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We are not doctors, lawyers, or professionals. We’re amateurs. Nothing we say should be taken as advice, instruction, or seriously. Any actions taken based on our content can and will lead to chaos, injury, existential crises, your pets no longer loving you, and possibly death. We make no promises and assume no liability.

Kimjamin (00:15)
I gotta take my socks off again.

I never remember till I'm in here and it's hot as fuck.

Charlye Michelle (00:23)
Bye!

Kimjamin (00:25)
And suddenly I like, suddenly I'm sweating. Yeah! That could be the bonus one! That could be the bonus sode video of me taking my socks

Charlye Michelle (00:26)
we need a compilation of you taking your socks off. Just a whole episode.

I'm gonna start saving every moment that you take. I gotta take my socks off. There we go. ⁓ not for free.

Kimjamin (00:50)
You didn't see my feet, just my socks.

Charlye Michelle (00:53)
Hey, some people will still pay for that, you know?

Kimjamin (00:57)
That's why it's going to be the bonus.

Charlye Michelle (01:01)
Technically, you're paying for feet content.

⁓ WBAHfeet.com. Okay, wow. Should we just start the episode with WBAHfeet.com?

Kimjamin (01:06)
That's the tease! There's another channel where the feet are!

You

I'm okay with it. Somebody somebody's gonna get that.

Charlye Michelle (01:25)
and just see what happens. ⁓

Wow.

Kimjamin (01:32)
You know what, if you feel so inclined, go buy that.

Charlye Michelle (01:36)
Listen,

it would be almost worth it to me for funniness to just see how many people tried to visit it. If we act like it's a real thing, I just wanna see how many. I just have a counter on it. It counts unique visitors.

Kimjamin (01:50)
You're the

47th creep.

Charlye Michelle (01:55)
Yeah, congrats!

Wow

Kimjamin (02:00)
Well now we have to. Hold

on, have to write that down. We have to. I'm gonna spend $15 on that. What is it? WBAHfeet.com

Charlye Michelle (02:12)
wbahfeet.com why not? my gosh. And it's a good backup. In case the podcast ever goes sideways, we got another.

Kimjamin (02:14)
Hold on, I'm gonna buy it right now.

You

no. my god.

Charlye Michelle (02:29)
We got another thing to do.

Kimjamin (02:31)
I love how you were just so willing to go along with absurdities. This is why we're meant to be partners.

Charlye Michelle (02:32)
my God.

Of course! Listen!

Are you kidding me? You were willing to get wbahfeet.com This is the best day.

Kimjamin (02:46)
you

Charlye Michelle (02:57)
We, in real life, at the time of this recording, are about to go to Austin for Austin Witch Fest. By the time you guys hear it, it'll be over and done with, so sorry. Hope we saw you. But are you ready? Like, are you still getting packed and ready, such as I am?

Kimjamin (03:05)
Mm-hmm.

⁓

I have like three more things on my to-do list. have to print the key and laminate the QR codes,

first, this is gonna come out like a little bit late. two things actually, number one, go get your prints, they're amazing.

Charlye Michelle (03:30)
Sure.

Yeah, they're out now and they will only be out for a short amount of time after this. I think maybe like another.

Kimjamin (03:41)
Yup. Along with that ridiculous

shirt.

Charlye Michelle (03:48)
yeah.

Kimjamin (03:51)
And today, the day we're recording is the trans day of visibility. So we see and love you homies.

Charlye Michelle (03:56)
It is, yes.

Yes, yes, yes. And ⁓ geez, I'm still having to put together like in my head the timeline of this, because we've decided we wanted to record this episode as well as the April fools that we had last week. Have you heard the good news? ⁓ Because when we...

Kimjamin (04:13)
Have you heard it? How many people turned it off?

Charlye Michelle (04:22)
I don't wanna know. I only wanna know how many people stayed thinking when's the episode gonna start?

by the time this comes out, you know, we will, we'll be exhausted, I think. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, what do we, what's our topics today? I've picked one that was inspired by things we've talked about the past couple of episodes. Talk about ants.

Kimjamin (04:34)
Yeah, which is why we're recording it now.

no. okay.

Because so am I a little bit. Not ants.

Charlye Michelle (04:56)
Cause we couldn't get enough. no! Pause.

⁓ okay, but what? Termites?

Kimjamin (05:04)
no. I'm just gonna go into mine because I'm first. Unless you have other things we need to go over.

Charlye Michelle (05:07)
spiders.

No, I'm sitting on the edge of my seat.

Kimjamin (05:13)
Okay.

⁓ it's Aries season.

Charlye Michelle (05:20)
And you're a big ol' Aries moon, correct?

Kimjamin (05:24)
Yeah, it's Aries season

and I've been getting wound up lately. And I'm talking about politics and witchcraft.

Charlye Michelle (05:33)
Okay, all right.

Kimjamin (05:35)
So,

content warning, politics, and possibly a little bit of violence because that, they seem to go hand in hand.

Charlye Michelle (05:38)
Mmm.

Kimjamin (05:42)
so witchcraft, people say, why can't you just leave politics out of everything? Why does everything have to be political? Witchcraft is political. That's why. Witches have historically been, as the majority of them are, other. They are marginalized people like queer people, women, people of color, poor people.

elderly people, anybody who gets in the way of the wealthy and the powerful who need a scapegoat.

That's who witches are and it's it's political so I Wish people didn't have to listen to things like this that they don't necessarily want to ⁓ and we will by the way I'm gonna ask you Charlye since you do the editing To put here go

Go forward or back in time or whatever and put where yours starts in case people are just like, I don't want to listen to that. Okay. Here's. Yeah.

Charlye Michelle (06:47)
Okay, I'll do that weird dub feature

and I'll say, Charlye's segment, skip to 29:33 and then we'll see what happens. Or we'll just leave it as is.

Kimjamin (06:53)
Skip to.

Yeah. Enjoy the privilege that you live in. Enjoy the privilege

you live in that you can just skip over things. I'll go into that later.

Charlye Michelle (07:08)
Sure, sure, sure, that is,

I generally will say that when I say that it's not said with hatred because I think a big part of privilege is like recognizing that you have it. And I think so many people are so very quick to anger when someone points out their privilege because they think it's like a bad thing, you know? And they're like, you're calling me privileged.

Kimjamin (07:21)
Mm-hmm.

Well, they think of privileges like when

you're a kid.

Charlye Michelle (07:35)
It's like, you can do something with that though, you know, you can take, you can do something with that. It's not like ⁓ a, we're not calling you a naughty word, you know.

Kimjamin (07:47)
Yeah, it's not a bad thing. It's just something you have that someone else doesn't have.

Charlye Michelle (07:50)
Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah.

Kimjamin (07:57)
So let's go back to Europe a little bit. It doesn't start in Europe. I'm just, I am just starting in Europe. So witches in magical practice existed before the word wicce which I am guessing that's how it's pronounced, W-I-C-C-E. And that is Old English, which came from the first, fifth through the 11th century between 450 and 1150.

AD.

And that said, magical practice has existed since ancient Mesopotamia. And in fact, the whole drowning witches thing came from the code of Hammurabi. Do you remember hearing about that like in school? So that was an 18th century BCE. And it allowed someone accused of harmful magical practice to undergo

Charlye Michelle (08:45)
Mm, mm.

Yes. Yeah.

Kimjamin (08:59)
finger quotes, trial by ordeal, and that is jumping into a holy river, and if you drown, you're guilty. And the accuser... Here's the part,

Charlye Michelle (09:08)
Trial by ordeal is so hard-corded.

Kimjamin (09:14)
Someone has accused Sally of witchcraft. So Sally decides, I'm going to go trial by ordeal and jump into the Holy River. If Sally drowns, oops, they were guilty and the accuser gets her stuff. If she's not, then the accuser as estate goes over to whoever Sally's family is. And if Sally doesn't have any family, oops, I guess just, oh well, oops, sorry, Sally.

So if you want somebody's shit, essentially you accuse them of witchcraft. And you hope they can't swim.

Charlye Michelle (09:45)
you

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice PlayStation.

Give it to me, you witch. Yeah.

Kimjamin (09:54)
So dating back to Mesopotamia and into present day, the term or the idea of what witchcraft is, at least defined by people who are not necessarily witches because I have heard at least a hundred different definitions of what witchcraft is because I ask that question in every episode of my podcast. So witchcraft is considered

Charlye Michelle (10:17)
huh. Yeah.

Kimjamin (10:23)
quote, the malefic use of magic against one's own people. And I believe that comes from an English historian named Ronald Hutton, who has, who was raised pagan. He's still alive. So my tense may shift a little bit weird because of the way I wrote this and I am glancing at my notes. So he's written a lot of books about paganism. He was raised a pagan.

And some examples of those books are the pagan religions of the ancient British Isles, the triumph of the moon and witches, druids and King Arthur. He was elected a fellow of the learned society of Wales in 2011 and a fellow of the British Academy in 2013 and appointed Gresham professor of divinity in 2022. This is all to give you a sort of background on where, what his.

Charlye Michelle (11:13)
⁓

Kimjamin (11:18)
education is, it is on this stuff. So when I am quoting him or saying, he said that's who he is and that's why he is kind of an authority on the subject.

He doesn't actually claim to be a pagan though. He says, when asked that his religious beliefs are basically his own business and how about you mind yours? So maybe he is, maybe he isn't, it's not your business. And he outlined five key characteristics ascribed to witches and witchcraft by most cultures that believe in the concept. So number one, the use of magic to cause harm or misfortune to others.

Charlye Michelle (11:43)
Fair, fucking fair. Yeah.

Kimjamin (12:02)
Number two, it's used by the witch against their own community. Number three, powers of witchcraft were believed to have been acquired through inheritance or initiation. Number four, it's seen as immoral and often thought to involve communion with evil beings. And number five, witchcraft can be thwarted by defensive magic, persuasion, intimidation, or physical punishment of the alleged witch.

Charlye Michelle (12:29)
Okay, so we're saying that magic and witchcraft are different things because if you can defend against witchcraft with, what do say, good magic or whatever? So that's the idea is that it's almost a semantics issue of.

Kimjamin (12:46)
kind of, because they did

accept up to a point, up until I think like the Maleficus, whatever it is, I don't remember the whole word. I don't remember the whole name, but that book, something Caramelacarum or something like that, I don't remember. Maybe it's in my notes, I don't think it is. So there were like the folk quote unquote what we would call

folk witches who did like healing and midwifery. Is that how you say it?

Charlye Michelle (13:19)
That's how I say it. Or midwifery. Yeah.

Kimjamin (13:19)
Okay, yeah, being

a midwife, that sort of like helpful thing, ⁓ there were those people and then there were the people who would curse somebody for you if you wanted. And they like were always fucking with the cows and the butter and the milk and whatnot. They were really into dairy for some reason. Riding dudes around the countryside in the middle of the night and then laughing about it.

Charlye Michelle (13:32)
Okay, sure.

Always braid in your hair. Yeah. Ooh, I get it though. I love me some dairy. Yeah.

you

Kimjamin (13:50)
Are you tired, you dumb fucker? How you like that milk?

Charlye Michelle (13:52)
Yeah, see, listen,

I know which camp I belong in already. I'm just, if these two people, the midwives and the healers, and then the ones that put peanut butter in your hair and braid it overnight or whatever they do. If they can't be the same person, then I know which group I belong with. Yeah.

Kimjamin (14:13)
Me too, frankly.

The fun one. I'm going riding, bitch. Horse girl all the way.

Charlye Michelle (14:18)
What, are you kidding?

Yeah! It's severely different meaning. It's like when I say horse girl, this is what I mean.

Kimjamin (14:32)
And so kind of

⁓ the quote-unquote good witches were more tolerated for the most part and the quote-unquote bad witches were the ones that people would generally go after. Eventually they did start going after the good witches too. So where are we? Okay, in the U.S. and parts of Europe, most accused witches

Charlye Michelle (14:48)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kimjamin (14:57)
are or were women and the elderly, especially when in patriarchal societies. Most, most, not all, most. Yeah. And while most European beliefs about witchcraft involve inheriting or being initiated into a magical power or practice, other places don't necessarily believe that.

Charlye Michelle (15:04)
Sure. Yeah, if you were...

An old woman, you were double fucked, yeah.

Kimjamin (15:24)
They feel like there are some cultures in Africa where they believe that witches are just born with this evil attached to them or inside them, no matter what that person themselves wants to do or what they believe.

It's just like, you got a demon in you, essentially. Yeah.

Charlye Michelle (15:44)
Yeah. Sorry. Oops.

Kimjamin (15:49)
And let's go into politics now. I'm mostly going to talk about the U.S. because that's where I am from, that's my experience, and that's where 80 % of our listeners come from. I checked.

So witches are, continue to be persecuted. As recently as 2014, women accused of witchcraft have been killed in one way or another, either put to death, like officially through government means, or just flat out murdered in several countries in Africa and Asia, here in the US, and in fact, in Tucson. One of the most recent witch trials to happen was in 1970, the Flowing Wells High School.

Charlye Michelle (16:18)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Kimjamin (16:32)
situation.

an expert on I mean expert in 1979 in 1969 an expert on folklore and witchcraft from the University of Arizona UA. Hey what's up? Wildcats? I don't actually care I just happen to know that because I live here now.

Anyway, this expert on folklore and witchcraft came from UA came to flowing wells high school to talk to them about I don't know Whatever they were talking about and they included this description of physical attributes for witches that included blonde hair a widow's peak greener blue eyes Charlye you're in trouble a Preference for wearing devil's green, which is a shade between chartreuse and lime

Charlye Michelle (17:23)
Shit.

Kimjamin (17:28)
and a pointed left ear, show me your ear immediately.

Charlye Michelle (17:32)
Show me your ear.

Kimjamin (17:33)
I'm not blonde.

Charlye Michelle (17:35)
Not very pointed. I don't think we're pointed. don't think... You got the blue eyes there, you're fucked.

Kimjamin (17:36)
Little bit. Little bit.

And then a little bit after that, students began joking with Ann Stewart, who was an English teacher with over a decade of teaching experience about how closely she met that description. That visual description, which meets a lot of, are you kidding me? Okay, anyway. And then when they asked her if she was a witch, she said, what do you think? Probably in that same tone.

Charlye Michelle (17:54)
Okay.

Yeah.

Sure,

yeah. I don't like where this is going. I'm scared.

Kimjamin (18:14)
One student who was interviewed later on said that Stewart discussed witchcraft with her students, but didn't try to influence or convince students of the reality of witchcraft. She was suspended in November of 1970, a year after, within the year, after a group of parents, and I think some of her fellow teachers, signed a petition to have her removed. And it made national news.

Her neighbors and friends began avoiding her and she received death threats like the letters that state, thou shall not suffer a witch to live. How many of you listeners have had someone say that to you? Because I've had lots of them say it to me. And what I say is, what do you mean by that? And then make them say it out loud. They generally delete their comment because guess what, bitch? I'm a cab, but I will call the cops on you. So let's go.

Charlye Michelle (19:13)
Whatever I can do to fuck your shit up a little bit, yeah. Um, wow.

Kimjamin (19:15)
Yeah, maybe I'll call your boss.

Say you're doing death threats on the internet.

Charlye Michelle (19:24)
who in death threats on the internet would make a wild t-shirt. I'm just saying. Okay, sorry.

Kimjamin (19:28)
Write

that down.

Charlye Michelle (19:33)
terrible. ⁓

Kimjamin (19:34)
She started wearing

an ebony cross that belonged to her great-great-grandmother, changed her hairstyle to hide her widow's peak, and she stated, I wear it because a real witch wouldn't dare, and I want to demonstrate that I've been defamed. She fought the suspension. A judge told the school board to rehire her as they had not complied with the requisite statutory procedures for dismissing a tenured teacher. But as of February 1972, she had not been rehired.

And basically everybody stopped paying attention, so nobody knows if she got her job back that I could find.

Charlye Michelle (20:10)
All because...

Kimjamin (20:13)
She was blonde. Yeah, because some kids told a joke and she's like, what do you think? That means yes. And then we have the satanic panic in the US in the 80s and 90s.

Charlye Michelle (20:13)
People just thought you might be a witch. Yeah, wow.

Yeah.

Yikes.

Hell yeah.

Kimjamin (20:32)
It began in the US with 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of satanic ritual abuse. It started with some psychiatrists doing recovered memory therapy, which is a discredited practice claiming to uncover abuse. Some allegations, here we go. Some allegations involve a conspiracy of a global satanic cult that includes the wealthy and elite.

in which children are abducted or bred for human sacrifice, pornography, and prostitution. Doesn't that sound familiar?

Charlye Michelle (21:10)
Mm.

Kimjamin (21:12)
Doesn't it?

Charlye Michelle (21:14)
Actually,

my first thought was like, that's disgusting. I don't like thinking about it. But now that you mention it.

Kimjamin (21:22)
It's like we've gone back in time. In 1994, article in the New York Times stated that of the more than 12,000 documented accusations nationwide, investigating police were not able to substantiate any allegations of organized cult abuse.

Charlye Michelle (21:25)
Poof.

My blood went cold, sorry.

Kimjamin (21:48)
Even more recently, in 2023, the police chief and Hanover PA sent an email to the proprietor of the Serpent's Key, Beck Lawrence, stating that he was going to send an officer over to let them know that reading tarot was against the 163-year-old LOVE. Lawrence is currently fighting Hanover for violating our First Amendment right to freedom of religion and speech.

especially since those laws were kind of based on keeping ⁓ people they didn't want in town, like travelers and Roma people, getting rid of them, keeping them out of town, making it illegal for them to do anything that makes any money.

Charlye Michelle (22:30)
Mm-hmm.

Kimjamin (22:38)
and all this?

Charlye Michelle (22:39)
It also just feels

like, you know those old laws that like in Texas, It's like, can't cross the street with a duck in your pocket. Yeah, yeah. Shit like that.

Kimjamin (22:45)
with a donkey on your head. can't have more. Your ice cream

can't be more than three scoops if you're walking left on a Wednesday.

Charlye Michelle (22:55)
Excuse

my ice cream will always be more than three scoops. Thank you

Yeah, I'll go to jail.

Kimjamin (23:02)
Yeah.

I like all the dildo laws. think they're funny and also fuck off. Let me quote Ronald Hutton, mind your own business. Or whatever his name is, I forgot already. Anyway, all of this is to say, witchcraft is political.

Charlye Michelle (23:11)
so funny and so telling.

Mm-hmm.

Kimjamin (23:27)
If you're

able to turn this off and find an audio book or another podcast that doesn't get into politics and just withdraw into your own life and forget everything that everything that's happening is happening. That is a privilege that not all of our listeners have. Some people don't have the option to turn their lives off because they don't get, you can't just stop being queer. You can't stop being a person of color or are autistic or trans. ⁓ and you have to stay vigilant and aware if you are that.

one of those people, if one of those things applies to you. It's their lived reality. And I'm not gonna stop saying, fuck ICE. I believe in vaccines and science. I'm not gonna stop talking about it because those people need our support. And if you are able to turn it off, good. I'm glad somebody is, but I'm gonna be here to support the people who can't.

Charlye Michelle (24:10)
Mm-hmm. Sure.

Yeah, well, and the thing is, I completely understand there are some days where you have had it to here and you're like, I wanna put a cozy video on and I need to check out for a little bit. I understand that, I fucking get it, right? However, I do think that, ⁓ this is a scary line to ride because I don't wanna say everyone with a platform has like,

I don't want to be like everyone who has a platform you have a responsibility to whatever because some people don't know what to do with that or you know or I'm just saying don't think that all of the people you see on social media need to be speaking about stuff because there's a big chance that they might not fucking know shit but I'm saying I think we do and I think we have that space to do it in and I think that there is a line to ride between

Kimjamin (24:47)
should be using it.

Charlye Michelle (25:15)
I want to check out and take a break for a little bit for my, you know, my health and being able to do that again, that's a privilege, but also not expecting people to just shut up and make things comfortable for you because you would prefer to be comfortable. Yeah.

Kimjamin (25:30)
Just make movies.

Just sing and stop talking about it.

Charlye Michelle (25:36)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, just do the witchcraft podcast. Well, it's inherently, you know Okay, fine. We will we are right now because it's inherently entwined

Kimjamin (25:40)
Exactly.

I feel obliged to do it because I hear silence is compliance and I kind of agree with it. And if you can't do it, then you can't, but I can, so I am. And honestly, it is scary and when the election went through, I was actually really scared. for a

Charlye Michelle (25:55)
Mm. Sure.

Kimjamin (26:11)
Fraction of a second. I considered not doing my podcast because I know I'm on a list now. We're on lists now ⁓ because One we have a voice that we use to I'm a queer woman three I'm a witch and I have a podcast about witchcraft so if I'm on the list here here, I'm gonna get even more on the list now, I guess and for the people who

Charlye Michelle (26:30)
Mm-hmm. You're not, that's far from invisible, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you can't

get taken off the list, so.

Kimjamin (26:40)
Exactly!

Put me on more lists, bitch!

Charlye Michelle (26:44)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now it's a fucking game. no.

Kimjamin (26:47)
I guess, but...

I want people to feel supported. will continue to speak out until I'm like physically unable. Hopefully, I'm not even going to talk about what hopefully not. I'll continue to speak out until I am unable to. And there was a protest this past Saturday. No Kings Day. I did not go because I woke up in severe hip pain.

in the middle of the night and then when I went back to sleep, I overslept and missed the fucking protest. And I hate that. But one thing that struck me was there was an article on Pathios by Manny Moreno about pagans attending no kings protests. And I'm going to give you a quote by Raina Templeby, who was a priestess of the covenant of the goddess. And they said, pagans must remain active in these non-denominational spaces of resistance.

if we want to ensure non-pagans will come to our aid if or when our religious rights are attacked by the state. And considering what has been said recently about the invasion of Iran by our president and by the secretary of war, I'd say we're pretty close to having those rights attacked. They are being attacked in Pennsylvania right now, in Hanover.

Charlye Michelle (28:08)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it does, that's exactly how it starts. It starts very small, you know, a case here, case there, and then, then avalanches and next thing you know. Yeah, so.

Kimjamin (28:13)
Mm-hmm.

I got into a pretty serious argument with my partner back in...

When did Shitbird get elected? 2016? So probably in 2015. ⁓ There was a neo-Nazi march in Montana and I fucking lost my shit. And so my partner is one of those people who thinks, ⁓ you're overreacting. Well, they haven't done anything. All they're doing is marching. So I pretty often harken back to that moment now.

Charlye Michelle (28:36)
Mm-hmm.

Kimjamin (28:58)
them which they don't love but I don't love that I have to.

Charlye Michelle (29:00)
Mm. Mm.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Kimjamin (29:07)
Tell me about ants, unless you have more that you want to talk about with this.

Charlye Michelle (29:11)
Listen to me sitting here in like such a serious space and like listen and just kind of contemplating and and and then to turn around and be like, let me tell you about ants.

Kimjamin (29:30)
I think it's going to be a nice relief to pull some of this pressure out of the room and off of us. This gross feeling of being squashed. Speaking of squash, tell me about ants.

Charlye Michelle (29:34)
⁓ Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, because

Squash and ants. ⁓ my God.

Okay, so first of all, I grew up in a time where it was okay to commit small acts of violence. And I've already talked about accidentally hurt mass murdering bugs, you know, as a kid. But like even in school, I remember like there was one time we had ants in like science class and we like squished them and look at them under the microwave microscope and like.

Kimjamin (30:07)
Mass murder.

Charlye Michelle (30:27)
There was one class that got, ⁓ I say got to, I don't mean like I'm envious of this, let me preface. But what they had to do is put a grasshopper in the vacuum and then turned it on. So sorry, you talking about squishing ants reminded me.

Kimjamin (30:41)
my gosh.

my gosh, that's horrific.

Charlye Michelle (30:47)
I know! It's terrible.

Kimjamin (30:49)
I was in school

and we were still dissecting frogs that we had live first.

Charlye Michelle (30:53)
I did it.

no no no ours were dead. Did you have to kill it?

Kimjamin (30:57)
Ours weren't.

huh. I mean, they used like...

carbon dioxide or something. But yeah.

Charlye Michelle (31:05)
sure.

Did you know

some people have to dissect cats? I got a cousin who had to do that. I don't know if I could.

Kimjamin (31:15)
I did not.

We did a cow

eye, but I stayed away from the cats. And I stayed out of the... In OTA school, there were cadaver labs and I called in sick every day we had those. can't. Human, yeah, I can't.

Charlye Michelle (31:20)
Mmm. I did it, I did it, I-

Ooh, yeah, yeah. Like human cadaver,

ooh, yeah, yikes. ⁓ And here's the thing, I understand it's necessary, especially if you're going into like a medical profession, but like I was in college to eventually drop out and become a podcaster. There was no way.

Kimjamin (31:48)
You

Charlye Michelle (31:51)
that I needed to see cadavers. ⁓ Let me tell you about ants. So why ants, first of all, is we've been talking about ants for some reason so much, and I've been editing stuff to get out on time while we're gone in Austin, so it feels like back to back to back. And I know as you guys listen to it, it's gonna be like a week apart each time, but to me, it's just all ants all the time, oops, all ants.

Kimjamin (31:56)
Tell me.

You

you

Charlye Michelle (32:19)
And I was like, ⁓ that sounds fun, especially talking about ant dirt and stuff like we did in the bonus. ⁓ So what people I feel will usually think about when they think about ants ⁓ is a level of annoyance. They're in your kitchen when you don't want them to be, they bite you, they're kind of ⁓ a blight upon your yard. But I think that there's a whole separate way that we can look at these things. And I think we can work with

ants and the spirit of ants and ant dirt in a way that is both about I don't even know I don't like to say the positive and the negative but like you know what I mean the attributes about ants that are like work structure patience industry cooperation ⁓ you know collective power and strength lifting the 10 times your own weight or whatever right and there's also the way to work with ants that's like

Kimjamin (33:02)
industry.

Yeah!

Charlye Michelle (33:16)
The stinging and the biting and the like itchy and the annoying, you know So I think they're multifaceted depending on what kind of work that you want to do and what kind of vibe you are trying to evoke from them. ⁓ Yeah, they live in this Really fascinating space that I think not a lot of things live within where you get on one hand abundance and industry like you said and on the other hand, it's like agitation and kind of almost like

can be like this baneful or gray or however you want to put it. The duality makes them just super interesting to me. I also want to say that ants were a big time special interest to me as a child. ⁓ Big ant lover. Of course, I feel like I don't remember a lot of the stuff that I was like, but I was, dude, if you sat down and talked about ants with me, I was over the moon. Brother, I wanted to be an ant. I played,

Kimjamin (34:05)
you

Charlye Michelle (34:13)
That game we talked about sim ant like my life fucking depended on it. I loved ants and I still do I think they're fascinating Core symbolism here that I want to when we strip everything away. We've got a teamwork and collective effort effort most ants Most ants don't work as like lone wolves. ⁓ they have power within their community their colony

And even though they are so very, very, very tiny, small, they can do tasks that are seemingly impossible for something of their size. Like you said, if you scuff that ant mound, the next day they've made like a new door or whatever. And it's like, you know the last time I made a door, Diligence and discipline. So these guys, they're constantly working and I'm not saying like,

Kimjamin (34:48)
Mm-hmm.

Charlye Michelle (35:08)
be about that hustle culture and you be constantly working. But I'm saying that they are.

not perceived as... There's other animals or insects in this group like roaches or flies that even though they're doing the same thing, they're not perceived in that same way. because roaches, flies, ants, these things are always constantly moving, constantly eating, reproducing. Like, you know, they're not sloths. They're not chilling out. They're like busy all the time, right? But I think that...

Spiritually this makes them to be like a little bit of an underestimated power. You know what I mean? They're tiny They can carry way more than you would expect ⁓ And I think that they live with with purpose, you know, and even though it looks random it is Always got a purpose and it always has something going on underneath it ⁓ And they also are incredibly resourceful. They adapt they store food they build

Kimjamin (35:54)
Mm-hmm.

Charlye Michelle (36:13)
emergency rooms, they respond to things going on in their environment. ⁓ They are deeply, they build an emergency room. No.

Kimjamin (36:18)
Wait, did they build emergency rooms?

That's so

cool!

Charlye Michelle (36:26)
They will they they some ants do have certain like little chambers so, you know They've got like this is the room where we keep the eggs and this is the room where we keep the dead bodies They like separate their dead, you know, I their little gravy grave and this is the Queen's room and this is where we keep larvae like they're super organized and they do have ⁓ like After they go to war if you will they will have certain areas where they kind of post up

Kimjamin (36:38)
of a mortuary.

Charlye Michelle (36:55)
in this emergency room, in this little room that they are using where other ants will come along. See, this is the special, just me slipping out. Other ants will come along and with their saliva, their ant saliva, they like lick and like Edward Cullen, they've got venom in their little dirty mouths. And when they lick, it seals off this like ⁓ ant that might have had its leg pulled off or whatever, right? So it like seals it off. And then that ant...

is basically good to get up and go back out the door and start fighting again. So they've got like nurses or they like, yeah, I love ants dude. ⁓ But they are not all hustle culture, girl boss all the time energy. Like we have that shadow side of ants that can look like compulsive overworking.

Kimjamin (37:28)
That's cool. I wonder if they have occupational therapies.

Charlye Michelle (37:48)
⁓ Losing yourself in duty losing individuality I even included a crawling sense of anxiety in here and lack of boundaries so Again that duality with the ant. Yeah Get out of my house. I do I do everything I can to not kill an ant. I will like listen

Kimjamin (38:02)
Yeah. Stay out of my bed.

Rude.

Charlye Michelle (38:17)
when I was a kid, I would look at the amp and I would let him bite me because I thought it was so fascinating to watch how they did it. And I would just be like.

Yeah, I should have been diagnosed earlier.

Kimjamin (38:37)
man, I can think of how bad I swell up.

Charlye Michelle (38:38)
⁓

See, I think that's part of it. don't, I do swell up, you know, but not like super bad or anything. I'm very lucky in that way. Bugs don't do much to me. Poor fucking Macy could look at like a stinging animal and swell up. Did you ever see that? Didn't it look like a hot dog? Sourdough, if you poke it, it's gonna open.

Kimjamin (38:53)
I know the picture of her foot that she said me. my god

It looked like an overproof loaf of bread.

Yeah! ⁓

Charlye Michelle (39:11)
Yeah. So I totally get it if you're creeping and crawling right now, if you're not into it. So this makes ant energy very energy because this energy can show up as get your shit together. It can show up as build something, but build it like slowly and steadily. And it can show up as there is something happening underneath the surface that needs to be dealt with. So. ⁓

A lot of this ant symbolism that exists and like I was really surprised to see, I don't know why I was surprised to see how much ant like lore is out there in the world and like folk traditions and different things that you can do across the entire world because everywhere has ants, you know, but ⁓ so their colony structure, they live in highly, highly organized societies. They have divisions of like labor, ⁓ different ants have different roles. So this

brings about symbolism for social order, for labor systems, cooperation, shared purposes. They communicate through their pheromones, which I will never understand, but I think it's so cool. ⁓ Leave the little trails that give complex signals to each other. Dude, you ever see a line of ants walking? I love to take my finger and right into my mouth as I sleep.

Kimjamin (40:27)
Yes. Into my fucking bed. ⁓

my god.

Charlye Michelle (40:35)
Have you ever eaten ants?

Kimjamin (40:37)
not on purpose.

Charlye Michelle (40:39)
⁓ gross. Hate that.

Kimjamin (40:43)
Would you like it if I had meant to?

Charlye Michelle (40:43)
But you've never.

Yeah, well, you know, they like, you know, there's there like a snack, some of the larger ants, I guess I can, you know.

Kimjamin (40:51)
No, I haven't had any of this. I have never eaten

bugs that I know of.

Charlye Michelle (40:57)
I I have either. I wouldn't mind it as long as it's not juicy. I'm not I'm not for a juicy bug

Kimjamin (41:01)
I'll bring the larvettes

when we go to Austin.

Charlye Michelle (41:04)
Ooh, listen, here's the thing. So much of the world's hunger could be solved if we had more insects. That said, I only want it if it's toasted and seasoned. I'm not gonna slurp an earthworm. ⁓

Kimjamin (41:06)
I'm not eating that.

I agree. I agree.

I don't, can't

eat a ate a live cockroach once. I think it still has, we still have video of it on YouTube.

Charlye Michelle (41:31)
listen.

Kimjamin (41:33)
was a dare.

Charlye Michelle (41:35)
⁓ of course it was.

All of my postulating about let's eat more bugs for the sake of world, that goes down the turlet when it's about a roach, dude. There are a few things.

Kimjamin (41:48)
Yeah. I mean, it was a feeder roach. It

was not like your German cockroach infesting your house roach. It was a feeder specifically bred for that.

Charlye Michelle (41:56)
I don't care what

it was. I don't care. It's gross.

There are, I think two or three bugs that I put aside my, I don't kill any life. know, cockroaches, dead on site. Gnats, dead on site. I'll think of something else, I'm sure. I hate gnats. Okay.

Kimjamin (42:13)
Mm-hmm.

Poor Natalie. Just trying to be your friend.

Charlye Michelle (42:24)
Dude, Natalie has

reincarnated so many times because I'm merc that hoe every time I see her on site. Anyway, mosquitoes. Yeah, I don't like mosquitoes. Although I don't like to smack them when they're on my body because it freaks me out that they've bitten other people and I don't want their blood. It's gross. It's a whole thing. Anyway, ⁓ ants.

Kimjamin (42:32)
Mosquitoes.

Sorry.

Charlye Michelle (42:50)
Hidden language, hidden language energy. That's it. They just have this code that they can use. And I like the idea of using an ant as a symbol of your secret code that you're... I don't have use for a secret code, but I know in middle school, me and my friend would write about cute boys and we would use code. I don't know, maybe if you're listening to this in your middle school and you want to talk about people.

Kimjamin (42:52)
yeah yeah yeah!

Charlye Michelle (43:20)
use ant code. Anyway, ants gather resources efficiently.

Kimjamin (43:22)
I'm

That Marco

this morning where you thought it was so funny now makes more sense. My secret code and then I laughed.

Charlye Michelle (43:31)
Wait, which one, which one?

⁓ yeah.

You did! You were like, secret code! HAHAHA!

⁓ I'm getting red, okay. Ants are efficient and they prepare for future scarcity, which is why they are tied to prosperity. Foresight, planning ahead, work that you can do now that pays off later. When an ant is threatened, the colony will swarm. They defend their home aggressively.

They defend their selves and their other aunts aggressively. This ties them to protection, defensive ⁓ magic, any kind of protecting of your things, your family, your friends, your home, your livelihood, your whatever.

Kimjamin (44:26)
it

Ants have a Taurus moon. And they might be, I mean, ants have an Aries moon and they might be Taurus. But also Capricorn rising. Taurus Sun, Aries moon, Capricorn rising.

Charlye Michelle (44:38)
There you go.

I was gonna say, wait, I have a Taurus moon and I-

There we go.

You're an ant. You're ant, Kymothy.

Kimjamin (44:55)
I don't have a Capricorn rising, I'm Gemini

rising. That's why we're on this podcast.

Charlye Michelle (45:01)
God, ⁓

Kimjamin (45:03)
Holy crap, so when

you used that ant dirt in that sub-el, that is such a, I'm doing that from now on. Because like I said, the colony under my freakin' property is like two acres. Holy shit. California Lorge. And no, that's not here. This is just my ants in my yard.

Charlye Michelle (45:11)
I ants, I love antarrhin.

Yeah, the California fat ass, what was it called?

Lorge, right.

No, I know,

but I just wanted to say it.

ants also have a very important ecological role. They help with decomposition, seed dispersal, soil turnover, pest control. They do eat other pests. and they're not just like random little shit ass gnats that don't do anything. They have a job and they work hard at it. They're earth aligned, unlike, ⁓ unlike a fucking mosquito. And they are the unseen label labor that helps sustain life.

Kimjamin (45:45)
you

Charlye Michelle (46:00)
I have some folklore across different religions for you. Biblical association. So ants show up in proverbs as examples of diligence and preparation. ⁓ Basically, that proverb is saying, be like an ant, stop being lazy, which I don't agree with, but that's what it says. Greek, ⁓ in some Greek traditions, are associated with agricultural power, labor, transformation.

They're also tied to stories where human or human ish type people emerged from ant origins ⁓ Let's see ⁓ in some indigenous stories, especially excuse me for my throat noise there the Hopi tradition connect ⁓ They connect ant beings with survival and underground refuge ⁓ and wisdom during Catastrophe, which I think is so cool ⁓

Kimjamin (46:52)
Hmm.

Charlye Michelle (46:57)
In some traditions in ⁓ African symbolism, are tied to weather reading, farming cycles and preparation. Their movement can be interpreted as a sign of changing conditions because ants live underground. They don't like to get drowned. ⁓ When something's coming, they will dig deeper or migrate or move the queen. Have you ever kicked into a, again, as a child?

kicked into an anthill and watched what they do. Like the first thing they do is they grab their eggs and their larva and the things that can't move and they move them deeper into the ground. I just think that's so cool. ⁓ Depending on the context, ants can also represent material attachment in some Buddhist symbology. ⁓ They can be attached to humility or the idea that something very small is still a part of the divine and something much larger. If you see

Kimjamin (47:26)
Mm-hmm.

Charlye Michelle (47:53)
Ants, especially in large numbers, common spiritual interpretations. Listen here, you're seeing them in your bed all the time? This is what it could mean, Kim, pay attention. Your home or home energy means cleansing. Something small is accumulating into a large problem. You need more structure in your life.

Kimjamin (48:20)
Why are you attacking me specifically right now? ⁓ my god. I feel attacked AF.

Charlye Michelle (48:22)
I am looking at it at you. Kim, Kim, you need to think more long term.

Kimjamin (48:32)
I you!

Charlye Michelle (48:33)
But

however, there's other symbolism. Your efforts are working even if the progress feels tiny. Community matters more than pride right now. And irritation or conflict is building under the surface. ⁓ Clean your house.

Kimjamin (48:48)
It's the first one.

Charlye Michelle (48:58)
Some people separate ants not into, like there's a billion different species, like not that far, but a lot of cultures, excuse me, who do like have symbolism for ants will separate them into black ants and red ants. ⁓ Or in the South, regular ants and fire ants, which I know isn't true, but that's what we say. Black ants usually read as stability, money, prosperity, productivity, progress.

red ants conflict pain danger hot energy ⁓ it's not obviously a universal LOVE this is all from folk symbolism but it does come up a lot if you're dreaming of ants they say that you are needing to connect with ⁓ your work routines what did you do your face

Kimjamin (49:47)
I I dropped something, dropped

one of my fidgets.

Charlye Michelle (49:52)
⁓ Let's see, ⁓ you could be too, if you're dreaming of ants, you could be too focused on material survival. You could be being urged to create order within your life. Now, into the metaphys. This is where things get especially layered because ants show up with like practical use in magic and more symbolic use in magic. So.

Associations with ants within the use of magic prosperity abundance business growth ⁓ success through repetition, you know, which is what I like to keep spell jars for because I think that they're a very repetitive very continuous energy so work ⁓ Promotions working with promotions anytime we have to be with people in a large structured ⁓ social setting protection of the home

defense or retaliatory workings because ants are typically not going to go out of their way to harm you. ⁓ They will on accident, you know, if they wander into your bed and feel like they are then being the ones attacked, they will bite you. But generally, if you're kicking over their little ant hill, they're gonna come bite you, you know. ⁓ Vengeance, the vengeance. ⁓

Kimjamin (51:11)
Vengeance.

Charlye Michelle (51:17)
Let's see. Ant Hill dirt can be used in a very practical way within magic. ⁓ It is treated as a powerful ingredient. I personally have I've said I've liked recently using the Ant Hill dirt, especially because it's spring now and they're it's starting. You're starting to see it more and more. And for some reason, and I couldn't get to the bottom of this, a lot of ant dirt prefers that you use, you know, when you see an ant hill that's just starting to form.

And there's like those big crumbles of dirt. Do you know what I mean? Instead of just like the mound of sand or whatever, it's like those big crumbly parts. I could not find the reason why, but it was preferred to use that type of anthill dirt. I don't know. ⁓ It combines energy of the earth. It combines the energy of the ant colony itself. It has essences of labor, defense and boundaries. There's also some of this like.

maybe underworld or like below the ground energy to.

There's the ethical side of this that if you're going to use Ant Hill dirt, do so respectfully, perhaps leave an offering. They love bacon. ⁓ Ants love meat. Dude, what did you say in the bonus? You were like, they love meat. I'm meat.

Kimjamin (52:43)
Just be like Charlye stick your finger down there let them know on you for a little bit

Charlye Michelle (52:46)
Yeah, yeah, get one and place them lovingly on your hand and let them bite you. Why wouldn't you do that?

Now we're, I want to get into some historical slash folk practices that I saw out there. Now, could you use this today? Sure. I'm not telling you what to fucking do. However, ants traditionally used in magic would cause discord in someone's home. If you wanted to shake someone's home up a little bit, it could be, they could be used to force someone to leave, cause confusion in others.

destroying the love of someone.

Kimjamin (53:31)
love.

Charlye Michelle (53:32)
love. Those all feel... I don't know.

Kimjamin (53:44)
You

Charlye Michelle (53:44)
I don't know, Grey.

Kimjamin (53:47)
Destroy the love.

Charlye Michelle (53:47)
but

love. well, I mean, and that's, we put some anthill dirt into our protection spell of the month. Check out our spells of the month over on patreon.com. ⁓

Kimjamin (53:56)
Yeah. Not to destroy the

love.

I might make myself a shirt that says with a picture of an ant that says destroy the LOVE

Charlye Michelle (54:10)
Destroy the love!

That's pretty tight.

Because ants live in the earth, we have, you know, this tunnel underground metric, you know the words I'm looking for. They consume decay, they help strip matter of the earth back. They can also be viewed as little tiny land spirits, ⁓ underground messengers, ⁓ death adjacent creatures, ⁓ transformers of what was dead back into what can be used again, recycle, rebirth. ⁓ So labor death.

⁓ rebuilding ⁓

Kimjamin (54:53)
They're little farmers. They grow the little mushrooms in their little underground gardens and they farm, they like milk aphids.

Charlye Michelle (54:55)
They're little farmers. They're little messengers, little farmers.

That's so gross to me. Afid milk, how much money would it take for you to half cup of a Afid milk? Yeah. Don't think about all the Afids that had to be milked to get that much. Okay. Yeah. A million dollars, half a cup.

Kimjamin (55:12)
Have a cup?

I don't care how many, I hate aphids, I don't care. I don't know. 500 mil, half

a mil.

Charlye Michelle (55:27)
Okay. Would you get sick? Yeah, probably.

Kimjamin (55:29)
Probably. Who cares? Good, then

I'll just vomit out and it won't matter.

Charlye Michelle (55:34)
Yeah, I'll throw it up and I'll say thanks for the 500,000 chump.

Kimjamin (55:38)
I know a folklore and fact. Fact in quotes.

So you know, you know the word that I can't deal with that starts with P and means P-E-E. Those kind of ants, do know why they're called that?

Charlye Michelle (55:47)
No, no, no, you take those quotes off, it's real.

Yes. Uh huh.

⁓ Like when you insult someone and call them that word. Why?

Kimjamin (56:04)
Yeah.

So it's actually medicinal because if your healer in the mountains thought that maybe you were diabetic, they would feed you a bunch of garbage that you shouldn't have if you're diabetic and then put your pee on an ant nest. if the ants, because

Charlye Michelle (56:20)
⁓

Kimjamin (56:30)
if you're a certain type of diabetic anyway. I don't remember if it's type one or two, but if there's a lot of sugar in your urine, then the ants will all try to get the, they'll collect and eat the sugar. And if they don't, then you're not that type of diabetic because there's not all that sugar in your urine, because your body processed it. And that's why they're called that. I don't know why that's an insult besides you're eating pee, but.

Charlye Michelle (56:54)
Yeah,

maybe that's like your your type of ant that would eat that huh

Kimjamin (56:58)
I

believe that is some Appalachian stuff, or maybe Ozark.

Charlye Michelle (57:02)
Interesting. Don't do this at home. See a doctor. ⁓ let's see. ⁓

Kimjamin (57:04)
No. Yeah.

I mean if you want to pee

in the ground that's your business but don't use it as a don't say I must be diabetic now or not just go see a doctor.

Charlye Michelle (57:20)
yeah,

sure. ⁓ There's an entity walking by my window a couple of times. It's somebody outside. ⁓ So ants are not glamorous. They're, you know, they're very like little machines and the magic that comes from them can be, can feel a little bit like repetition. ⁓

Kimjamin (57:27)
I don't like that.

Charlye Michelle (57:49)
the digilent that comes with protection or protection of the home or whatever, getting the job done, you know, it's not flowery and fun, but they do their little jobs and they love it.

Kimjamin (58:04)
I've watched lots of, I've watched many a documentary on ants. Like the honey ants, the ones that fill their butts full of sweet juice and just hang off the ceiling and other ants suck from them.

Charlye Michelle (58:05)
That's hands.

Yeah.

God, ants can be so gross.

Did you ever watch that movie Ants? The animated film with Woody Allen? Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. Did you ever have an ant farm?

Kimjamin (58:27)
No, because it's animated. Ew. Even more reason to not. No.

Mm-hmm.

It wasn't for them. I also had sea monkeys. None of that is good.

Charlye Michelle (58:46)
you

God, I love to see monkeys.

Kimjamin (58:51)
Do you know they sold

sea monkeys at Aldi recently?

Charlye Michelle (58:55)
Really? Was it me there?

Kimjamin (58:56)
And there were all these people, there were all these people.

I'm in this group, ⁓ the Isle of Shame, the All the Isle of Shame or something like that, a bunch of them.

Charlye Michelle (59:13)
Dude... the way I would probably still get sea monkeys.

Kimjamin (59:17)
Me too.

If I was in an Aldi and we had Aldi in town, would. Mm-hmm. Yep. Because those fricking ads on the back of old comics made them look so fucking cool.

Charlye Michelle (59:21)
If they had a sea monkey, I'd scream and I'd get one.

that they would actually play with balls and shit and you could get all the little accessories I remember I once I ordered the watch or maybe it was a necklace I don't remember I think it was a watch and you could you would suck up your favorite sea monkey and you put it and they would fucking die you put them in a in a thing this big that you slosh around all day

Kimjamin (59:32)
Thank

Yes.

Yup, they had both. Yes! And then watch them become deceased as you wear them.

Hahaha

It's fun!

Charlye Michelle (1:00:00)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah, and then they put a tiny magnifying glass so you can see it up close get fucking blasted to smithereens

Kimjamin (1:00:11)
Humans are fucked.

Charlye Michelle (1:00:12)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, love to look at smaller things and go, that'll be fun to kill. Yeah.

Kimjamin (1:00:17)
Eww!

What can we do to it?

Charlye Michelle (1:00:21)
Yeah

What happens if we let it drink nothing but Dr. Pepper for a week? Yeah.

Kimjamin (1:00:26)
You

If we cut its head off will it still be alive? Ew it does!

core bugs.

Charlye Michelle (1:00:38)
is the fact you'll learn about in kindergarten for the next, you know, millennia.

Kimjamin (1:00:43)
Using, that's

really cool. I'm gonna be using ant magic now. That's cool.

Charlye Michelle (1:00:49)
⁓

yeah, I love it. I love it. It started with the dirt and then in reading all of the symbolism and everything else. that's sick. Wow, you know what else I like? Same wavelength I was gonna say. I like getting them prints.

Kimjamin (1:01:00)
like it. Everybody go get your prints.

It is so pretty!

Charlye Michelle (1:01:12)
It is very cool. It's very cool. ⁓ Lera has inspiration behind it that is also very cool. And I need to remember to get that quote from her about the inspiration because I hope I don't forget. But check it out. They're not going to be available much longer. It is available on a merch store. Link below. All those things. I got to get the hell out of this room.

Kimjamin (1:01:19)
Mm-hmm.

Me too, I'm sweating like so hard. Okay, everybody go to the merch store and get the print. Watch for that weird aunt shirt. Okay, bye.

Charlye Michelle (1:01:35)
I'm sweating, I gotta pee and I I don't wanna be here.

Kimjamin (1:01:52)
We did it!

Charlye Michelle (1:01:52)
this.