Burnt Sage & Blunt Truths

  There’s a peculiar modern habit of taking something ancient, flattening it into a single narrative, and then gatekeeping it like it was invented last Tuesday. Smoke cleansing has become one of those casualties. Let’s get something straight right out of the gate: Smoke cleansing is not new. It is not trendy. It is not owned by a single culture. What is specific are certain ceremonial practices, names, and protocols. And that’s where people keep tripping over their own feet. The Internet Version vs. Reality The internet has decided that all smoke cleansing equals one specific Indigenous practice. Native American Smudging. That’s neat, tidy, and completely wrong. Not all Native Americans Smudge!  Because long before hashtags and hot takes, people across the world were lighting things on fire for spiritual, medicinal, and practical purposes. Here’s the part people conveniently ignore people were smoke cleansing for AEONS before Coachella Culture Witches came to the Ameri...

 There’s a particular kind of grief that doesn’t come from death alone. It comes from absence. From the things we meant to do. From the people we meant to see. From the places we assumed would always be there, waiting patiently like a porch light left on too long. Yesterday, I lost a friend. Not in the slow, expected way where you brace yourself and begin the quiet rituals of letting go. No. This was sudden. Abrupt. The kind of loss that kicks the door in and leaves everything rattling behind it. And the last time I saw her—really saw her—was at her daughter’s wedding over a decade ago. A decade. That number sits heavy. It doesn’t ask permission. And now there’s no fixing it. No circling back. No “we really should get together soon” that ever turns into anything real. Just the sharp, clean edge of finality. At the same time, people are mourning the end of Gathering of Nations. They mourned Pantheacon when it disappeared. They mourn places the same way they mourn people,...

 There’s this quiet assumption people carry around—that if they’re close to you, they know you. Not just “know of you.” Not just “know your habits.” But know you . As in: the full landscape. The whole map. Every hill, every back road, every strange little side path you wander down at two in the morning when the rest of the world is asleep. And that assumption is… wrong. Not in a cruel way. Not in a disappointing way. Just in a very human, very ordinary, very unavoidable way. I started thinking about this the other day when it hit me—if I lined up the people closest to me and asked them to list my interests, my obsessions, the things I spend my time thinking about when no one’s watching… They’d all give me answers. And they’d all be incomplete. Not one of them would be wrong. But not one of them would be whole either. Let’s start with my mom. She’s my ride or die. The one who knows the real stories, not the polished versions. The one who has seen me at my worst and d...

There’s a particular kind of expectation that comes with a forty-year tradition. Longevity implies structure. It implies refinement. It suggests that whatever is being done has been tested, shaped, and carried forward with intention. Add “sold out” to that equation, and the assumption is simple: this is an event that knows exactly what it is doing. So when I walked in, I expected weight. Not perfection. Not spectacle. But presence. Cohesion. A sense that the container had been built with care and was being held with equal care. What I found instead was… uneven. To be clear, not everything missed the mark. Some of the altars were thoughtfully constructed, layered with intention rather than thrown together for appearance. There were moments—brief, but real—where the space settled and something deeper moved through it. And there were individuals present who were clearly grounded, aware, and engaged in something beyond surface-level participation. Which made the rest of it stand out all th...

   Let’s stop pretending. There is a very loud, very performative strain of “witchcraft” right now where people in their early thirties are claiming nearly two decades of teaching the craft —and expecting that to land like authority instead of comedy. It doesn’t. Because time alone doesn’t make you seasoned. It just makes you older. What matters is what you did with that time. And there’s a world of difference between: decades of grounded study with covens and experienced practitioners , and a long stretch of calling yourself a witch because it sounded good and got attention. Those are not the same road. Not even close. Real experience is built in rooms where you are not the most knowledgeable person there, and you’re not allowed to pretend you are. It’s built under people who will correct you, challenge you, and shut you down when you start believing your own hype. It’s built in Friday and Saturday nights given to the work , not handed over to bar crawls aro...

Let’s get one thing straight—being broke is not a personality trait, and it damn sure isn’t a spiritual badge of honor. Somewhere along the way, a narrative took root in pagan spaces that says: if you’re truly spiritual, you should be struggling. That money somehow taints the work. That abundance makes you less authentic. That if you’re not cobbling together tools from thrift stores and dollar bins, you’re doing it wrong. That narrative is tired. And it’s wrong. Paganism, at its core, is about power. Personal power. Agency. Sovereignty. And you don’t build sovereignty while constantly scrambling to survive. You don’t deepen your practice when your energy is spent stressing over bills, debt, and scarcity. You don’t honor the spirits, the land, or your own path by staying stuck in lack. Let’s call it what it is: poverty isn’t sacred. It’s exhausting. There is nothing inherently noble about being underpaid, underselling your work, or refusing to charge what your skill is worth. Especially...

I had a great conversation this past weekend where practitioners of color and culture were discussing this very thing.  Let’s quit pretending this is confusing. It isn’t. What it is , is inconvenient—especially for people who’ve built a brand, a following, and a tidy little income stream off something they barely understand but know how to market. So here’s the line, carved clean. Appropriation vs Assimilation (No Hand-Holding Edition) Appropriation is taking. Assimilation is adapting a practice because you were taught it, because it was what was there where you were taught. It is done with respect and recognition. I point specifically to African slaves who hid their religions in the saints and the songs of what appears to be a Christian religion. They did it to survive. Then there is Appalachian magic and it's cross over into multiple disciplines. There was always trade between nations just as there was always a sharing of knowledge. Now when it comes to cultural appropriation ver...