Overcoming Overwhelm, Fire Magic and Ladybugs

The Sagittarius full moon has a way of telling the truth with a spark. We’re a week out from the May 31 full moon, and I’m using this cozy Coven’Chat to talk about what “bring the fire” can look like in real life: candle spell energy, transmutation, passion, and the kind of embodied movement that gets you back into your body. I also circle back to Beltane, because a ritual isn’t just a moment, it’s an arc, and sometimes the most powerful magic is simply returning to what you set in motion and closing the loop with care. 

Then I share a few life updates, including co-hosting Belief Being And Beyond with Granddaughter Crow, where we keep coming back to belief, joy, and what lies beyond. From there we pull the card 701 from Mystic Michaela’s Angel Numbers deck, “Angelic Company”, and sit with the message that you are being protected. I offer a question I return to when my nervous system is braced: if I knew I was fully protected and everything would go well, what would I do differently? I also talk about asking for signs, believing them when they arrive, and why my ladybug story still feels like a living conversation with support. 

The heart of the episode is the final chapter of my book Divergent Witchcraft: overcoming overwhelm. We talk frankly about how overwhelm can come from sound, light, information, social media, and a world that never slows down, and how many of us freeze rather than fight or flee. I share practical tools that reduce overwhelm without shame: checking sources so bad witchcraft info doesn’t spiral you, meditation and journaling as nervous system support, plus a spell to release overwhelm when you’re stuck in that couch marshmallow mode. 

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Transcript

Sagittarius Full Moon Fire Rituals

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey witches, and welcome to another cozy Coven'Chat. I am your host, Jenny C. Bell, and this is for the week of May 24th. And I uh want to say that we're gonna talk, I just want to remind everybody, these come out on Sunday, and like almost all of our full moons have been on Sunday. So our next full moon is on the 31st, which is a week from today. But I want to talk about it on this episode because you know you may not listen to this on a Sunday, you might listen to it on a Monday. So the next full moon is in Sagittarius, it's on the 31st. Um Sagittarius to me is like free spirit, wandering, happy energy, and it brings the fire to Gemini season. And so when I think about a Sagittarius full moon, I think about bringing the fire. So this is definitely like a candle spell time. This is a time to bring some fire into your life, whether that be through transmutation or passion or um heat, like warming things up, you know, moving your body. I don't know, Sagittarius woman's always feel like very like embodied, like we should be dancing around a fire. You know, so think about that. Think about Beltane. Think about what you what you did on Beltane, what energy you put out there, what rituals you did. Let's close that circle a little bit. Let's revisit that at the end of the month, because it's a whole month now. Um yeah, those kinds of things. That's really, you know, we're getting more into summer, we're getting more into solar energy, the fire's coming, it's heating up. That's the vibe to me is bringing in the energy, bringing in the heat, the fire, the solar. And yeah, I just want to remind you of a couple things.

New Shows And Book Preorders

SPEAKER_00 2:12

I am now co-hosting on Granddaughter Crow's show, Belief Being and Beyond, which you can find anywhere you listen to podcasts. But we do a video aspect, and that's on her YouTube channel. She does tag me as a collaborator, so you can find it on my YouTube channel. And but hers is Granddaughter Crow, and um mine's Healing with Jenny. So really easy to find. You can find all my information on jenny CBell.com. Um, but that's a really fun time. It's uh we really get along really well, and we have some really great similarities together. And separately we both pulled the same rule rune for this year, which is one joe or woonjo, I don't know how to say it um correctly, and it's joy. Her name is Joy, which like you can't get any more in aligned. And yeah, so we we're we're chasing the joy. We're here using the energy of a fire horse to be joyful, to find the joy. And so that's that podcast. It's joyful. She's really a joy herself, she's really a light, she's fun. And we try to really let the guests shine. We try to always bring it back to like what are our beliefs and how they shape us. And we've been asking our guests at the end of each episode what lies beyond. And that's been really fun. Um, really fun to hear. So, yeah, check me out over there. Um, I'm gonna be on different podcasts for the promotion of Divergent Witchcraft. So um I try to keep a playlist of all of them on my Spotify and on my website. But check me out and give those uh shows some love, because that'll be that'll be great. Um, if you haven't already pre-ordered my book, I would love for you to do so. Um and it means a lot. Pre-orders mean a lot to the publisher. They go, oh, people actually want this book. So please pre-order it. Um and it's coming out, and I can't wait. When you when you get a copy, please share

Angel Number 701 And Signs

SPEAKER_00 4:15

it. Share it either in our coven or on social media and tag me. I want to see my book in people's hands and stores in their home, outside, take it for a walk, whatever you want to do. I think it'll be really fun. Um, our card from the Angel Numbers deck by Mystic Michaela is 701, Angelic Company. You are being protected. Your angels see the struggle you are undergoing presently, and they want you to feel their loving presence supporting you. I feel like this really goes with last week we had facing fear, and it was all about trusting. And so now it's like, okay, you faced some fears, you've given in, you're trusting, and now don't forget you're protected. Call upon them to show themselves to you in signs and messages today, and in the love and compassion of those around you. Ask them to show you their love now and believe it when you see it. They will do that. Like, ask for signs and you will get them. And then if you deny them, they'll get stronger. Get more obvious. Um, I've talked about it's actually I have this story in Divergent Witchcraft, but I've talked about my connection with ladybugs and how thousands of ladybugs came to me at the beginning of 2020, and I took that as a message as when everything went down with COVID, that I was gonna be okay, that luck was on my side, and I was. Well, funny enough, I write about them, and this year, uh ladybugs have been laying their eggs in my birch tree, which faces my bedroom, which faces my altar. And I feel there's no coincidence. They're like, you are birthing a book, we're birthing our babies. We are all in this together. I mean, it's so beautiful. I love animals, I love animal signs. I feel so lucky for them to be laying their eggs, and I get to see. I have so many ladybugs in my yard. Um, and we're birthing together. And I feel like I'm not alone in this this go round of making a book, creating a book. So it's so good. It's so good. Okay. So uh this week we are talking about overcoming um, oh, go back to this. So, Angelic Company, you're being protected. Really important, and I'm I'll try to remember to ask this again at the end, but a question that I like to ask myself from time to time is if I knew I was fully protected and that everything would go well, what would I do differently? Because I definitely have like a fox molder in me, like a trust no one kind of vibe. Um and so for me to be like really in trust and really feel protected and safe is rare. I really work at it. And that definitely changes, I think, how you show up in the world and how you do things. So let that kind of be a thought. Um, we are on the last chapter of Divergent Witchcraft. And when I was thinking about how to close, so originally I actually the last chapter was about channeling.

Overcoming Overwhelm With Witchcraft Tools

SPEAKER_00 7:24

So I'm just full. You get the inside scoop here, everybody. Um so the last chapter was about channeling because I was really it like I just became a like a clear channel. I just really opened up channeling when I wrote this book. I am still a channel, I channel my writing, I channel when I read. That's why people will be like, oh, in that tarot reading, I loved when you said this, this, and this, and this happened. And I'll be like, did it? Did I say that? Interesting. Like, I have no memory of what happened because I'm channeling. And so originally that was like we really went into each of the Claire senses and I talked about how to be a channel. Now, when revisiting the book, because this book has gone over so many drafts, I realized that this was not the book to do that. This was not, it was not a natural progression to channeling. That was just something I wanted to write about. And so maybe that book will happen someday. Um, that's just something I wanted to share. It wasn't, it wasn't logical, it didn't flow. And so then I actually rewrote the whole chap, the end chapter, and I decided to talk about overwhelm. And so this is called overcoming overwhelm. Because if we're gonna be writing a book with neurodivergence in mind, we have to be aware that people bec uh who are neurodivergent become overwhelmed. Um overwhelmed by lights, by sound, by smell, by touch, by information, by life, by having to make a phone call, by having an appointment in the afternoon, um, by mess, by expectations, by words, by math. That was me. I've just calculated. So I'm not saying that we're all like easily overwhelmed, but I do believe we all have much people who are neurodivergent have very sensitive nervous systems. Um, that's even in my astrology. I had someone who read my needle chart and like, oh, you're a very sensitive nervous system. I was like, mm-hmm, I was just born to be different. Um and a friend called me a canary in the coal mine. Like, I was just born to be sensitive. And uh so anyway, avoiding overwhelm felt like a really good conclusion to the book because I get overwhelmed. I've talked to so many new witches in our coven who are like, I'm so overwhelmed. Like I want to be a witch, but it's so overwhelming because there's so much stuff out there, it's conflicting. People are like, if you do this, it's wrong. If you do this, it's wrong. They're coming from religion. A lot of them are coming from a religion that's very structured, it's very laid out, that they were born into, that they were raised, and they've had like 40 years to understand, and then trying to like become a witch today. It's overwhelming. You know, it's like, I want to know all this stuff. Well, you're not going to right now. Like, I've been a witch for three decades and I don't know everything. Um, it's a journey, but that's hard to know in the moment. Um, another reason why I decided to talk about overwhelm is because our world is overwhelming with social media, with AI, with surveillance, with um the way smartphones are. Everything's overwhelming. And we live in an overwhelming place. It's like we've like, I don't know if you've ever been, have you ever been to Vegas? Vegas is the most overwhelming place on the planet for me that I've ever been to. It's the cigarette smoke, it's the loudness, it's the heat, it's the dry, it's the light, bright lights, it's all the music, it's all the people, it's all the drinking, it's got so much going on. It's my least favorite place I've ever been to in my entire life. Um just don't like it. It is so overwhelming. And I think that's like more and more of our world's changing to be like that, to just be like so much going on all the time. And, you know, really witchcraft is like a slowing down and a hearkening back to older times and slow living. And it's also overwhelming to try to do that. For someone to be like, how do I do that? I want to calm down. How do you help me calm down? I'm overwhelmed, help me calm down. Um, so there was that. And then there was um, so it's like my own personal experience of overwhelm. It's knowing neurodivergent people can get overwhelmed, seeing neurodivergent people as a teacher get overwhelmed, like seeing my kids be like, I can't do this and have overwhelm. Um, seeing new witches feel overwhelmed. And I was like, this no one addresses this. Like, I'm not seeing other people, maybe they have. If they have, please tell me. But I have not seen other uh people write in their chapters and like witchcraft books about overwhelm. I don't think it's been done because I don't know if they're just assuming you'll just figure it out or what. But we're not, people are not just figuring it out. And so I felt like we needed to end there because I'm I'm looking at this book as like a little coursework or a little class or like a little connection with you. And I, if you were my student and you were my friend and we were like in a room together, and I was teaching you all the things from this book, the last thing I would do is be like, okay, let's talk about how you won't get overwhelmed now that I'm sending you out in the world. Right? It's like my job as your elder, as your teacher, even if I'm not numerically older than you. I'm elder in what I know, right? My wise woman stage. And so what we go over is some basic stuff about overwhelm, like how um you don't have to be neurodivergent to get overwhelmed. You don't have to um I remember I read this book, I don't want to say the name because I don't want to get in trouble. But it's very went this super famous catchy, cool self-help book with a bad word in it is yellow cover. And that author said that, oh, being overwhelmed was a choice. And you can just un choose that. And that just was not true for me. And I remember thinking, like, well, see, then I am broken because I can't I can't not do this. So in the book, um, talk about the definition of overwhelm, which is to be completely overcome or overpowered by thought or feeling. Um, I think about Rain Man in that movie, and like honestly relatable when he the alarm goes off. Um, I give you a list of things that are truths to give you peace of mind, um, just on the path. So, like, for instance, you don't you have your whole life to be a witch and you don't have to memorize anything, but I have you I give you a whole list. And then we go over how to make sure that a piece of information you're getting about witchcraft is credible because I taught research as an English teacher, and I taught this. Like, how do we know this is a good source, and how do we know this is a good site? And there's that really famous teacher example of the land octopus. These teachers made a fake website and made fake scientific information about the land octopus to show how easy it is to put fake information on the internet. So then we talk about meditation practice for overwhelm and journaling practice for overwhelm. And then I actually have a spell to release overwhelm um because we need it. So I tried to give like different information to reduce your overwhelm as you move forward, as you go away from me, as you leave my nest. Um, and then I tried to give inform some like tools, like how what how we use meditation to reduce overwhelm, how we journal, and then a spell. Because sometimes you do need that. Like, I don't know about you, but I can get caught and freeze. So when I get overwhelmed, I don't want to fight or flight, I freeze. And I become like a um, I learned this term from Taverly. I learned I become a couch marshmallow. I just like I'm frozen. I don't can't do anything. Like I my list is like what I'm doing, the list is so overwhelming that I'm stuck in like stasis. I cannot move, I cannot think, I cannot do anything. And I think that's what dome doom scrolling is. It's frozen. A lot of times it's like if you're frozen, you doom scroll. And you know, we I want you to have tools to get out of that because I've figured out ways to pull myself out of overwhelm. I figured out ways to reduce overwhelm. And I feel really proud of that because I my whole life I was overwhelmed by like lots of aspects of my life. And I feel like I've really come to terms with that and I've really been able to reduce my level of overwhelm. And why wouldn't I share that? Like I'm not gonna gatekeep that. Um so yeah, let's talk about our journal questions. Uh, one is when was the last time you felt overwhelmed and how did you move past it? Two is what is something you can do to reduce overwhelm in your life. And then we have our reminder of that we're protected. So uh let's talk about that. What angels or guides or beings are you calling on to protect yourself? Um, what tools are you using for spiritual protection? And do you need to update or change anything about your spiritual protection? And yeah, next time we talk, I think my book will be out in the world physically. I can't wait. Have a great week. Busy be.