Lauren Parker: Spells for Success

Megan Hamilton (00:01.705)
I'm Megan Hamilton and this is the Embracing Enchantment Podcast. I am so excited about today's guest as I have been doing a spell from her book, Spells for Success. She's also the author of the poetry collection, We Are Now the Thing in the Woods and Dark Way Down. She has a newsletter called Do You Want to Do Some Witchcraft? Please welcome Lauren Parker to the podcast. Hi, Lauren.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (00:31.01)
Hi Megan, thanks so much for having me.

Megan Hamilton (00:33.431)
I'm so glad to have you. Hilariously, Lauren and I were just dealing with some really ridiculous tech issues. And I kept thinking to myself, maybe this is the last of the weird things from Eclipse season, because holy moly was. Oh, my God, please, please, please, for sure.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (00:53.75)
Yeah, maybe. I would love that, please. Knock wood.

I think the newest bonding rituals we all go through now is like kind of a very digitally connected society is like the muted curse words we scream at our internet connections and our technology. These are our new sacred texts. These are our new sacred chants.

Megan Hamilton (01:17.047)
Yeah, we didn't realize it was going to look like this one day, but here we are. I also think it's interesting because the effort sometimes it takes to be able to ensure that we can communicate properly. The thing about tech is you either get it or you don't as opposed to, you know,

Lauren Parker (she/they) (01:23.574)
Here we are.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (01:41.358)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (01:43.608)
non tech human interactions where you may never get it. Anyways, okay. So one thing that we like to do on the podcast is pull a tarot card and have it sort of set a tone or build a mood or whatever. And I'm wondering while I'm shuffling, there's a curious sentence in your bio that I have.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (01:51.244)
Yeah

Megan Hamilton (02:12.849)
really wanted to know where it comes from. So one of the sentences in your bio is fourth generation female breadwinner descended from male charlatans and thus has grown up to become a very educated liar. Would you tell us a little bit more about that sentence, please?

Lauren Parker (she/they) (02:32.398)
I mean, think it's a fairly, and as somebody who's very American, I think it's a fairly American experience to have a certain degree of shyster kind of in your DNA at some point, one way or the other. And I tend to, the men in my family have, there's a lot of horse thieves and horse traders and entrepreneurship and, entrepreneurship. And then a lot of things that I sort of like deeply suspect, and all of them were,

Megan Hamilton (02:52.48)
No.

Megan Hamilton (02:57.577)
Right, right.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (03:01.804)
very good storytellers and all of them were very very charming and funny and then I come from just incredibly genius women who are are brilliant and are usually holding everything down and I think those those two powers combined have have made me the storyteller that I am then also I think given me an incredible amount of appreciation for what is considered the overlooked work of keeping everything together because the charlatans are so entertaining it's so easy to give them credit

Megan Hamilton (03:26.677)
Yeah.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (03:30.942)
and it's so difficult to give the people behind them the credit. But you end up really good at spinning a yarn.

Megan Hamilton (03:40.105)
right and even building a profession out of it. Okay, all right. Well, I guess that's the card but also in the meat. that's so okay. Sorry. Seven things are happening at once. It's gonna be a minute to rein it all in. Let me pick up the card first.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (03:44.652)
Yeah, absolutely.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (03:56.578)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (04:01.653)
And before I show it, do you know that I have a song? Do know I'm a musician?

Lauren Parker (she/they) (04:07.564)
I didn't know you were a musician. my gosh.

Megan Hamilton (04:10.059)
Okay, and I have a song called Horse Thief Bay Road.

And I'm like, horse thieves. What? Isn't isn't this world a funny place? That is an actual name of a road close to where I live along the Thousand Island Parkway. So, wow, interesting. OK, we got the nine of Pentacles, which I do not hate. Speaking of badass women doing it for themselves. Wow.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (04:21.422)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (04:36.142)
Hey!

Megan Hamilton (04:47.57)
So, you know, whenever I get this, we you know, there's the universal ways that we can look at cards. And even then, there's so many of those. But then there's kind of your personal connection to cards. And for me, the nine of pentacles is often a little nudge from the universe, like everything's going to be OK. You're on the right path. There's there's enough abundance for everyone. Just keep going. Keep.

working with the fear that you have represented by the Falcon who is, the, you whatever bird of prey who has the helmet on, keep moving in the direction towards the bigger goals and dreams that you have as lofty as they might be because the journey is truly the way forward and.

The abundance and magic of aliveness that we receive just from being on the journey alone is what gives us that richness of life that can be represented in things like, you know, the grapes and the the pentacles, which can sometimes represent coins, but also just we're going towards a feeling when we get hung up on the specifics of it. Like, for example, money. That's when things can start to go a little bit awry. And again,

It's not it's not money. It's just the fixation on money that is the problem. And then my favorite part of this card, which is the the little snail, which reminds us that our body is our home. Right. And so with pentacles, we think of the earth, obviously, but also our bodies and behavior. And so taking care of our bodies.

is really one of the ways forward to this feeling of abundance and independence and doing it for ourselves. So Lauren also reads tarot and I asked them if they would give us their take.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (06:49.102)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (06:53.632)
Yeah, I love the nine of pentacles in particular. So I love this one because it doesn't, it's still movement. So she's standing, but you can tell from the flow of the dress that there's a movement forward. But it gets to be more of a luxuriating in the experience of the journey because there's sort of enough fortitude that has happened for you to be able to kind of really enjoy and be present in your abundance, which is always just a lovely place to be reminded to be because it has this tone of gratitude.

Now let's talk about grapes. As somebody who lives in California, grapes go through absolute hell to get to the point where they can be used for wine. Like they are in an absolutely torturous environment. And so it is about kind of acknowledging, in my mind, acknowledging kind of all of the past tortures to get to this beautiful space. And so if you're getting this card, can be kind of a reminder not only to be present, but to remember who you are. And like,

how you have gotten here and what this is and how to be generous within it. Like you see the woman figure, unlike the four of pentacles where there's like holding the money in, this is rather, it's bounty around her and she is looking and admiring other things. And I think it is important to remember to be kind of like speaking to the generosity and gratitude of the card. And I also like that she's alone. It's not a marriage card necessarily. It's like a, it's a person really kind of doing a lot of self ownership and self gratitude and self generosity, which I think is really great.

Megan Hamilton (08:18.109)
Hell yeah, I love that take. I love that. I love that extra emphasis on the grapes to it reminds me of the salamanders and, you know, in the in the ones where you like when you do a deep dive into salamanders, they are one of the only creatures that can walk through fire and come out on the other side unscathed. Love that take. Thank you for that. And speaking of abundance.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (08:19.374)
Yep.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (08:33.294)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (08:38.561)
Absolutely.

Megan Hamilton (08:47.755)
Lauren is the author of this incredible, beautiful, I had a literal gasp when I opened it up. Lauren graciously sent this to me and I didn't realize when I got it that it is like a book that is a deck. And so for those of us who are, and head to the YouTube channel if you wanna see what's going on, but if you don't want to, I'll just tell you that these are,

Lauren Parker (she/they) (09:05.803)
It is a duck, yeah.

Megan Hamilton (09:17.973)
I mean, it is beautiful, very tactile cards as the book. And so you can pick a page up, right? And you can hold it. It's very, they're, like I said, they're beautiful. And you can read it, and then you can either put it at the back of the deck, or you can, as I did, put it in a different section. And I will say, I read through the whole thing in one sitting. I was enjoying it so much. And let me tell you,

Sorry, I'm doing all the talking, but let me tell you also that I am currently making rose oil. And over here, I thought, okay, well, what better thing to do than try one of these spells before chatting with Lauren to talk about the spell. And I'm doing the love yourself moon spell. I know. And I started it because the instructions say to start it.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (10:11.598)
So glad.

Megan Hamilton (10:18.328)
on a new moon so I started it as we do in the middle of that flippin bananas

Lauren Parker (she/they) (10:25.602)
Bold move. Bold move on your part.

Megan Hamilton (10:27.767)
I I'm I did I did a lot during this eclipse season. totally rebranded my business, changed the name like I was here for it. So.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (10:39.598)
you having like a nodal return of some kind? Like what are you doing?

Megan Hamilton (10:44.641)
What am I doing?

Lauren Parker (she/they) (10:45.016)
Where is it hidden?

Megan Hamilton (10:47.795)
I, I last year was really difficult for me on a personal level. And this year I'm listening more to the messages that are coming to me and acting on them with more surrender.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (11:07.192)
that. Yeah, absolutely.

Megan Hamilton (11:08.983)
So that's the long and short of it. I mean, there's obviously a lot more about that. And so far, it has been really powerful stuff, that idea of just surrendering. But I'm wondering if we can just go back to the beginning of this gorgeous book. And what sparked it for you? Where did the idea for this come from?

Lauren Parker (she/they) (11:39.668)
I, so a very dear friend of mine, Diana Helmuth, wrote The Witching Year, which is a great memoir about how she tries to become a witch for a year. And I was one of her mentors. So I was kind of with her on that journey. And it was interesting to kind of see somebody so in the beginning of like kind of their, you know, she's got a context as like a hippie, she's got, of course, you know, this relationship to the moon.

But when it came to the really learning about what a witch is and what a witch does and what those things meant to her, it was interesting to see somebody so in the beginning emotions of all of that, of the embarrassment, of the stress, of the desperation, of the desire, all of those things. And it made it really clear to me that additional coaching outside of, I think, a traditional

what we would conceptualize as a Wiccan framework was really, really necessary. Because of course, when I was into witchcraft between two times, it was cool. Wicca was it. It was the regionally very, it was the thing you could find in my region. And then it was a lot of the Borders, RIP, $5 book end caps that were doing it a lot. And so it's like you had astrology, you had tarot, you had Wicca, and that was it. And if you're not necessarily a faith-bound practitioner, if you're not somebody that's necessarily

Megan Hamilton (12:36.769)
huh. huh.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (13:03.736)
tied to working with a pantheon but is in fact maybe tied in more to animism or just sort of kind of these more broad executions of what kind of faith or belief is, it can be kind of alienating to then be asked to engage with kind of a cultural pantheon that you might not have a tie to. And I think about that a lot, especially as an American, where a lot of my kind of cultural and kind of spiritual practices don't happen until my family hits Alice Island.

Megan Hamilton (13:20.832)
Right. Yep.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (13:33.196)
What America and the transformation of America has done to my cultures as they existed is so crucial to what makes my practice what it is. Because America has changed me. And I think it's an important thing, especially as a, you know, with somebody with European ancestry living in a colonized state to really start to use that as a means to try to dismantle the internal culture.

Megan Hamilton (14:03.496)
Hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (14:03.572)
and to acknowledge both the pain and harm that are associated with those things. And then also have fun with it. Because you're still supposed to engage with the pleasure and joy and the connection of community and casting and service. And so it was in kind of that mentorship process as I was watching my friend, and she narrates this very beautifully in the book, fall apart. And I was like, maybe we need some things.

Megan Hamilton (14:11.639)
Yeah, right, both.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (14:32.79)
And so that's kind of what the deck came out of. really kind of sat with what are all kind of the major issues that we're all dealing with as people. And it's like, I've been lovelorn, I've been ill, people I loved have been ill, I've been broke, I've needed to like pull a miracle out of a hat, and I've had no idea what I was doing. And all of those things kind of came together into this kind of the four like big major tenants of the deck. It's like you've got stuff about money and career, including

all the way down to unionizing. I'm hardcore on that. You've got love, both self-love and external love and then also cutting love off. There's also creativity spells and spells for change and things that you can kind of do of service for other people. And then also just sort of cursory stuff about like how do you build your own magical toolkit? What's your magical hygiene? What is your relationship to a lot of the kind of meme-ified broader

Megan Hamilton (15:04.769)
Yeah. Yep.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (15:32.078)
thought around what spirituality and connection is, like say things like the law of attraction and stuff like that. So I really kind of got to through this process with Diana really kind of sit in that and work in that. And when they asked me what kind of art I wanted, all I could send them was the backs of playing cards because I'm a big playing card worker. Again, somebody just sent in from Charlottesons, lots of vetting going on.

I think it came out beautiful and there's actually different backs on different sections of cards.

Megan Hamilton (16:04.245)
they're absolutely beautiful. mean, they're stunning. And for the keen observer, as you're talking through, and I don't think I realized this until just now, they represent the four directions and the four suits and tarot, right? You've got your, even the colors. We've got our green for sort of money and career spells. We've got our pink for the love spells, which are hearts. We have our yellow for the,

Lauren Parker (she/they) (16:18.318)
you do.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (16:23.265)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (16:32.571)
one spells which are energy, spirit, and then we have orange for air which is swords. And that's when we sort of get to the strategy and the logistics and the brain stuff, right? And you know, what I really loved about this as well is

Lauren Parker (she/they) (16:35.192)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (16:41.976)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (16:45.44)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (16:53.833)
It is very difficult and you're a poet, so you know this. I got interested in haiku years ago and tried to develop this major art project that didn't ultimately get the funding, but what it did do was really help me navigate towards the idea, and those people who know me would be like, yeah, but you don't do this, of condensing something to its core.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (16:58.839)
you

Megan Hamilton (17:23.457)
to its kernel, right? Alchemizing something to its absolute core element. And so what I love about this, even just the title is Spells for Success. I mean, we get it, right? Like that lets us know immediately what we're looking at. And I'm just going to read, it's OK with you, some of the spell titles because, so Work-Life Balance spell.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (17:24.558)
Mmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (17:39.149)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (17:51.32)
I need a new career spell. Let's keep going here. Like love drawing bath spell breakup spell good sleep spell healthy family spell keep it together spell good appearances jewelry spell like if there's not at least one thing in here for every single person then I don't know what but I would imagine

Lauren Parker (she/they) (18:05.934)
You

Megan Hamilton (18:17.919)
I looked at everyone and thought, yeah, I can imagine the time, not necessarily that it's right now, but certainly in my life when I absolutely could have used this and the intention behind it and the idea, because I believe very much that ritual is often just about practice, embodying and intention because we can go through life very easily, right? Like, hello, just scrolling along and being like, I don't even know what I want.

because I haven't thought about it.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (18:50.338)
Yeah, absolutely. I find that that was a huge, like, and it's kind of a no duh thing, but I felt the key unlock the door the day that I'm like, don't actually, like, is the key. Like, this is, it really is kind of a muscle memory thing of like being like, and it's like, even if your intention is shaky, or like your concentration is shaky,

Megan Hamilton (19:06.391)
Yes.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (19:16.386)
getting in the habit of seeking out these particular practices and just sort of doing them. And it doesn't have to be every day. I know that like we do this, right? This is our design for everything. you wanna be healthy? Here's your 40 minute a day workout routine. Like it's just, we are all doing our best. Or at least what we believe our best to be.

Megan Hamilton (19:28.897)
Perfectionism, yeah.

Megan Hamilton (19:42.817)
Yep.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (19:43.758)
So I tend to have more of a calendar effect. So I do playing card and rune meditations on the new and full moon. And that was a big part of teaching myself my relationship to the cards and all those things. But that was just sort of like, that's like every couple weeks. just that repetition and consistency makes that all much more natural and easier for me to conjure in myself as far as my intention and my concentration. So my overall spell work has just sort of gotten more.

tangible as a result. And while I do think that like, you know, casting from places of big strong emotion is like, great. When you were like casting on behalf of other people, or if you are kind of just trying to do your day to day, you're not going to necessarily have that big strong an emotion to pull from in that power. But it's still good to kind of be in the practice of it, even if it feels like kind of like, like you're not even really sure if you're you're kind of meandering through it, but you're still doing the work. And that's

Megan Hamilton (20:34.955)
Yes.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (20:41.59)
I think a really important thing. And once I gave myself the permission to not have like sparks raining down and you know, the ultimate like cosmic experience and just kind of like got to like entrench myself in the magic of the day to day, it's just been so liberating for me.

Megan Hamilton (21:00.863)
Man, sorry, I don't know if I have lipstick on my teeth, but I'm just doing a little thing just in case. Do I ever relate to that? So for those who just because it was it's a little open tab in my mind for those who don't know casting is literally just doing a spell, right? And if you've never, you know, done a spell in the in the.

sort of, you know, what what the senses that you might think it is. If you have ever said a prayer, if you have ever made a wish, if you have ever it's an intentional direction and to, you know, whatever is out there or even sometimes to yourself. And what I love about magic in general and practicing spiritual practices and different modalities is the intention behind it. It is sitting down and saying,

I am going to think about this right now and then I am going to do something that will either, you know, in the case of the love yourself moon spell, which is where you do something every day for a moon cycle. And, and I'll show you my stone in a second. but you're creating action items around it that you are going to perform that you're going to take. And so, let me just show you. So with this love yourself moon spell, I chose this

really beautiful.

Smokey quartz that. Yeah, but it's got like a beautiful kind of a purple quality to it every once in a while. And amethyst is kind of my favorite in general. But my friend Casey gave this to me and I just knew right away that this was the stone to use, right? Which is sometimes you develop your relationship with. I have a lot of stones in my office. You just develop that kind of relationship.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (22:32.918)
Yeah, as I say it looks like a smokey.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (22:40.258)
Yeah.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (22:54.126)
definitely.

Megan Hamilton (23:00.651)
And it is, we were talking about this before, this idea of all or nothing or perfectionism. And the reason we develop practices is not just to have a mind-body connection or a body-spirit connection. It's also just to train ourselves to be intentional. And so every morning when I sit down to journal and pull a few cards,

that, okay, I'm sitting down to do my thing. And this is, this is a, I feel well earned feeling I've got from the six or seven plus years now that I've been doing this practice, but it's the same with, so in my other job, I'm a speaking coach. And one of the things I say to folks is just practice controlled breathing for two minutes every single day. And then when you really need it and you go to practice it,

Lauren Parker (she/they) (23:55.244)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (23:59.896)
your body knows exactly what you're doing and it goes out of that sort of heightened activated state easily back into, okay, I'm not in danger. I'm good to go. And the only way you get to that is by just doing it over and over again by practicing.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (24:19.98)
Yeah, I think so. I'm sure every generation has said this about like the state of the union, but we are in an instantaneous culture. You know, we are we one. Not only is it that we need dopamine kind of instantaneously and an attention is is the most important thing that you have. like your your time and your focus is such an incredible commodity to like the the corporate America.

that like it wants to deny that of you. So for you to just even just devote that is huge. That's already like a real kind of like rebellious act. And so I think that that's important to kind of keep in mind because, you know, we're all kind of like waiting to be picked. That's kind of like what this is. A lot of the setup of things is it's like, I want to be selected and chosen and have this bestowed upon me this incredible power or whatever.

And it's really kind of more like abs, unfortunately. Like doing ab workouts, they just kind of build over time. You're not just one day very good at abs. so devoting your time, and when we talk about intention, I think start with attention. And then intention will kind of develop for you over time is your relationship to that word.

Megan Hamilton (25:22.827)
Like abs?

Megan Hamilton (25:27.723)
I love it. That's such a good metaphor.

Megan Hamilton (25:40.534)
Yeah.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (25:45.752)
but it's about being confident within it because we really do tell everybody that if you're gonna do anything, you have to be amazing at it from the jump or else it's mortifying. And mortification is something that we're all very, very sensitive to right now and like probably always have been, but we're all much more on a national scale. Like social media is not about connecting with your friends, it's about entertainment. That's why like, know, FYPs and things like that mostly are not your friends. It's mostly kind of like these

Megan Hamilton (25:54.359)
Hmm?

Megan Hamilton (26:14.55)
Yeah.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (26:15.68)
algorithmic feeds of like, it's your new TV. So now you're making TV and engaging in this particularly like parasocial way. And so to really kind of exist within yourself in a way that's not parasocial is so important. And it's just, I think something that none of us like think about until we think about it, until we've got like a kind of a problem in our lives. And so the things that feel small or like unimportant

Megan Hamilton (26:19.009)
Yeah.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (26:45.474)
or insignificant are still really, really, really, really crucial to your magical practice because it's just, you're just taking yourself back. You're allowing yourself to like kind of love yourself.

Megan Hamilton (26:57.879)
That's what it is, right? It's yeah, exactly. It's loving yourself. It's intention. It's building trust. It's Letting go it's noticing

Lauren Parker (she/they) (27:08.366)
Yeah, I'm going through, so I was just visiting my parents in New Hampshire and if you have parents with an attic it's full of your stuff. And so every time you go in and you, I unpack a box and then I mark all the things that probably should be gotten rid of. But I found like the first poetry chapbook I put together, I was probably 17. And it was like all the poems that I had written from like 14 to 17, of which there were a lot. And

Some are good and some are bad. Oh yeah, absolutely. All of your feelings so, big. And there's always kind of this question that goes around, it usually circulates on social media, of like, would 16 year old you like you now? And like one, I did not ask her. I'm trying to like me now at my age. But I think a better question might kind of be like, would it be possible for you to like your past self?

Megan Hamilton (27:37.493)
Yeah, that's prime time for writing poems.

Megan Hamilton (27:45.793)
So big.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (28:06.892)
Because that's the person that needs it. 16 year old you needs the love because that's what you're still mourning. And it's so excruciating. So I actually put this up on TikTok. I read one of my poems that I wrote when I was 14 years old about what I really wanted my life to look like. And it was clammy and it was sweaty. And I wanted to kind of die a little bit the whole time.

Megan Hamilton (28:07.223)
100%.

Yeah. Yes. Mm hmm. Yep. Totally.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (28:34.498)
But it's like okay to think that like the vulnerability of your youth was actually really cool. It's really cool actually. And to try to carry that into your future present self now. It's like how do I access that vulnerability in a way that's not only like healthy for me as an adult but also for others so that they get to better understand me but we both are kind of attaching in healthy ways.

Megan Hamilton (28:41.941)
Yes, and necessary to being who you are now.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (28:58.552)
And so like that's the shadow work I'm doing right now is trying to love my cringiest bits and cringiest selves.

Megan Hamilton (28:58.847)
Love that.

Megan Hamilton (29:06.281)
Yeah. And for me, you know, I practice shadow work. have a workbook that I use with clients. It's a huge part of my practice. was once I realized once I tapped into how important shadow work was for speaking and visibility, like, you know, and it is almost always traceable. Any any situation that you're dealing with where you're like, why do I keep doing this?

Lauren Parker (she/they) (29:22.786)
Yeah.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (29:35.884)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (29:36.066)
Why do I, why can I not stop this behavior? Why do I feel so yucky around this particular topic? X, whatever. It can almost always be traced back to a time when your brain was still developing and you came up with a solution in the moment that worked and then your body's like, cool, that's what we do for this situation. it, know, 30 years later, you're just like, wow, you know, and the forgiveness, cause I've said this before,

Lauren Parker (she/they) (29:56.492)
Good enough.

Megan Hamilton (30:06.935)
I am not as mean to anybody as I am to past me, to past versions of myself. I will blame everything. Choices that I made whenever.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (30:11.671)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (30:18.798)
should have been smarter, should have been wiser, why did you do that? That's so embarrassing. Especially living the femme experience. And the world is so eager to hand you that. To hand you this incredible personal responsibility for anything bad that's ever happened to you. Just in wild ways. Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (30:23.893)
Totally.

Mm-hmm. yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (30:35.733)
Yeah, or to everybody else, right? And that idea of both loving and forgiving yourself for doing what you had to do in any particular moment is truly what has been a form of liberation for me.

allowing myself to really take that deep dive into who I am and the consequence I am the consequence and the results of all of the different parts of me that have existed and therefore I better love them or else I can't love current me because I am I am also that 14 year old girl I am also that 25 year old woman I am also that you know

I don't know, 45 year old, whatever the case.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (31:39.778)
You're your own ancestor at the end of the day. All those past selves got you there.

Megan Hamilton (31:42.246)
I love that. Yeah, that's that's a great one. You're coming up with some bangers today. It's a good thing we're recording this. Yeah, exactly. Thank thank your ancestors for that good stuff. OK, so with that in mind, do you have a favorite spell from the book and what stuff are you doing right now to keep it together?

Lauren Parker (she/they) (31:47.95)
Thank you. Again, very good at talking.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (32:05.57)
Yeah, okay, so that's a great point. Because there's a lot to keep together. boy, just all these marbles all over the floor. So the one that I actually had the most anxiety about, I think, is the one that's my favorite. Because I wasn't sure if everybody was going to get it.

Megan Hamilton (32:09.409)
It sure is, yes. my goodness.

Megan Hamilton (32:26.902)
Okay.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (32:27.346)
And that's always it, right? Like that's the stretch goal that you kind of do for yourself. And mine was definitely kind of the creativity spell with the kite. And because I'm a big maker. So a lot of people, like I think when they think of people that are practicing in their day-to-day life, that we're doing a coven meeting and we've got like the circle together and everything is very serious. And I'm not much of like a necessarily a chanter in those ways. there's a lot of people that have a lot of different

Megan Hamilton (32:37.655)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (32:56.342)
methods of practice and they're all really really beautiful but like you're not doing all of them you're doing the thing that's the most you and the thing that's the most me is I'm tinkering at stuff. I'm putting stuff together and I'm writing, I'm making, I'm making jewelry, I'm you know sometimes I'm making jams or things like I'm just sort of always kind of in this Taurus moon I'm in an abundance phase. So you know I'm always just kind of like making stuff and then giving it away so it gets out of your house because that's how that works.

Megan Hamilton (33:23.351)
Right. Do you have any Virgo in your? Okay, there you go.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (33:25.644)
And so for exactly, Virgo South Node. Virgo South Node. You saw it, you spotted it right away. But a big part of that was I'm like, making art is the most important thing in my life. And making good art is great. I love making good art and I believe I have made good art. But making interesting art is actually good enough. And that's like one of the biggest like,

Megan Hamilton (33:33.099)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (33:55.564)
things that I've done of them like, doesn't have to be good. It just has to be interesting. And it either has to be interesting to make or look at. And so for me and kind of the kite making, all of that is really about kind of like expressing that desire to at least be interesting or be interested and allowing that to kind of permeate out. And I was just like, I don't know what everybody's gonna get it. I don't know if they're gonna feel like it's spelly enough because we've got like a real idea of what spells are like. I'm like, is everybody gonna like understand

what the goal is and yet it's the one that people kind of really remember because it stands out because I think a lot of people hadn't thought about that as both a need and then also as a solution. And so I was like, I don't know about this when I made it and I think it was one of the last spells that I wrote for the deck and but yeah, I think that's the one that I've been liking the most. The keeping it together spell and keeping it together practices in general. I have been doing a lot

Megan Hamilton (34:31.148)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (34:35.457)
Yeah.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (34:54.188)
with my coffee every morning. I've been doing a lot of soothing syrups and a lot of putting it on like sigil plates and things like that to try to like, to do good. I have been doing a lot of amping myself up and checking in on my reactions to things, like my responses to people. And also considering, you know, the state of the union.

Megan Hamilton (34:56.769)
Okay.

Megan Hamilton (35:22.922)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (35:23.67)
I know that it is so crucial now in ways that I've kind of rested on my laurels, if I'm being honest, to be reaching out with and engaging with my people. And that means a lot of things. It's not just the people that I agree with, although, and it's not just the people that I have a deep relationship with, although, you know, I've gotten more consistent with that too. It means a lot more of the breaking the door down to show up kind of thing. But also, I've just been talking to my neighbors more.

Megan Hamilton (35:35.721)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (35:50.572)
I've been more friendly, I've been more open, I've been more willing to stop and talk to people for like, you know, 30 seconds and just kind of be around and be a friendlier face or like a more consistent presence in my greater community because I know that that's gonna be really, really key and continues to be and that might at some point get harder and harder to do.

Megan Hamilton (36:16.22)
or easier and easier because you're being intentional about it.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (36:21.134)
True, that's very true. As far as a systemic ease is what I really mean. That will be harder to do from the system standpoint, but will hopefully be combated a lot more with the natural flow of magic. The thing is that magic is kind of, it's a little lazy. It wants to the path of least resistance, don't we all? Someone likes to start carving that path now.

Megan Hamilton (36:38.615)
Yeah, often I do and I'm like, this is yes. Yeah, exactly. Build that muscle. Exactly. I literally just said something similar to this this morning on social media where I was talking about today's a great day to write a letter to your elected officials. And then I put at the bottom for a little treat because I think one of the things we have to start grappling with is

Why are certain fascist groups able to come together so easily with only one point of connection? Whereas the rest of us who might, as my friend Erica said, you can have 10 items and you can agree on nine of them. And if the one is something that people can't agree on, there's no connection. The thing doesn't happen. There's no place to work from. There's this idea of perfectionism.

Anyways, we could probably have a huge conversation about this.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (37:38.968)
that it yeah I'm like already I'm like if you open this box we'll be here all day which I'm down for but

Megan Hamilton (37:43.2)
Yeah, yeah. But we're here to talk about spells. However, it is that thing of regulating yourself because it's it's really hard. Yeah.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (37:57.996)
It's really hard, because even if you're present with your emotions, you still have them. It's not like they scamper off once you give them a name. They're still there.

Megan Hamilton (38:05.023)
Yeah, no, exactly. And if you are justice oriented, there's a lot of injustice. There's a lot of stuff to get angry about and and if you want the message to land, you have to deliver it in a place where it can be received. I can't listen to people yelling at me and listen to what they're saying and be like, you know what? I'm going to give this some serious thought.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (38:14.094)
forever.

Megan Hamilton (38:32.203)
my defenses go up and I'm like, stop yelling at me. Like, I just want to get out of this situation anyways. So I love the idea that you are building connection, are actively, and you know, assuming not necessarily diving into politics, but instead just building community and finding the points of intersection. Because that is what I think we have kind of lost in the last

however long and need to start bringing back is our ability to talk to each other even when we disagree. And there's so many things to disagree about.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (39:14.328)
think this is also, I think, my challenge a little bit is that I think we're only coming together to have conversations anymore. We're only kind of coming together to evangelize. And I'm like, we should be like, we don't have like block parties the way we used to. We should be like eating around each other. Cool, that's great. But it's like, you know, there's like this degree of like the suburbification of kind of our culture.

Megan Hamilton (39:26.327)
hanging out.

Megan Hamilton (39:32.193)
Hmm, my neighborhood does, but yes, I know what you mean. Yeah, it is really cool.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (39:42.99)
where it's like, you know, this idea that like every single person is in their own personal gated community. And like, that's it. And if you don't fit in my gated community, as I've like kind of designed it, now it's a matter of convincing you to be the kind of person that I could put in my gated community.

Megan Hamilton (39:48.439)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (39:59.864)
100%, yes.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (40:01.544)
And like, I think there's a lot of ways to be very adamant about what you will accept from other people. And, and I am not saying that you need to build coalition with everybody, but we do need to bring back the appreciation of the acquaintance. And know that this is not a person that you need necessarily to be more than an acquaintance with, but this is somebody that you need to be able to build coalition with as far as like caring about your street.

Megan Hamilton (40:13.814)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (40:19.959)
Hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (40:30.414)
caring about like your neighborhood, caring about one another's kids. And I say this as a single millennial who has no children. We have designed this whole very anti-kid narrative that means that like everything that's going on in our school systems, we have no play in because like we don't have kids, so why would we care? And then it's like, because you need to care, because this is a society. And I think that there's been a lot of that that I've been really kind of like trying and

Megan Hamilton (40:49.386)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (41:00.194)
figuring out my pathways is to like what's the best use of my experiences and my energies knowing I can't do all of it but the things that I can do I want to do really really well and so that's the thing that I've been kind of doing is as fascism rages and

Megan Hamilton (41:20.213)
Yeah, yes. And I think I think that is the thing like that on a very base level is the thing. And I'm seeing more and more people connecting with that idea. And I don't want to say waking up. But again, we have had enough things, right? I keep on holding at my phone if you're listening, because I sometimes I forget the word. This is an audio, mostly an audio media.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (41:21.112)
Yeah.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (41:24.706)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (41:41.133)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (41:50.128)
yeah, I love that. I love that. I love just being intentional about

how you are living and what is required and making effort in that vein and also understanding your personal responsibility of I don't I don't want to keep avoiding conversation. am I am one of those people who gets upset very easily at injustice. I also have ADHD like it's part of it's part of the characteristic build. And so learning how to regulate myself.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (42:01.837)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (42:29.067)
when those situations come up so that I'm not just walking away furious. I can actually engage and see where we can find points of connection. And again, not when we're denying anybody's humanity. Not when, you know, like I think you and I probably understand this part and sometimes we have to be explicit about it, which is like, we're not debating. There's certain things that are not up for debate. Sorry, but they're just not.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (42:34.444)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (42:43.574)
Right, yes.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (42:55.35)
Yeah, I actually think it is the debate culture that has contributed to so much of this. Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (42:59.637)
I hate debate. I can't from a public speaking standpoint. I think it is a part of the reason and the problem why we're here. It's this idea of.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (43:10.24)
It's related to gotcha journalism. It's related to like there's a lot of things that it's so deeply tied to as somebody who's like a compulsive media consumer. Like I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm like a VH1 reality TV historian over here. Like it's just, it's a lot of useless information that my brain is all connected together. But there's just such a shaping of what entertainment is and what it's supposed to do in the wake of like

Megan Hamilton (43:33.431)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (43:40.174)
the rest of it. And I think it was John Green that said boredom stopped in like 2011. And I think that he might be right. And I think we maybe all need to get more bored in order to get more creative. Absolutely. Because I refuse to be it. It's so physically uncomfortable.

Megan Hamilton (43:51.445)
My best stuff has come out of boredom.

It's so uncomfortable and more uncomfortable the less you the less you have to be bored, right? You can easily. Yeah, you can. There's at the very least you can always pick up your phone. But just back to that debate thing, because I think that's really interesting and I won't harp on it. But this book, I don't know if you've read this book. It's so great. Women in Power. But debate comes from literal entertainment from the forums back in the day of early Greco-Roman culture.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (44:14.21)
I haven't, no.

Megan Hamilton (44:26.069)
Right. The idea of oration, the idea of using words as a game, as entertainment. Not only were certain voices very specifically excluded from the forums, so did not have the opportunity to develop as you know, your ancestors perhaps actually were quite good at this, right. Your charmers. But it is a game of trickery. It's not.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (44:26.296)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (44:52.021)
Debate was never meant to find consensus about things. Debate was... Yes! Well, it's huge in the Ivy League schools, like all the people who are coming up... Anyways, whatever.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (44:56.11)
Yeah, it's not supposed to shape policy, but now it does.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (45:07.542)
We have a desperate need, and I would say this is very, I mean, would say it's very human, but I know it to be very Western. We all really wanna be just the smartest guy in the room all the time, and the satisfaction of being the smartest person. And I think that maybe breaking up with that idea is also a good idea. Like.

Megan Hamilton (45:19.201)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (45:28.629)
Yes, it goes nowhere. It makes you feel good for five minutes.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (45:32.738)
Being, yeah, I was once the smartest kid in seventh grade. Well, seventh grade English third period. And it was like the one class. And I remember that high. It was the best day. But like I can't live there. That's not like where you're supposed to live. It's like vacation brain. You cannot do that.

Megan Hamilton (45:38.647)
Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No.

Megan Hamilton (45:54.828)
Because once you know what that's like, being embarrassed sucks even harder. It's a harder fall, right?

Lauren Parker (she/they) (46:00.582)
so much. Right, because there's an edge of humiliation that you're kind of getting a high off of, of being the smartest in any, because you're humiliating somebody. That's part of it.

Megan Hamilton (46:05.964)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (46:13.033)
You are just hitting the nails on the head today. Okay, I know that I could I feel like I could talk to you for a really long time and I want to be respectful of your time. But I'm wondering, okay.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (46:33.07)
For those of you watching the video, this is Bathory. He just crawled across my camera.

Megan Hamilton (46:37.505)
Hi, sweetie pie. hi. I wanted to talk to you about being a contributor to the toast, but I think maybe we better leave that for now because I miss the toast so much. Maybe we could just agree that we missed the toast because my God, what an incredible. It was an and by the way.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (46:52.106)
I too. yeah. It was a different internet. It was a different time. And I'm so glad I got to be there.

Megan Hamilton (47:03.399)
I when I read that I was like, this is this is legit amazing stuff. And we can thank the toast for so many of our of our sort of witchy memes, I guess now that we that we really enjoy on the Internet. But just as some final thoughts, your art explores the intersection of class, queerness and the occult in Western culture. We've noticed trending right towards the esoteric and people discovering or.

rediscovering most of us or many of us, maybe not most of us, me and my friends in high school got really interested in a lot of cool stuff and then maybe didn't and then perhaps are coming back to it or had it all along and then are picking it up because you're finding some real personal collective power and freedom that comes from having a spiritual practice that is not tied to a religion.

Do have any thoughts on that and what it could mean for the future of patriarchy? I just wanted to give you a real low, low lob here.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (48:08.97)
Yeah, well, no, I think it's good that you bring up the patriarchic component because that's what I was going to say is I'm like, I'm not actually sure it's us breaking up with religion. I think it's us breaking up with narratives about our countries. I think it's breaking up with systems. I think a lot of this is about breaking up with capitalism. And which is the ultimate religion of a lot of places, but particularly the place that I live. When we talk about this energetically and spiritually and we talk about like

Megan Hamilton (48:23.234)
yeah, yes.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (48:37.966)
texting Donald Trump or any these things. The reality is that he is protected by the dollar and the dollar is the most sacred thing to this country. And what that influences and what that kind of psychic protection can be and how those talismans really kind of develop. On the one hand, I love it because I'm like good, yes, like whatever it is that teaches you to like question and interrogate.

and interrogate the systems that have kind of told you that they were the best. And obviously this is a very American experience is that we hear constantly in all of our education that we are the best, we are the defenders of democracy, that we've invented democracy, nobody else invented it, it was just us. And that everything that we've done is empirical and good and everything that we've done in other countries is also above reproach.

It became very important to me in my own dismantling of my nationalistic identity that I don't need America to be those things. I don't need the propaganda to be real. To believe that the American people deserve advocacy and protection and healthcare and food and housing, and that the land needs to be stewarded. I don't need all that to believe

in America and Americans. And that has been a very grounding element of my spiritual practice. What I'm concerned about now with a lot of the evolution of it is that our systems are bad. Looking at America kind of uncritically was safe and now there's no way to do it like uncritically anymore. So now we're going to be very fixated on these spiritual identities that are still kind of about being chosen.

Megan Hamilton (50:23.851)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (50:30.871)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Right.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (50:31.358)
and being kind of the magical one and being special. And I think we need to add more specialness in our engagement with our communities. Like there are no heroes. We're all just kind of trying to one-off this into something. And so I think it makes a lot of logical sense. I'm very concerned about the intersection of religion and spirituality broadly with AI and chat GPT.

Megan Hamilton (51:01.015)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (51:01.486)
for I think pretty obvious reasons. But I also grew up in the Bible Belt during one of the other raptures. So I've got a lot of exposure to how the evangelical churches work. And so I encourage anybody that is kind of in an interrogation space, there are worse places to go than astrology, tarot, or witchcraft. But it is important to remember that all of these practices should be about grounding yourself in your humanity.

And if anything is really kind of giving you permission to dissociate from the pain of being a human being, it wants something from you.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (51:44.62)
as somebody who knows what a charlatan is like very intimately.

Megan Hamilton (51:46.616)
Yeah, right. Co signed, co signed in Mitch Horowitz is latest book. I don't know if you're familiar with Mitch Horowitz, but he talks about the Wheel of Fortune as and ultimately the world as well. It is the entirety of the experience of being human and you cannot deny humanity and we don't necessarily know why.

suffering, we have suffering, but it is part of the human existence and you cannot deny it.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (52:18.882)
Yeah, I mean the Death card, so my conspiratorial relationship with Major Arcana is that I do believe it's the soul's journey to enlightenment. I think we all kind of subscribe to that for the most part pretty broadly. But I do believe that the Death card is death because the things that follow are really important, un-entatched elements of being a human and kind of happen in more of a global and psychic sphere. And then it is about coming back to the world and re-grounding with the human experience. Because I really...

Megan Hamilton (52:38.443)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (52:48.622)
I'm a low magic girl. I care about all of us on this rock. I care about all of us.

Megan Hamilton (52:53.515)
Yeah, yeah, if you don't take another look. Cause you are also a human. I love it. Lauren, it's been such a pleasure to talk to you and thank you so much for coming on and having this, you know, kind of wide conversation about really big issues. And I just really want to encourage everybody, you know, speaking of,

Lauren Parker (she/they) (52:58.732)
Yeah, that's really it.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (53:16.589)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (53:22.647)
Speaking of capitalism, please go buy Lauren's book.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (53:26.062)
Ha

you can do then support your local ND by buying Sultra Success.

Megan Hamilton (53:32.503)
100%. Also, listen, this makes an incredible gift. so grab a couple and have them handy for birthdays and other holidays that or just regular days when your bestie needs some support. But it is truly beautiful and full of wonderful things. And I highly recommend it. So, yeah, thanks so much, Lauren.

deeply appreciate you being here. yay. All right, this is the part where I close us out. So you can find all of the information and takeaways from today's episode in the show notes or at embracingenchantment.com. Subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts and we'd love for you to leave a review. You can also leave a voice note at embracingenchantment.com. You can find out more about Lauren and.

Lauren Parker (she/they) (54:03.256)
Thank you for having me. This has been great.

Megan Hamilton (54:27.803)
where to follow them in the show notes and make sure to get their wonderful book as I just said and I said it again because we have to tell people things 36 times now before it actually sticks. You're to want to make sure you subscribe because we have some exciting episodes coming up about witch stones and herb magic as well as the monthly tarot readings. You can catch up on previous episodes where we talked with astrology with Colin Biddell, hereditary witch Amy Miranda,

podcast host and author Pam Grossman, whose book is also coming out very soon, the drummer for my, I know, so good, the drummer for my morning jacket, Patrick Hallahan, and so much more. Until then, here's to building an enchanted life.