I mean they can be have destructive influences in your life. Yeah, and when you have the foundation in place because your ancestors are there for you, they're acting as bouncers to your home and helping to steer you in the right direction. Then that's I think kind of a prerequisite to be able to do certain types of work with a you know, more of a safety net in place. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I feel like because you know, I have a good ancestor Foundation. Like I don't really need to like banished. You know what I mean? It's like I just kind of like have a healthy Spirit ecology around me. And so I just like the bad stuff just doesn't really have a chance to get in. Yeah, you know, yeah, absolutely absolutely so you don't necessarily need to you know, like go out and get a magic gun. Yeah right itself with yeah totally so much. Just you know developing that that ecology. Yeah and like cleaning your house and yeah that kind of stuff, you know, exactly exactly like and this reflects to me an idea, which is that like healing good health. Wholeness piece is you know, that is like the natural sort of state that the universe or Earth or Cosmos or however you want to think about it is always going to reset itself towards like it will always return to equilibrium After it's Disturbed. Yeah, so you can kind of you know Bank on that happening. But sometimes you you know, you need like help setting a broken bone. Yeah, it will mend itself. And I think that that's where you know ancestors can can kind of come come into place. Yeah, and I feel like, you know, once you start doing this stuff regularly like you just find that like things just flow more smoothly and easily like it's not a thing necessarily wear. It's just like extremely. Elaborate Miracles are happening all around you all the time. It's just like stuff that could have been a huge problem isn't as much or like things that you know, like normally would have like, you know snowballed into like a tragedy like let that happens less and less or just like stuff, you know stuff just flows more easily and problems aren't as big, you know in a way. Yeah. I've definitely noticed that in in my own life as well and just notice also like Having more having more opportunities to heal. Mmm, you know finding the right therapist. Yeah, sure finding, you know, the right friends who are able to kind of support my own healing process. I feel very very fortunate. I think that's one of the the biggest blessings that I've received from my ancestors over the past like year two years. Yeah. I feel like in the past last year, especially my dad kind of has come forward very strongly in my life. And and on my Altar and everything and I feel like he's led me to things that have like helped to improve my health because he himself had a lot of health issues like in life. And so, you know, it's LED, he's led me to different like dietary changes I can make and that sort of thing that have helped me like heal myself, which is really cool. So yeah, we're even going on for a while. This section. So do you want to give some examples of how people can get started with this practice if they're not involved with it already are doing it. Yeah, totally so First Things First Step Zero I think is really just recognizing that wherever you're at. Today is a completely natural reflection of your relationship with your ancestors. We're not trying to add something that isn't there. We're trying to become aware. We're of something that we weren't aware of even though it already exists. So that's Step 2 0 step one for me is a candle and a glass of water. Hmm and for me what this really represents is the to primordial elements water and fire out of which all life on Earth has emerged in a way. This is the real form of Adam and Eve the Divine masculine and divine feminine if you want to put it that way, but it's The interaction of the two that made life on Earth possible. So when you have those it acts as this kind of spiritual probiotic and helps to rebuild up the spiritual ecology in your home and with in spiritism as well. We find this technology deployed because the water is like a almost like a tool for Gathering Spirits from you know, bringing them forward. Giving them the fluid that they need in order to manifest and that makes a lot of sense when you compare it to cross-cultural Laura about Springs Wells rivers and Cetera being associated with the Dead with nature spirits and with spiritual encounters more broadly and the light of the candle itself is an offering probably the most simple and pure offering that we can give to spirits of the Dead. You helped them to become enlightened to continue whatever kind of spiritual Evolution they are on so putting those two together. I think is a really powerful combination to help draw your ancestors towards you and at the same time to help them to evolve and strengthen cool great. So and then so once you set up your candle on your glass of water then Do you do from there? I think it's good to start with prayer and you know, there's traditional prayers that you can use either from your own religious tradition from the religious tradition of your ancestors you and I coming from Catholic ancestors tend to pray the Requiem a lot, which is a very short and sweet prayer for the Repose of The Souls of the dead and we can link to that in the show. No. Yeah, but you can also Just pray from the heart. You know, like I think when you're praying, you know, really really let it all out. Like I the most powerful prayers that I've ever done were the ones where I was praying out loud things that were so raw that I was afraid to write them down. Yeah. So prayer is really important and the other side of prayer is also kind of trance and mediumship which may start to happen sort of organically as part of this process. Yes, you don't need to like Chase it it'll just sort of evolved and likewise your set up with that candle in the glass of water can evolve to like you may find yourself Desiring, you know to set up some photos of your ancestors near those tools or maybe you have some something that you've inherited from your ancestors, like little bits of jewelry that you can you can add to it or if you don't know who your ancestors were. You know, maybe you just want to get like a generic human statue like it, you know, maybe you get one that looks sort of like a mother figure when that's looks sort of like a father figure or like a cake topper. Yeah wedding cake topper like that could be fun. But, you know, you don't have to add a ton of stuff. You can sort of set up again those two primordial elements from which life emerges and then see what happens. They will start to draw things. Towards them naturally when it's right Mmm Yeah, and I feel like I like that because it's one it's not expensive at all. And it's also super low-key. So it's something that like kind of anyone can set up wherever there are whatever whatever their situation is. Also, you know, one of the philosophies of a good bones podcast is that basically like one of the greatest things that we can do to honor our ancestors is to live well, and so we wanted to just talk a little bit about some other forms of Ancestor veneration that might not necessarily look like ancestor veneration. Yeah. So one of the things that I've worth two of the things actually that I've been doing sort of as my own form of ancestor veneration is doing more exercise physical exercise as a way to strengthen my body and bones which the ancestors have given to me and also learning how to cook. Oh, I love that. Yeah, and so because you know food is life. Life in a lot of ways and by you know learning to feed myself and it's that's another way of taking good care of my body, but it's also just like, you know learning to feed yourself in a way that's nourishing and stuff like that. I feel like honours honours your ancestors as well. Absolutely. Yeah, I think cooking in many ways is the perfect offering because you are honoring your ancestors, especially when you cook foods that either they really enjoyed in Life or recipes. They taught you or recipes from You know kind of cultural background it honors the spirits of place when you are thankful for you know, the fruits of the earth that have grown near where you live minute also honors yourself. Yeah, you know when you're cooking nourishing foods, you know foods that are wholesome and uplift your you know, your spirit and which are pleasurable to eat. Like that's an offering to you and yeah all the people that you share it with. Hmm. Yeah, what about you for me? I would plus 1 both of those ideas exercise and cooking. Another big component of my practice is the offering of my creative labor. Mmm. So, I have a fairly demanding day job and then I spend my nights and my weekends writing and you know, putting putting stuff out into the world as a service and it is A creative Endeavor. It is my art and it's also you know, I think of it in some ways as a kind of volunteer exercise because let me tell you. Yeah, I wrote a book and we authors do not get paid. Yeah, it's kind of sad. But so it is, you know, it is like an act of it's a gift really is an offering that I'm making to the world and I dedicate that labor and time and effort to To my ancestors. Yeah, and and I feel like you're sharing the gifts that they gave you like when you came into this world, you know exactly and to be able to spark that in other people and to hear from people who like reach out to me through Instagram or through Facebook to say that they've had you know, their own experiences is, you know, if even just one person had done that I think it would have made you know in some ways my whole Incarnation worth it. Yeah, but to hear from people Fairly regularly is just it's one of the great joys of my life. Great Okay, cool. So well, if you want to learn more about ancestor veneration, you should definitely check out Mallory's book. It's really excellent and let us know if you decide to start a practice or if you already do have a practice and you want to just talk to us about it and what it's like for you you can reach us at good bones podcast at gmail.com or leave us a comment on our patreon page or you can also check out Mallory's in Instagram account. Your ancestors and she shares a lot of really cool stuff about ancestor veneration there as well and that will link that as well. Okay? Okay. So for this segment of the podcast, which we're going to be calling magical experiments one of us is going to challenge the both of us actually to do a magical experiment for two weeks. And then we are going to come back and report on Out went so for the first magical experiment. I was thinking earlier when we were talking about Aquarius and the idea of fixed are that breathwork would be a really good one to try for for this first experiment. And so and I thought that that box breathing would be a good one to do because the idea of a box being like a square and that being a fixed shape and it nothing and also it's like it's like a breathwork practice that's like pretty easy to do and it's not super taxing like you're holding your breath for a really long time or like because for me like doing any kind of breath work that requires you to like really hold your breath for a long time like gives me a lot of anxiety and stuff. And so I have to I kind of like sticking with some more simple ones that are like more calming and less stressful to my system. So anyway, so basically so for the next two, Two weeks. We are going to be just doing a simple box breathing practice of three minutes a day. And well, it's actually three minutes and 12 seconds if you if you count it out, but um, so what's box breathing though? Okay. I have never I've tried breath work in the past and I've had success with it in Pilates. It's like a huge part of Pilates and you're actually kind of trained to use the breath as a way to it's like the source of movement basically and that's why Pilates is all about ABS actually is it's because It's the connection to your abs and your breath but outside of Pilates. I actually haven't had a lot of luck with like meditation that is related to breath work. And so I'm wondering like what are you getting us into right now? Okay, so box breathing is like a really simple breathing practice that involves basically inhaling and then holding the count for four seconds. And then write. Oh, sorry inhale for 4 seconds. Hold for a Exhale four seconds hold four seconds and you just keep doing that in a in a repeating mood or whatever for as long as you want and it's really calming for your nervous system. And it's really just like, you know, a short sort of meditative exercise. I guess that it really just I don't know it I like what I've done it in the past. It makes me really chill and it's just like it's like a different way. It's a different form of Meditation where you're like focusing on an actual like activity as opposed to like a mantra or something like that or whatever. Okay, that sounds cool. I think actually a couple years ago. I was doing some like introductory training with a witch craft tradition and it didn't I didn't end up going very far with it. But I remember that was one of the first things actually that they taught us, they didn't call it box breathing but it's interesting that there are people in modern witchcraft Traditions who have already picked up on the fact that breath work. Important component in one spiritual practice. Yeah, totally and I'm it's also really interesting seeing that breathwork being talked about so much like within mental health circles and stuff like that now too because you know, one of the big sort of like theories that's come forward with regard to mental health recently is the idea of like polyvagal Theory and polyvagal theory is basically like it's a trauma-informed theory. That's basically a bet that is basically related to the vagus nerve and the vagus nerve is like a bundle of nerves that sort of regulate your fight or flight or your or your rest and digest modes and basically by like and and so when people have experienced trauma, for example, they are kind of existing in a constant state of like hyper arousal and so they're like fight or flight is and like in go mode like all the time and so by doing things that Support our vagus nerve or you know support our nervous system we can heal from trauma, you know that makes a lot of sense and so and breath work is considered to be one of the things that's helpful for regulating your vagus nerve or toning your vagus nerve. Yeah, that's really cool. I definitely feel like, you know people who have experienced trauma are more likely to end up stuck in that fight or flight mode, and I also think that just Generally people who are a little bit more psychically sensitive and up in that mode a lot because often your perceiving things, but maybe if you haven't had the right training you don't know what to do about them. And so it's like there's something that is irritating you and nobody else knows what it is and you don't know what it is or how to deal with it. And so you are put in this state of irritation or inflammation or fight or flight or however you want to call it and it's hard. Kind of come back down from that because you're never able to resolve the the signal right? And of course, you know, this isn't just for the psychic people among us. I think in Modern Life, we all have these weird signals that are constantly flickering on the borders of our perception all the time in the form of our digital devices and all of their push notifications and text messages and little red dots in the corner of the eye. A app that inform you that you're supposed to read something. I totally I mean I find like myself getting in a state of like hyperarousal if I'm just like swiping through Instagram stories too fast or like stuff like that where I'm doing sort of these like kind of like tick behaviors with the Internet or with technology or media that I find myself doing and like obviously a caveat that like, we're not doctors and we're not giving medical advice here, but for me, you know doing sort of breathwork type practices have been helpful for me in the past in terms of Need to just calm myself down when I feel like I'm in that sort of agitated hyper aroused State personally, that's cool. So trauma survivors witches and Instagram influencers all stand to benefit a lot. Yeah from box breathing shakily. I'm convinced I'm in let's do it. Let's do it. Okay, we're back. Okay, so I have to thank you Vanessa for challenging me to two weeks of box breathing and in particular for introducing me to the app that we used this past two weeks, which is called Oak and I've tried meditation apps in the past. And this was the first one that really clicked with me and I think probably the best design one that I've ever used and it's free. Yeah, it's free. I'm not sure if It's available for Android so apologies. If not, but it's available for iOS. It's called Oak and it's beautiful and free and it has simple plain meditation exercises, but also guided breathing exercises. And so we did the Box breathing for three minutes and 12 seconds or whatever whatever that however many rounds that was every day for two weeks. So and yeah and so having a guided app to help you like to guide you through it is really helpful. You can also just like go on YouTube or whatever and like There are plenty of people that will guide you through it. If you don't want to time it out yourself, but yeah, I don't know it was it was really great for me. And I think that's definitely this is definitely an experiment that I would consider X 6s success and one that I think that I'm probably going to just continue with honestly because me, too. It's literally three minutes of my day and I really enjoy doing it on the subway. Yeah, I do it on the subway on the way to work in the morning and because the subway is always just been a place that's very stressful for me in general. Everyone but also it's like I just a nice way of to go into my day, you know, so yeah, that's one. This is one that I'm going to keep up. I think yeah saying, how about you? I was even just the first time that I did it. I felt like I got a lot out of it because I sat down and I opened Oak and I set up the three minute time to breathing exercise and I noticed that within a couple rounds I was actually in a lot of pain and I was like why? Why am I in pain in my chest right now? And then I realized it was because you know for this breathing exercise, you are encouraged to expand your lungs and then keep them expanded and then could track them and keep them empty. And when I learned box breathing years ago, for some reason, I don't know if it was the instructor or me, not understanding them or a little bit of both, but what I took away from that is that you need to be challenging yourself to get your lungs as big as possible. Possible. Yeah, and then when you you know, push all the air out you need to you know have no air left in your body. And so I was really straining the muscles in my chest in order to do this and I had to confront the fact that there is a part of me still in my body or mind or however you want, you know, whatever is responsible for this that thinks I have to hurt myself in order to do something right and so I Stop the app and I took a break and I came back to it the next day because I was like, I need to just like sit with this for a month and it's really cool though that you like recognize that about it. Yeah, I'm really really glad and and also I think like another caveat with this is breathwork is very powerful, but it can also be very dangerous. And so yeah, I told have that kind of awareness when you're going into it that like you, you know, you can potentially Hurt yourself, maybe a little bit maybe a lot. If you're doing it every day, especially there's like cumulative effects that happen. And so I think going into it with that mindfulness and not just doing it mindlessly and like letting the app control your body and the way that your breathing is really important, but then the next day when I started the practice up again and was doing it, you know still trying to expand and contract my lungs fully but not to the point where I was straining myself. I got so much out of that and I by the end of the three minutes or however long it was I was like in a completely different state of mind because I was also doing it on the subway and I was just at other piece it was like I just you know, whatever your thing is, whether that's having a glass of wine or a cup of Cava or chamomile tea like I was really This state of you know, total total peace. I didn't have like a worry in the world and the fact that you can get there in, you know as little as just a couple of minutes I think is really powerful like this is a tool that I could see myself using not just in the morning is a way to Center myself before I get to work but also if things happen along the way totally and it's a great thing to have in your tool kit for like if you're like finding yourself really angry or like in a You know like someone pisses you off or like you need any need to calm down or whatever like you find yourself like in a you know a situation where you feel off or like dysregulated. Yeah. It's a great way to just bring yourself back exactly you can I think most of us probably always have the option at the very least to go to the bathroom. Yeah for you know a couple minutes. So if you need to take time out of your day and you need to wait till like reset and deal with something that has just happened. And I think this is a great tool to have in your tool kit. Yeah, and also like breathing is something that you can you're doing all the time anyway, so you can like do it anywhere. Like I feel like people like to say like, oh you can meditate Anywhere But like I can't, you know, like I need to be able to close my eyes and like have some peace and stuff like that, but I can breathe anywhere, you know, and then one thing that you also said about just like, you know, sort of forcing your lungs and whatever and how you had that recognized that realization is just like it brought to mind an important point that I want to Bring up about these magical experiments like I'm saying, you know, we're saying like, oh, we're challenging the other person but even the word the word challenge is like very loaded obviously and so we want to make it clear that these are things that we are doing for fun and for like our own growth and it and learning and stuff like that. But like to to if you decide to try these experiments along with us don't think of it as a challenge but something that you can approach like what Joy, and a sense of play and I think that you'll get a lot more out of it. Yeah, I mean maybe a better word is like invitation. Yeah, totally. I'm like, I like that idea a lot better. But you know, like I think it's like it's funny to think of us challenging the other person but because of the nature of our friendship, we know that it's not like an aggressive competition obviously, but just wanted to like make it clear in case it came off that way that this is like all in good fun. And it's all it's all playful and and joyous, you know. Yeah, I think some people enjoy the dynamic like, you know how some people like to go to an exercise class where the instructor is like yelling at them. Yeah, and they really get off on that and they feel like they do their best work in that environment like more power to you. I personally am not that type of immediate like I need that's why I think I really gravitated towards Pilates actually is because all of the cues are given in very Invitational language very similar to like a yoga class. Yeah, and I'm the same way. Yeah. I'm a total like Queen in that way. Yeah. Also, I'm also like somewhat rebellious is as if like if someone's like telling me I you know, like trying to force me to do something. I immediately like don't want to really like even if it's like someone telling me something that I was going to do. Anyway, I'm like no, I don't want to anymore. I mean, well, it's funny. How many books about doing magic start with some kind of Gauntlet, which is you need to be meditating for however many, Maryland and to do the everyday BRP like every day Day for like a hundred days or something like that. Exactly and I hear I often because I'm active on on Instagram and I talked about woo stuff there people will sometimes reach out to me and say things to the effect of like, oh, I don't know what's wrong with me because I can't complete this completely arbitrary are that somebody sat for me, and I know maybe because the bar sucks exactly, or maybe it's just not your bar. Right exactly. And and I think that that's important to keep in mind as well. Just the fact that you you know, you can let your desire to do something be a guide like for something that is challenging and not desirable. Maybe it's just not your thing. But if it's challenging and desirable if it forces you to grow but you still want to do it then that's what I look out for when I'm prioritizing it. Experiments that I want to take on as part of my own right personal spiritual Evolution. Yeah, and it's like oh this stuff is always optional, you know, so it's like, you know any sort of limitation unless you're like part of a tradition where like that's you know, the rules or whatever but it's just like, you know, you just you get you get to decide what your spiritual practice looks like to you and it doesn't need to like fit some mold of like, you know, what people are on Facebook groups are like saying it's supposed to look like, you know, Yeah, but if you want to try it it comes recommended by us. Yeah Oak is a great app. You can download it for free. You can try box breathing or some other breathing technique and I think particularly people who are looking for ways to build more piece a more peaceful foundation in their day-to-day life or to just be able to manage their transition from different states in two different. Penn State so like when you find yourself in a flight or fight mode and you know that that is not actually what you what your what will be best for your body in the situation that you're in and you want to be able to find your way back to rest and digest then this is a great way to do that. Yeah, cool. Yeah. I highly recommended this this exercise. Did you notice any other changes in your life beyond just feeling more? At ease when you were doing the exercise, like how did you feel throughout the day? Yeah, I don't know. I just felt like I had a more sense like like a just I had a sort of more sense of calm, but also I feel like I was less a little bit less reactionary to stuff. You know, it's like I feel like I'm when you have stuff like this in your toolkit like you will you're less likely to you're less likely to to have anxiety about anxiety. I mean really good like so it's just like I'm less like worried about feeling bad because I know that I have something that can help me if I do, you know what I mean? And so like I'm less likely to freak out about stuff because I feel like I'm I'm more equipped I guess to handle life in a way if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. It's like anxiety is no longer this thing that Just happen to you and you have no way to address it. Right and then you get anxious about being anxious. Yeah, totally. Like I feel like a lot of issues like mental health issues is like for me personally arise from like feeling bad about feeling bad or feeling bad about the potential to feel bad at a later time, you know, and I'd like and like adding fear and story to that. And so I feel like the more sort of like Baseline things that you can do to like build up your resilience. And that way we'll add to like, it won't add it won't like add shit to your shit sandwich. Basically, you know what I mean? Because like a lot of times like You know, I'll be you know, if I get angry or something like that. I'll be like why am I angry? I'm such a bad person, you know, he made instead of just like letting myself be angry, I guess and so I feel like yeah just like having stuff like this that you know, you can can turn to like makes like the experience of emotions and like undesirable emotions, like which are totally normal like feeling angry or whatever is like a totally normal part of life, but it makes it like less likely to be something that like I'm distressed about Experiencing if that makes sense. Yeah, it makes total sense. I one of the big things that I learned this year in going through my Saturn return and having basically everything in my life kind of go wrong in one year has been that feelings really only actually last a couple of seconds the the feeling in your body the emotion stirring in your body only lasts a couple of seconds. It's the narrative. That you create about that feeling the narrative in which you know, you are a mistake or your life is shit or right? You know, nobody loves you. You're inherently unlovable like those things are what stick with you. And so if you're able to let something whether that's anger or sadness or disgust just kind of move through you in a couple of seconds without without trying to impede it or without making a narrative out of it. It that you're then going to return to over and over again and you know use that narrative to invoke that feeling and then you're fine like the feeling comes and it leaves and it wasn't good. It wasn't bad. It was just a thing that happened and and that skill I think is is really important. And I also I had a similar experience over the past two weeks where I feel like doing this breathwork practice every morning helped to expedite. Things that I have been working on all year in terms of being able to really feel something let it go and then kind of return to a baseline which is you know by and large pretty peaceful. Yeah total and I I've been very impressed with over the past two weeks. I've had some really high stakes conversations. I have received some very bad news and in those particular instances, I was able to kind of, you know, just feel something in the moment and then it was over within a couple minutes and I was rather than losing several days to getting upset about what had happened and what I had felt or creating a narrative that I end up trapped in for several days. I was able to just kind of like come back and start living again. Yeah. I think it's That that feeling like I feel like when you're in the fight and the fight or flight like mentality or mode or whatever. It's like the OM overwhelming sensation is like I'm not safe right now. And so I feel like you know the breathwork really reinforces that feeling of like just safety and safety in my body like when I can do it, you know, and so I think it's really powerful for that, you know, like when stuff like when shit hits the fan kind of thing, you know, so that's great. Cool. Alright, so we invite everyone to try this practice for two weeks if they would like to and please reach out to us and let us know how it went for you at good bones podcast at gmail, or you can leave us a comment on the patreon. Okay, so this is going to be a one-off segment called magical mishaps and we're just going to be talking a bit about some of the medical practice. This is that we've done that just like went horribly wrong. Oh God and also just stuff that we tried that just like didn't do anything for us at all. And so and how we sort of like used to the lessons of that information to shape the practices that we have now. I'm so scared. All right, so I guess I'll start and this is just Anna really embarrassing story. But so so I currently live in Queens and I was living in Brooklyn for a really long time before that and I got married and decided that I needed to live with and we needed we needed a bigger apartment basically because I was living in a tiny apartment in Williamsburg by myself and it wasn't big enough for two people. And so I you know, I sold my place and I was like, you know when you sell your apartment you kind of like you need to like use that money to To buy the new apartment. And so there's this like period of time where you kind of or just in limbo because you don't have the money at but you have to move out of your old place you can sell it. And so also by the way money is literally fake. Yeah, this is actual Matt. He can't hear right? So so we were sort of in this weird place of being transient and like we were it was like the dead of winter were living and like airbnb's and just like in like basement apartments freezing our asses off and so I was in a place of feeling like Really desperate to find a new place for us to live in and so I was looking at an apartment and I decided that I was going to use this who do formula called I can and you can't what is that? So it sounds a like sort of what it sounds like but basically it's a hoodoo formula that is used to sort of eliminate your competition for something you want. So people can use the people will use it to you know, if they're competing for a lover or you No, people can sprinkle it on their resume if they don't want someone to get the job that they're going after that sort of thing. And so I had this idea that like, oh, I'm going to sprinkle this around this apartment that I really want so that like no one else gets it so so I'm looking at the apartment, you know, and you know the carp the the the powder is white and the this apartment has pink carpet and you know, I'm growing and I'm trying to like sprinkle a little bit like on the floor. her and I accidentally just like dumped a bunch of this powder like all over the carpet and luckily like no one saw me but at one point I was like rubbing my foot into the carpet to like rub it in so that no one would see what I was doing and the realtor came into the room that I was in and I think I played it off really well, but it was like so humiliating and I feel like I was just like in this like horrible desperate place, you know, and so, you know, I was able to laugh about it, but you know, it was just like One of those things where I just was like, oh my God, what am I doing? And I felt really silly about it afterwards and ultimately we actually did not get that apartment, but it didn't up working out for the best because we got another place that was much better. But yeah, so that was that's probably one of my biggest sort of like embarrassing magical stories. Okay, my most embarrassing magical story also involves powder. And so I guess this is kind of like a buyer beware for anybody who is interested in working. Magical sachet powders such as this but I was in a situation with this guy where I was just trying to get him to leave leave our shared space and existence together. I'm not going to say anything more about about it, but I had been talking to a friend of mine at the time who was the type of person who really would like talk. Kept his magical practice and ability like he was an expert and at the time I was also really impressed by stuff like that. Yeah, like I was so so so willing to just believe whatever any particularly any male person told me about how powerful he was. And so I remember even asking him I was interested in using hot foot powder, which is also a who do for me. So like often with these who do formulas, you know, there's some kind of condition in your life that they're prescribed for and in the case of hot foot powder is it usually is used to get somebody to leave whether that's a roommate or whatever co-worker. And so I remember like looking at it and thinking like wow this fucking white powder and you know, this was several years after the anthrax scared but But still, you know, I think that you know growing up in that time period had really like really impressed upon me that white powders are extreme, you know, you go to jail, which I guess is true like yeah lot of with a lot of white powders there is the opportunity to go to jail, but I was asking this guy like, so what you just sprinkle it around don't people don't people get suspicious. Vicious of that and he I swear to God he swore up and down that nobody would notice mmm because according to him he used them all the time and people just he didn't say that like they're invisible because of psychic magic whatever blah blah blah, but he did claim that most people just aren't paying attention enough to notice white powder on the floor. I would debate that claim. Yeah, and so I remember like after I dropped that first little sprinkle. It was a total. I've made a huge mistake that moment and I was like, how am I going to undo this right now? What am I gonna do and so like you I think I did end up trying to just like rub it out with my feet subtly like looking probably looking like even more suspicious than this. Sprinkled. But yeah, after that I was like no more with the powders ever again. I have heard since then that the way that other people deploy them is by combining them with a little bit of dirt from the area art. Yeah from whatever area that you're working in which makes a lot of sense, but I think I also just kind of realized after that particular instance that there. Are maybe certain practices where it doesn't make a lot of sense for me to try to teach them myself by reading something online and then you know just like doing it. I think that there is a certain amount of subtlety one might even say cunning that goes into being able to do magic effectively and it's just like cooking actually where there are, you know, when you're reading through a recipe there are certain steps that If you admitted because it's assumed that you know how to do that. Yeah, if you're adding, you know water to a really hot pan for example or a pan that has oil in it or something like that. You know, there's there's a potential for that to go horribly horribly wrong the recipe may warn you about that and say like hey stand back. This is going to steam up there might be like a really intense reaction or it might assume that you know, yeah that's going to happen. So yeah, I have since then kind of like learned to favor things that either come from my own kind of unconscious and build on things that I've done before or where I'm being instructed by somebody that I know in real life who I trust a lot more than that shitty who do Guy totally but I feel like yeah, it's like you get to discern like what what that feels like, you know by sort of like doing stuff like that and A fucking up and you know, I mean like realizing that you made that mistake, you know what I mean? So I feel like on a certain level like, you know, making those kinds of mistakes are part of the process. Like that's how you learn and I think that you know, when I first started doing magic and spiritual practices and stuff like that, like I feel like I'm I would oh I was so afraid to do something wrong or to make a mistake that I like just wouldn't do anything at all. Yeah, or I would have convinced myself like, oh I can't do this because I don't have like blah blah blah. Blah ingredient or like whatever, you know what I mean and do all that kind of stuff. So I feel like you know making mistakes is normal making stuff that doing stuff that feels silly and like is like is normal and part of the process. Like I've done so many practices that just felt so ridiculous to me but like I didn't really realize that I wasn't resonating with it until I tried it myself and I feel like I'm just naturally really curious person. And so I always just want to try everything myself. All of which is a good thing like being curious wanting to try things yourself definitely. But yeah. Yeah, I mean and that's just sort of how I like was able to learn like what resonated with me and what didn't you know, I've tried a lot of magical practices that just ended up feeling like kind of like a LARPing to me, you know, anything involved like a lot of stuff involving, you know, casting fancy circles and like doing stuff with a lot of this sort of like traditional quote unquote which tools like wands and athame is and stuff like that and you know, and there's nothing wrong with any of that stuff if it's something that resonates with you for me it just it felt like it felt like LARPing to me, you know, like it didn't feel authentic to me and I didn't feel right like in my body and so but I didn't know that until I tried it. Yeah, no likewise. And I definitely remember like being a kid and reading team which yeah all these ideas about like, okay. I'm going to click cast a circle once my parents. Asleep and it just never quite did it for me and even as an adult to I feel like if there is a spell or ritual that has a lot of words that you either need to memorize or you're reading them out of a book. It's really hard for me to get in the mood. Yeah speak totally. Yeah. I know. I totally I totally agree with that and I think that also, you know a lot of the stuff that specifically Resonated with me is this idea of like, you know banishing constantly creating circles and all that kind of stuff because I feel like it doesn't align with my cosmology like as someone who's like an animist and stuff like that. Like I don't think that you can just like Create like a vacuum. You know what? I mean by just saying some words or whatever. Like I feel like Spirits are all around us all the time and it's more about sort of learning to live in harmony with them as opposed to like, you know, just like trying to get them away from you all the time or whatever, you know. Yeah, it's always weird when you hear those types of recommendations, like, you know, oh, well if you want to learn magic, you should do the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram every day for 30. D-Day yeah, and you think that you're naive or dumb because you don't understand why and then you start to realize over time that you didn't understand it because it didn't actually make any sense right or to put it more, you know, relatively it didn't align with your personal cosmology or the work that your soul has come here to do. Yeah, and I think that you know No, I mean I think that like sort of like intro to Magic an intro to Witchcraft books or whatever are good to to instill the idea that like the stuff can be dangerous. But I think that that's some kind of that stuff can go too far, you know where it's like people are afraid it makes people afraid and also makes them afraid to try and do things, you know, like it does become a barrier to entry if people feel like, you know, they need to be doing constant magical protection and stuff like that all the time. Down and it's also funny how sometimes the thing that you come up with yourself in order to be like the antidote to whatever it is you realized was wrong in the first place is also kind of just heading in the wrong direction. So like I remember really really distinctly, you know, I went through my teen fluffy bunny we can phase where I was reading books like teen witch witch. This is you know, if you're into it like good For you for me personally. It was not it did not satisfy my core spiritual nourishment needs and so I thought like okay. Well the opposite of that since this is not been doing it for me is I'm going to go super hardcore Reconstructionist Pagan. Yeah, and the oldie traditional you which absolutely and I ended. Up just reading a ton of academic books about paganism. You know the way that it was practiced historically and first of all struggling to read those books because they're written during my academic for academics struggling to pay for those books because academic books are like they're really aggressive, you know, because apparently we're supposed to be hoarding all the knowledge and making it hard for the average person to to be able to afford or understand right and also, you know, there was just too big of a gap between my life as a 21st century American woman and the life of like an 11th century norsk a and yeah, totally and I mean it's like it's similar to like for example, like I am One who eats a paleo diet, but I'm don't think that I need to go live in a cave and you know like hunt for my dinner and stuff like that for me eating a paleo diet is like not having Captain Crunch for breakfast and stuff like that like eating whole unprocessed food in their most natural state as possible, but it's not about like trying to pretend like I lived during that time, you know, it's just more about adapting those principles to my current life. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's kind of the key and the thing that we've been this like theme that has come up a couple times with the course of this conversation, which is what is actually relevant to your real life that you're really living versus. What is a practice that you are actually completely unfamiliar with and don't know how to deploy effectively as we saw with the powders. What is a practice that takes you out of your body as we talked about, you know, why casting circles just not really work for us? Yeah, Emily. Or what is a practice that is or was relevant to somebody who lived in a very different time and a very different place and had a very different social structure and understanding of the world than the one that we live with today. So, I think that that might actually be like a really good place to start with is like always just kind of centering your own. Variants and what you're really feeling in the moment and what's really happening and to seek out ways to augment those raw materials. Mmm rather than thinking like, okay. Well, I need to be this Blank Slate that I can then write magic onto. Yeah. Yeah, and I think that like, you know the lesson that you can take away from this is like don't be afraid to make mistakes or Like Makin make an ass out of yourself in pursuit of like finding the Cactuses that work for you and feel the best for you, but don't get arrested. Yeah, we don't take it. We take no responsibility for any yeah anything that you might do with white powder? Yeah. Okay. Alright. So yeah, if you want to tell us about any of your magical mishaps, let us know. Yeah, we showed you hours now it's time to you to show us your yes. We want to hear all of the Gory details about the dumbest shit. You've ever tried. Yeah, you can email. Is that good bones podcast at gmail.com, or you can leave it as a comment on the patreon page or you can leave us a voicemail as well. Thank you so much for listening to good bones. I'm Mallory would Waze and you can find me on Instagram at honoring your ancestors and I'm Vanessa Irena, and you can find me at Irena Vanessa. If you like what you heard, please consider rating us on iTunes and sharing our podcast with a friend want more good bones in your life sign up for our patreon and get access to exclusive bonus content including subscriber only QA. Ray as well as our special bone down many incidents where we dig up the dirt on more taboo topics. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop us a line at good ones podcast at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at anchor dot f m so good bones until next time live well. Cute, I love it.
How is your relationship with the dead people in your family? In today's episode, we talk about ancestors and how anyone can build a relationship with them. Vanessa invites Mallorie to try a magical experiment. Then we share some of our most embarrassing magical mishaps. Support us on Patreon! 