Farming With Moon Magik, The Cunning Farmer Episode 5

In this fifth episode of The Cunning Farmer, Todd Elliott and I tromp-on through Chapter 5 (Moon Work) of his pivotal book, The Cunning Farmer: Agrarian Magical Practices, Mythology, and Folklore, discussing Lunar magic, Moon phases and Mansions, the worldview necessary to hold this, and how to integrate the Lunar Calendar into your agricultural practices.

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The Cunning Farmer

A guide to restoring the ancient relationship between farming and magic

• Explores how to reconnect with nature and use practical, nature-based magic for gardening and farming, fertility, and abundance
• Examines Moon work, plant magic, forest deities, Earth energies, weather magic, the cosmology of ritual, and how to work with land spirits
• Discusses folk magic traditions of North America and Western Europe, including the grimoire tradition, Western esotericism, alchemy, Kabbalah, and shamanism as well as Taoist principles and Reiki

Magic and farming, in the minds of ancient people, were not separate realms of life, but both were woven inextricably into the way people lived. Through libations, prayers, hymns, dances, sacrifices, and rituals, ancient farmers connected to the sacred forces, the gods, nature spirits, and ancestors to make the crops grow, keep the herds healthy, the weather favorable, and release energies of fertility. These rural farmer priests and priestesses of the ancient past are the spiritual ancestors of today’s cunning farmers.

This book explores folk magic traditions of North America and Western Europe, including the grimoire tradition and the practices of witches and cunning folk for increased fertility. Todd draws on Western esotericism, Taoist principles, alchemy, Kabbalah, Reiki, and shamanism to show how to use practical, nature-based magic, just like our ancestors, for more abundant gardening and farming. He shows how to work with land spirits, including meeting the place spirit of your land—the genius loci. He also explores working with Earth and Moon energies, plant magic and forest deities, and ritual. Learn how to deepen your connection to elemental and celestial forces and explore the idea of rewilding the imagination to enhance your relationship with nature and the spirits that call it home.

Transcript

Hiatus, Drought, And Farming Reality

D. Ffrith Griffith 0:05

This is Unchad. Thanks for being here. This is the uh fifth episode in the Cunning Farmer series with my dear friend Todd Elliott. We have uh taken an unexpected hiatus from releasing these episodes due to busyness on my end. I apologize for that. I've received a lot of messages from eager listeners who have purchased the book and uh are trying to read through it with us. And oh life got in the way. I apologize. Um long have we tried to figure out how to manage the podcast and the recording and the editing and make all of the monies work and the maths math, and sometimes it just gets a little bit too pregnant for us to manage. This year, 2026, this spring has been absolutely an atrocious ecological disaster for most farmers. In the summer, recording this in the middle of June is uh no better. Um, Virginia, where we, my wife and I, we have farmed for 10 years straight now. Um, is in one of the worst droughts we've seen, and it just takes an ex extra level of care uh to get the animals and the lands and the waters through it in such a way that it's present enough to allow those systems to be free and autonomous as we strive for them to be even in the agricultural landscape while also yet productive uh for the uh monies of the farm business. So that is way too many words uh of an apology, but the apology is yours. Uh we hope to get back into the swing of releasing an episode every week or every other week with uh Todd here shortly. And so uh this this this this chapter or this episode about this chapter, we're dealing with chapter five. If you've been following along with us, uh we are on chapter five titled Moon Work, Using the Power of the Moon for Magic and Planting. Uh Todd and I, in the episode, we talk a little bit about the moon and uh and and the work of the moon. And we also talk a lot about the worldview, the philosophy of viewing the mu the moon as something uh as someone, I should say, that is working, that you can work with. And then what does that mean, etc.? And uh so I encourage you go get the book The Cunning Farmer by Todd Elliott. It's a beautiful book, so many good pictures, beautiful, large hardcover, uh textbook-like book, but it doesn't have that textbook-like feel. There's so much information in this book that Todd has curated and and uh wrote for us. I encourage you to pick up a copy, read through it with us. And uh if you do that, go back to episode one uh five episodes ago and and dive in and read the book with us. I think a lot of people are getting a lot out of it, um, an unexpected amount out of it, which is which is really cool. These cura or conversations uh seemingly have uh been able to instill a little bit of power, and and that's really cool in a powerless world or a world that makes us feel so powerless. And

Launching A New Mythology Podcast

D. Ffrith Griffith 3:13

before we jump into today's conversation with Todd, a quick note. Unshod has been our podcast, our singular podcast for a number of years now. I think we're going on four, which is crazy to think about. We have released a new podcast. It's a thing all by itself. It's a container, a cauldron, if you will. Uh, it's titled The Language of Irish Mythology. It is a podcast entirely dedicated to the tellings of Irish mythology, but also the let's call it the inventive linguistic study of the language within that Irish mythology. Every episode we are releasing uh a bifold, I don't want to call it an episode, but a bifold experience, where in the first part of the experience or the episode uh is an oral telling of the mythology at hand. And then the second uh part, the second fold, is about a 30 to 60 minute in-depth study of what we just read. And so if you're a fan of mythology, if you're a fan of Irish mythology, if you're a fan of language, if the studying of the language in mythology means anything to you, check it out. It's called the Language of Irish Mythology Podcast. We're on Substack, uh, basically of the same name. The link is in the show notes here. And all of the episodes, conversations, the the in-depth inventive study, as I said, it's all written out uh on the Substack as well. So you don't even have to listen to the podcast episode. If reading is your thing, it's all it's all there. All of the resources and the footnotes and the recommended readings and the links to everything, it's it's all in the Substack. And so again, if mythology in the language of mythology is your thing, especially from an Irish perspective or general insular Celtic perspective, check it out. The Language of Irish Mythology podcast. Link is in the show notes. Without further ado, let's jump into today's episode with Todd Elliott.

Defining Astrological Magic Without Fantasy

D. Ffrith Griffith 5:33

On the first page of chapter five, if you will, um I think something that I would love to hear you describe your worldview or your viewpoint of, especially in view of the writing of this book, is magic, I think, is perceived as like elemental list force. It's like it's like this force that doesn't have the elements to it, right? It's like in in fairy folk type stories and fantasy and science fiction, magic is this like escape mechanism. It's like this ability to do something that isn't rationally viable or intellectually understandable. So I guess you might you might say that's the cultural understanding of magic in in and on page 64. Um, it I guess you would say it stands against reason or intellect or science. Maybe that's true. Not you, but this cultural definition of magic. But you write that um astrological magic helps teach us a different way of seeing the world that looks beneath the surface of things in order to grasp the energetics underlying the physical world. And and it seems that, and and maybe you can just help unfurl this for us, but it seems that in your view, astrological magic is not a counterpoint or a maybe a balancing mechanism, but like another aspect of the fabric of Earth, just as reason or observation or the soft sciences might be. How do you see that? Could you describe that better, maybe, than I am?

Todd Elloitt 7:15

A mental, uh, an intellectual is not is the English word for noetic. We talked about how there was a layer of reality, an occult layer of reality, uh uh a way that everything is related and connected on like a thematic basis that you know might have been something what Young was trying to describe with his theory of synchronicity. So I think what I was getting at there is when we talked about our theory of astrolog well, my theory, or the theory, not mine, as I understand it of how astrology works, about how themes come into our lives from the mind of God, as it were. Um I think magic is kind of working back up to the chain. Up I mean, uh you know, we would put together as as we talked about last time the the right symbolism, the right timing, and we're we're trying to send a message back up so it changes effects in our life back down. It's like procession and return, it goes back up. And I again the spatial metaphor should be really held lightly because God is not above us, but around us and within us. So I'm not it's just a metaphor to m to grasp the ungrassable, but we're trying to consciously work with the thematic elements to bring about those changes in our life that we want to happen. So it's not like I don't know, Dungeons and Dragons when the wizard casts a fireball. I maybe somebody can do that, I don't know. But uh astrological magic is like is working working with symbols and ritual and timing and divine powers in order to cause or effect change across the world, across the levels. So I I think that's what I'm getting there. I I don't know if I'm explaining it really well because it's a it's a really difficult and um uh to concept to put into words. Um and when I when I I think about Heraclitus, what he said, the the latent structure is the I don't know how he said this in Greek, but in one translation is latent structure is the master of obvious structure. So there's like a there's like a hidden way that they all things are linked together, and that's what we're working with, is the is the hidden chains that the ancient the ancient authors call them chains of causation.

Lunar Tides As A Model

D. Ffrith Griffith 9:44

I I think there's there's there's uh uh the obvious spirit to it, which is held and sacred in the left hand. But do you think it's cheap to also look at it as like a sailor uh in the sea? Like I think sailors have sailed with tides and and and and and things for many thousands and thousands of years, right? But the tide is obviously controlled by the moon, just as planting could be controlled as the moon. But I think planting via the moon is seen as a cult, whereas sailors sailing with the moon is seen as intelligence.

Todd Elloitt 10:18

No, I how is it any different? I think tides is is the same thing. Uh you know, when we if you if you've lived around the ocean with you know, or uh been near the ocean, you know that the there's high tide and low tide twice a day. Right, there's two high tides in a 24-hour period and two low tides, and and what that actually is. The high tide comes if I'm if I'm right, the high tide comes shortly after the moon. Shortly after the moon is directly overhead, and shortly after is it every six hours that there's a high tide every 12 hours, yeah. And it's low tide. Well anyway, we're working with plant tides, yes, energetic tides. Um so so when the moon is directly overhead, shortly after it's pulling all the water on that side of the earth to that to that side of the earth. And when it is setting or rising, it's also pulling, it's pulling all the water. So you have low tide when it's rising or setting, and then you have high tide when it's culminating or um when it's in the descendant, when it's under on the other side of the earth. There's a word I can't remember the word for it, culminating or I can't remember the astrological term right now, getting drawing a blank. But um, yeah, so those are the that you have the tides directly related to the position of the moon. So yeah, it's the same thing, it's the tides. So Jupiter also rises and culminates, sets, and and is and is in the nadir or in the i uh the imum chale, the other side of the world also, for instance, the planets are like that. So we're working with planetary tides in addition to lunar tides. Yeah, that's a good that's a good example. And for some reason, when we work with the physical tides of the moon, that's not magic, that's science.

D. Ffrith Griffith 12:02

It's the observational evidence of the ocean currents that makes moon or lunar magic over water self-evidently true across civilization. Whereas what a lot of what you're writing and what this podcast is covering with you in terms of magic isn't perceived as such. But it's always it's just it's it's very interesting to me that it isn't, you know, and in I I think a lot could be said about religion and other things. Like I think there's a lot of um I don't say orthodoxy uh in any other way, but in the true sense of the term. But there's a lot of orthodoxy that gets in the way of observable, uh observable realities, a a lens that maybe blurs when it should clear. And and and I think that's a lot of what people have to work through when they approach uh people like yourself or or books like um you like you've written here in The Cunning Farmer, where I think people see the chapter title, you know, Moon Work, chapter five, using the power of the moon for magic and planting. But if this would just say good seamanship or how to sail a boat on the open ocean, like it it would be perceived totally different. And and and getting through that hypertension, you know, in our religion religious veins or whatever you want to call it, I think is a stumbling block for a lot of people.

Todd Elloitt 13:26

For modern people, yeah. I don't I don't think this would have been any for people before, say, the Enlightenment, and even for common people during the Enlightenment, um, I don't think it would have been anything shocking to know that the moon to think that the moon and the and the planets control or control or um influence life here on Earth. I and I think I think ancient people and medieval people took that as a as a an article of science or fact rather than faith. Well we we more have to relearn those ways of seeing, seeing thematically uh and and astrology teaches us to see thematically, to look at our lives according to the symbolism of the planets and see how they fit. Once you start to do that, it can be very striking how planetary and lunar movements influence your life and how they're repeatable and predictable.

Learning A New Way Of Seeing

D. Ffrith Griffith 14:21

It it it uh it makes me wonder if it's asking us what lunar astrology or just astrology or this cunning magic, if you will, in terms of agricultural or agrarian practices. I wonder if what it's asking us, um, and I if you've written this through this in this book and I've missed it, you know, just highlight that fact. But um, I wonder if it asks us to don a new form, an old form, but a new form to us, in the sense that when people walk outside and it's warm, we can all accept the fact that this is a uh an astro uh astrological arrangement of the sun and the tilt of the earth, right, on our hemispheres, and we can feel the sun on our skin and we can say that it affects us and too much sun on the skin burns us, and too little sun on the skin, you know, basically denudes us of of life-giving nutrients. And in that sense, we're photosynthetic plants or at least akin to them, and and and we can accept all of these things, and we can even accept the fact scientifically that plants grow via that photosynthesis and the carbon exchange and other things. And while we will never be able to fully understand the power of sunlight in a plant, we can accept it as a scientific reality. But to say that the sun is a star and that other stars have similar power over us as the sun, which we all accept, but to extend that into the rest of the cosmos seems to be a tipping point, or maybe a tripping point, better said, for so many people, modern people, as as you highlight. And I wonder if if it's really just asking to have a new form, like in order to really understand astrological magic or agrarian folk magic or something, it's rather not just to don the the body, the modern body that you have that feels the sunlight and accepts that, but also to step into a new plane, right? To have new eyes, to have a new language, to have a new sensory structure, to have a new autonomous nervous system or circulatory system. Like there's more there than we can perceive in this one body alone. And just as you perceive in that one body, perceive in the others as well. Like it's like an invitation into a bigger being that doesn't just happen to be the clay that you dine your bones with.

Todd Elloitt 16:33

I mean, I think that's a central theme of the book. I don't know if it's anywhere in one particular place uh is to is to expand our worldview to the point where we can see all things as being connected to from the furthest planets and stars to our to our earthly life here and and the things right next to us. So I think that's a central premise is that we have to have a new way of seeing. I I don't know exactly where I put that into words, but I'm page 33.

D. Ffrith Griffith 16:59

I have a sticky note in the book here. In chapter three, first principles principles of a magical worldview, you get to something like this point. Um, you're talking about the insold cosmos and the interconnected cosmos and the symbolic framework that expresses these events in the material world. Those are all your words on page 33. So if you're reading along and you want to see where this is, at least in the materials that we've covered thus far in the podcast, it it it is on page 33.

Todd Elloitt 17:26

And and then you you mentioned the sun and its undeniable uh astral influence. The sun is a star that is our is the closest star to us and is the source of all energy and life and it's its motions and its declinations and its well, I mean, we now know that the earth is wobbling on its axis, you know, and we we now know it's a it's a variation in the axial tilt or in the position of the earth uh relative to the sun and and the angle of the sun, relative to the earth that makes the seasons, but that is the foundation of tropical astrology. So when the umy, who we quote in this chapter, talks about the moon in the Temple of Riblos, he also talks about how the seasons are the the solar the variations in solar energy and intensity in the seasons are the foundation for the symbolism of the tropical zodiac. So for instance, the sun has his domicile, the sun where he's the most powerful in Leo, and it just so happens that the sun is the most powerful in June from June from uh in July. In July in August is at its peak energy. He reaches his his the solstice is in June in Cancer when the sun moves into cancer, but it's not quite at its most powerful then. It's still the energy is still increasing, increasing, increasing. It reaches its peak in late July and August. That's the hottest time of the year. Those are the dog days, and that is when summer is at its peak. So that's the domicile of the sun. And then I I believe when it goes in when it starts getting weaker, noticeably weaker, it's when the sun enters in the Libra, that's when the sun is in fall, and and then it goes into it, it's one of its weaker signs is Capricorn when it's a winter solstice, when it's you know, not further away, but when it's furthest to the when the sun is in the south, you know, when this it's summer in the southern hemisphere and winter in the northern hemisphere. This of course the tropical system applies to the northern hemisphere mostly because it was developed there. Now people in the south in the southern latitudes have to do things that have to do the opposite, but it's the symbolism, you know, it's it still works, but you have to you have to adjust it a little bit. So, yeah, the sun and its noticeable changes in energies forms the foundation of the symbolism.

Solar Seasons, Domiciles, And Climate Chaos

D. Ffrith Griffith 20:05

Talking about like the domiciles on page 74 in this chapter, not that I'm gonna reference too much there, but I don't know. I think it's helpful for some for people reading along. On page 74, you're talking about the domiciles and so much, I think, of climate chaos. I mean, you and I can do as as full-time farmers for decades, you and I can have a whole conversation about climate change or whatever, and I have no interest in it. But to briefly bring it up, to taste it, I think so much of climate chaos is the divergence between these expected astrological domiciles or or abodes or expectations or solstices or whatever with the evolutionary norm that our biology expects, right? So for instance, it's not a problem that in April it's 100 degrees. This is just not against the rule book. There is no rule book, but the problem exists that our evolutionary biology, our norms have expected April to understand a particular cosmological arrangement of exposure, of heat, of warmth, of energy. The fact that we're getting August energy in April throws everybody askew, right? This is the chaos of climate evolution or change or distortion or degeneration or whatever scientists you want to talk to is a different term. And and so it's interesting in that way because I think moving from left to right or maybe from top to bottom, I should say it that way, moving from the cosmos to Earth, a lot of people, I think, struggle to see astrology as uh potent to their lives, right? But moving from Earth to the to the to the cosmos to astrology in the reverse order, everybody gets it. Everybody understands that August and April is a problem, but nobody understands that August and April not being reflected in the in the astrological arrangement, that that that also has metaphysical and physical ramifications, right? And so looking at it from our perspective. As humans, that is to say, domestic, bipedal, narrow-eyed hunters planted on Earth looking into the cosmos, it's hard for us to understand how these two things are connected. And yet at the same time, we feel climate chaos and we feel August and April, and we feel the solstice not being the hottest time of the year. And sorry, the the times burgeoning after the solstice as being the hottest dog days or times of the year where the solar exposure is the greatest and the tilt is, you know, at its peak and such. And and and I and I think that goes back to what we're saying about donning a new form. I think what magic and this cunning folk agrarianism is asking, which you ask in this book, is not just to be modern humans, but but to also step back into an older sense of feeling, which that empathy, that feeling requires, I think, especially as a man in the 21st century, maybe a man in the 20 and 21st century, is not necessarily something we've cultivated. And so, like it's interesting that empathy and feeling is so akin to practical magic, um, that without it, it's almost impossible to accept it.

Todd Elloitt 23:10

Interestingly, April, when the sun goes into the sign of Aries on March 21st, and until April 21st, or there's something like that. Um that is the exaltation of the sun. The sun is also very powerful, essentially dignified in in March, late March and early April. Um, interestingly enough, it coincidentally at this particular time, we had a whole lot of other planets in Aries as well. So there was a lot of hot. And and I don't know if this was happening globally, but where you are and where I am, we did have August and April, and now we're having what March in May. Um, and we had a whole lot of hot and dry energy with the sun. We had Mars there in Aries. Is Mars still in Aries? Sorry, I've I've been so down to Earth recently, I've lost touch with with the planets a little bit because I've been so comp consumed with uh Mars is still in Aries. We but we still we we had Mercury there, Venus there, um, the sun was there, Mars, Saturn, Neptune was there. Uh Mars has a hot and dry energy, he's still there, but but the sun has moved into Taurus. So the combination of Mars and the Sun and Aries, I mean, you could say was Mars was giving a boost to the sun's hot and dry energy, um, which the sun is pretty getting pretty strong in Aries anyway, which is which is why it's his exaltation. Um so that's that's one thing that

Holding Science And Spirit Together

Todd Elloitt 24:44

came up. And then the other thing that you came up, I think I say it in a couple of places in the book, is that we all we have to hold this old other this older way of seeing, this this ancient way of seeing as a as a as a way of seeing into spiritual realities, if not a way of seeing into physical realities. Like we can there's a little bit of cognitive dissonance being a 21st century modern person who believes in science and the heliocentric cosmos and uh the infinite expanding universe and the 14 billion-year-old uh universe and things like that. That we that we have to hold intention our scientific worldview and this traditional worldview that describes our spiritual or magical cosmos. Um I'm not I I I could I'm I work on that myself. I think that I think that's the key is to is to be able to be able to work, use those, hold on to both of those viewpoints, um, the older and the the current. I I don't I know there's some people there that believe that the earth is flat and that you know it literally is we live in a we literally live in a geocentric cosmos and the firmaments above and the abyss is below, and I I don't I don't see that personally. Um and but I I do believe that that's that's the way our deep minds work. We talk we talk about there's two like that there's multiple orders of of being or facts, and to to there's a phrase I'm trying I'm trying to category error. When you're trying to like apply the logic of one order of facts to another order of facts, um I think some philosophers would call that a category error. Like, I don't think that science and and spirituality deal with the same order of facts. Uh which isn't to say, which isn't to say that I think spirituality is a neat little category and science is a neat little category. I actually I actually think that that there's a, as I've said even in the in this interview today, I actually think that there's a spiritual, for lack of a better word, or a formative layer, a thematic layer that organizes the physical on some subtle way. But there are two distinct orders of reasoning that we need to approach them with. And you can't apply, oh, all this, I can't measure it with a I can't measure it with a scale, or even even to try to get it with statistics is difficult. Like all the scientific tools in our in our toolkit struggle to get at the facts of the archetypal or spiritual reality that we're trying to talk about here.

D. Ffrith Griffith 27:35

There's this, I think it's in I I could be wrong on this. I think it's in the Voyage of the Don Treader, C. S. Lewis's maybe fourth book in his um Chronicles of Narnia series. I haven't read it in decades, so I could be wrong on that. But there's this there's this point in it that's really interesting. And I bring this example up because Lewis is such an outspoken he is so outspoken in the religious community, I'll say it like that. And it's a very interesting thing because the separation between magic and science, uh, that is to say, the equal holding of these two things, it it's not necessarily akin to a lot of the modern churches in in interaction with life. I I think uh stumbling a bit there, but I think that's pretty close to being very accurate of a statement. It could be off just a hair or two, but I think generally the evangelical modern church is not um not vibing, you know, with subjects like this. I know some Orthodox Christians um that obviously are gonna have their their I mean, like the there's so much nuance there. But the point is, Lewis is is obviously a proponent of a particular sect of of of modern religiosity. But anyways, in the void of the dawn treader, there's this moment, I believe, um Radagast.

Todd Elloitt 28:53

Get back to him in a minute.

D. Ffrith Griffith 28:54

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, and there's this there's this moment where I believe it is a character named Radagast. He meets this man, this old man, hunched over, old figure, and the and the old figure introduces himself as a star, a fallen star. And Radagast or some whatever the character is, he says, Oh, I know what that, I know, I know what a star is. And he says, No, you're no, you know what I'm made of, but you do not know who I am. Uh-huh. And there's this big moment where the science of stars is unequated to the being of stars, the essence of stars, the magic of stars, the spirit of

Planets As Gods Without Worship

D. Ffrith Griffith 29:31

stars.

Todd Elloitt 29:31

Yeah. He uh Lewis wrote a book called The Discarded. I I have it, thank God. I have it, it's out of print. Uh he wrote this book. It stays here on my shelf because it's really cool. Oh, wow. The discarded image. Is it reversed?

D. Ffrith Griffith 29:46

Yeah, no, it's it's actually not for some reason. I don't understand this thing.

Todd Elloitt 29:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, it looks reversed on mine. Uh so anyway, this is a book about the medieval and classical worldview. And he has a whole chapter on the planets and the heavens and their symbolism. Uh, it's a great, it's a really cool book. Um, and the ancient and medieval people believed that the physical planets were the bodies. I think this stems from Plato. Those were the bodies. Like this physical form is my body. But I have a soul, I have a spirit that links the soul, and that you know, you'll see in medieval art, I I think there's some probably pictures in the book. Yeah, there's some pictures in the book of um, no, that I think even in this chapter, uh, perhaps in the previous one, there's a picture of like Luna, right? Let me see. I think it's in the previous chapter. Um chapter, we're doing chapter five. Let me see if I can find it. Um, anyway, you see these pictures of like the moon. Oh, it's on page 69. Yeah, it's a woman, right? Yeah, there's a bunch of them in this book. I uh yeah, this one on page 69. This is the moon, right? She's yeah, she's this lady, and she's got a crayfish or a lobster underneath her, and she's you know, naked and fertile and like nurturing and standing over the water. And that's not a picture of the rocky um thing that we see in the sky when we point a telescope at the moon. That's like cratered, dusty, rocky thing that the spaceship Artemis took took pictures of a couple weeks ago. That's the intelligence of the moon. That's her, that's her soul. That's that's who she is as a person that we're to that that's a picture of. So in this, so she's she's this rocky thing that's gravitational pull causes the tides, but she also has her own soul and her own intelligence. She's she's a goddess. You know, she's Diana, she's Lunas, she's Helene. And and Lewis in this book, uh, he he talks about how medieval people would not have denied that the planets were gods. They just didn't believe that that they should be worshipped.

D. Ffrith Griffith 32:11

You know, I just wrote a piece on Substack about something very similar to this, but the concept that um there there is a growing chasm between people that would acknowledge the planets as let's say call them living beings. That see that as utilitarian, a util you a utilitarian good. And then it's quite a great chasm, a great space that separates that from seeing the planets or other ethereal bodies. Ethereal in a very weird sense of the word, but ethereal bodies that have that same utility, that same truth, but are true in themselves. Right? That that's a huge leap. So to find truth in the application of a planet is one thing. Lewis, Tolkien, these are all authors that have absolutely utilized the utility of truth, of let's say, this astrological magic to produce something that is I don't want to say utility again, but is is physically good for humanity. And yet at the same time, it seems very clear that both Lewis and Tolkien, and many others, I hate to just pick those two authors out, that also denied the validity of that truth in its own source. So for instance, the planets having utility, that makes them true. Or are the planets true in Ergo they have utility.

Todd Elloitt 33:42

Oh, I I did a huge difference.

D. Ffrith Griffith 33:48

It's a huge difference, right? To acknowledge the fact that you were talking about fairies. Yeah, I was talking about fairies. I'm sure he does.

Todd Elloitt 33:58

Yeah, yeah. It it's called the Long Long Longave, the Long Lived Ones. Uh yeah, it's actually really good. Um But you're saying uh you were saying that Tolkien sort of considered them as like uh not to digress into, but the planets are similar, you're right. Um their attitudes to the planets where it was okay to believe them as like creatures of the imagination or because they're helpful. Because they're helpful or because or or even entertaining or um but to acknowledge them as in their own being, as in their own like self as as independent beings. Yeah, and and people have accused Jung of the same thing. Like Jung talks about archetypes and and and people say that he he believed that they were psychologically real, but not real. And I I don't I think that's a misreading of Jung. And I don't know, I don't know where I I would be willing to guess after reading this book by Lewis that he believed that they were more than psych that the planets were more than psychological or symbolically real, that they actually I I think uh yeah, yeah, I get the distinction you're making that there, but I I think it's a misreading

Imaginal Reality And How Magic Works

Todd Elloitt 35:16

of Jung. I don't know about Tolkien, um, but it's a similar uh and then some people talk about with magic, bringing this back to magic, that there's a there's a psychological theory of magic and a spirit theory of magic. Like, how does magic work? Does it work on your mind because it's all psychological, or does it work on or does it actually like affect the physical world? And I think my answer is it it does both. And the same thing with the the Fay They're imaginary creatures. This is why we talked about the imaginal world, because this is the thing that links the the concepts of the spiritual world and the physical world. Things that things that are there are real and they have effects on the physical world. Um but are there are there and I I think the planets are affecting the physical world in terms of its themes. Whereas the moon is so close that it's affecting the physical world in terms of its it's like tides and the the water in our bodies. But the planets, I'm I'm sorry I'm jumping around too much because it it's like it's a similar it's a similar reasoning across all these different concepts, as you rightly point out. Uh people that believe the Fai exists in your imagination as as a you as a utility in your imagination, and people that believe the planets exist as like literary or imaginary realities. But they're that and there's so much more.

D. Ffrith Griffith 36:50

Yeah. Yeah, that that's yeah. Yeah, it's like taking um the stories of the Bible and fantasizing them, believing that they have utility in the sense that they make you maybe a a a moral denison of some community, but they're not real in and of themselves, right?

Todd Elloitt 37:04

That would be absolutely affect they absolutely affect the world. I mean, that that's how the things in the imaginal realm I mean, I mean, one, very basic, and nobody would even argue with it. The characters in biblical biblical mythology and the stories in biblical biblical mythology absolutely affect the world to this day because they they form the they form the basis of of three of the largest world religions, and people are still are still fighting over territory because of those those stories and and how they went down. Um they absolutely have a and and you and you can't just you can't just change that very easily because it it's a it's a fact that the stories are written and that those myths exist. And you can't just make them go away. I mean, I I mean, sure, uh if if they could, I think in the 19th century, they would have made those stories, you know, some of the rationalists would have made those stories go. Or in the early 20th century, you know, the the atheist movement would have made those stories go away if they could, but they can't. They're they're here in the world. They're they're like living entities that affect our minds. And each generation, each generation that learns those stories learns them again. And um, however you feel about them, they're real. And the planets are the same way, but they're more than that, too,

Utility Vs Essence, Meeting Potato

Todd Elloitt 38:20

I think.

D. Ffrith Griffith 38:20

Yeah, it it gets down to the questioning what is what is true. What is true, what is real. I had a professor so you know, writing the piece that I just wrote on on the Substack on the language of Irish mythology, it it pushed me for a week or so into that thought line, that that that intellectual trace, if you will. But it's interesting because I had this professor in college, um, this crazy Hungarian man, and he would always ask questions like this, you know, because he would teach Plato or something. And he thought the idea of like a Socratic dialogue was wonderful, and it was, and it had its effect. And uh our whole class would be like that. And he once he once brought into class this raw, like russet potato or something. He was just like holding this little thing. He wasn't a show and tell kind of guy. Like I said, he was this massive Hungarian man, this unbelievably deep voice. And uh anyways, he asked us if if anybody has ever uh met potato. And I've said this a couple of times in in speeches or something. It was a huge moment to my life because you know, a college student re next to me or something replied, you know, it tastes like salt or it tastes like, you know, oils or it tastes like grills or fire and you know, whatever. They're getting a little creative. They didn't just say, you know, mashed potatoes or grilled, you know, hash browns or whatever. And he said, uh and he started to cry a little bit. He had a little tear and he said, You've never met potato. Like how how do you how do you think you know potato if you've never met potato? Like this thing, like this, this actual spud, this, this, this note of a root that is just living in Earth, like you've never and I and anyways, my point is I think I think a lot of people will know the utility of fairies, they know the utility of, let's say, cosmological domiciles, and they know the utility of of of the moon in terms of waves and sea currents and sailing and things, but they they don't actually know that that that source as that source, not what that source gives to them, right? Like I think Tolkien would say that fairies give to us our uh uh uh a fantastic ability to escape the prison of the machine. Looking at his words in a couple different essays and letters, that's something like he would say. Fairies provide us the escape mechanism to the machine, right? They're the stories, they they provide us that. And then that's true. And I and I think The Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest books of of of all time. And I think Tolkien is one of the greatest English curators of words ever born in the English-speaking word world, and and I think very positive things. But there's a difference there between saying that I know what a potato is because I know what a hash brown or ketchup or salt or sweet or savory flavors of oil and grills and things, and then potato. And I think with magic, what you're really asking us in this book, especially in this lunar set of chapters, chapter four last week and chapter five this week, is um, at least when I read it, I had the feeling that what we're really going through right now in the book is a transition from looking at these ideas from this worldview perspective to inhabiting them, as if we're sinking our teeth into a potato, not a hash brown or a, you know, a baked potato with chives and onions and sour cream and salt, but but potato, like in earth. It's still dusty and and covered in clay and soil, and there might be some like straggling nematodes and strings of myceli. Like it's still just earth and spuds, right? And uh I think that is both palatable and impalatable for the same people. Because this is not the worldview or the world that that we were born into.

Todd Elloitt 42:08

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're trying to get closer to the essence, to the things in there as they are in themselves. We're trying to get closer to the personality or the soul of the moon or something like that. Is that what you're you're talking about? Like in in itself, not not as it appears to us, or yeah.

D. Ffrith Griffith 42:27

Yeah.

Todd Elloitt 42:28

I I mean I think go ahead.

D. Ffrith Griffith 42:31

And the point is that, you know, the way and and this is getting into culinary arts or whatever, but like when you go to prepare a meal, you have to understand the original ingredients. Which is why I think so many people can't cook today, because they don't understand the original ingredients. And they also have no palates and they have no experience, and they have no families that taught them, of course, and their lives are too busy and a thousand other reasons, of course. But like you can't cook a potato-based meal with non-potato ingredients.

unknown 42:57

Right?

D. Ffrith Griffith 42:58

It's it even if it's going to mimic that meal, it's not going to be a potato-based meal. And that's my point here. It's when you're planting, like when you get into this chapter and people are reading it and you're in and it goes through some practices, in the sense of, you know, when when this is in that and you can do this and it's waxing, do this and waning and things. That to some degree is a recipe depending on meeting the original source ingredients. Like you have to understand the moon as the moon, not as some scientific body in the heavens that may or may not have truth in your life depending on your view of utility. But you have to meet the source ingredients so that you can actually implicate those source ingredients through the culinary arts to create beauty, nourishment that just happens to be plants in the ground or you know, whatever your agricultural practice is.

Todd Elloitt 43:44

Aaron Powell Well, that's how we're trying to approach nature. All of nature is is who is like that I or thou, you know, it or thou. We're trying to everything is a thou, you know. Yeah. Everything's a who. Everything is a person. That's how we're trying to approach nature in general.

D. Ffrith Griffith 44:00

Aaron

Everything Is A Who, Closing

D. Ffrith Griffith 44:01

Powell No, I think I think this is really I think this is a really good um cap to the idea of of the moon, the mistress of the moon last week, and then the moon work or moon magic. The the book, um, it would be quite banal here to dive too much into it. I and I would fear to do so, but the your book, this chapter, chapter five, moonwork, it it does get into some quotes and you provide some other resources for people to understand, you know, or to begin their exploration into planting with the moon.

Todd Elloitt 44:30

Um, we didn't talk too much about that, did we?

D. Ffrith Griffith 44:32

No, it's okay. It it uh I don't know. I I mean I think it's a reason for people to buy your book and and read the chapter. Or just start reading like we you encouraged them last last week with the Pikachux and others. Start exploring that and what that means. Um I think is a very healthy thing.

Todd Elloitt 44:50

We talked about the moon quite a bit, and I I think we did talk about the general theory of planting by the moon. And um I think that I think the publishers wanted to make this one chapter and I didn't let them. Uh I had written originally written as two chapters, and I wanted to keep it that way because the the chapter is about um one chapter was about magic and one chapter was about planting. And yeah, I thought that they were two very separate subjects. So um we did we did we did talk about this last time, I'm pretty sure. You know, the the root crops and the and the general theory of yeah of it.

D. Ffrith Griffith 45:32

Yeah, well buy the book and they can dive into it even more.

Todd Elloitt 45:35

So yes, please buy the book.

D. Ffrith Griffith 45:38

Yeah, and leave it a review on Amazon.

Todd Elloitt 45:40

I only have 10 copies left because I just found out they have 130. So they'll don't buy one again.

D. Ffrith Griffith 45:46

Yeah, well, thanks for being here again, Don. I really appreciate it.

Todd Elloitt 45:49

Thanks for having me. It's been really enjoyable.