Embracing Action: Magic and Activism

Megan Hamilton (00:01.664)
I'm Megan Hamilton and this is the Embracing Enchantment Podcast. Well, we have reached a milestone my friends. We have crossed the six month threshold and I just can I please take a moment to feel immense gratitude for all of you who are showing up every couple of weeks to listen. I had a meeting with

Sarah who is the network owner the women in media network owner last week or the week before and we were looking at things like numbers and other statistics and

We're doing good. We're doing well. And you know, I started this podcast. I just wanted to talk about the cool stuff that I was interested in.

and help figure out alternative ways of staying hopeful, knowing sort of where things were at in the world. And also because I had been playing a supporting role on a lot of different projects, including my speaking and coaching business, which I'm going to talk about in one sec. And I realized that, you know, I went to theater school and

I'm a musician. I like to be like out front and center. And so having this be an opportunity to explore stuff I'm really interested in, meet new people, get to interview some of my actual heroes. And by the way, the episode coming out two weeks from today is going to blow your mind, the guest.

Megan Hamilton (02:00.654)
It is dream come true moment and then beyond that you don't even know what's coming. It is so exciting.

But before I pull a card today, I wanted to make sure that I told you about something I do in my coaching business called Arcana Pathfinder. And that's where we meet six times over three months. And we use tarot towards something called transformative coaching. So that is when you have a vision of a place you'd like to be.

but you want some support getting there. And that's essentially what a coach does is it's not what I want. It's what you want and how I can use my training and in this case also tarot reading to support you to get to where you want to go.

So I will link to that in the show notes, but it is the most fun. And there is something about using tarot with coaching that takes away some of the pressure we can put on ourselves. I think sometimes it's just like, cause you've got this other source, the cards kind of giving you the input and letting your brain make decisions based on that. But there's something about it and it's pretty special.

So before I get to our first card, we actually have a listener voice note that I wanted to share with you with permission. And I want you to know how much I love getting these voice notes. And this one especially was quite meaningful. So let's take a listen.

Megan Hamilton (04:00.45)
Right? so beautiful. So special. And, all right. Let's pull a card and see. Because today we're going to talk about magic and activism. And I am, these cards are.

Megan Hamilton (04:19.778)
They are flying all over the place. okay, fine. All right. Okay, let's see. I guess I guess a card has been chosen. I think the cards are saying hurry up Megan.

Not unusual. I literally just pulled this card for this program. I'm running called the magic of aliveness.

And as I'm recording this, the full moon in Scorpio has just happened and we have the moon.

So what, where are you at with your grief?

Megan Hamilton (05:03.072)
What has come up for you recently?

that has been challenging, sticky, tricky. Maybe you'd rather not, but it's there anyway.

Megan Hamilton (05:21.014)
Where have you potentially been avoiding feeling?

Did I mention it's the moon card? This is a podcast after all. We do have a YouTube channel. I really invite you to subscribe sometimes with podcasts. I really like to know what the other person looks like, but especially when we're showing the beautiful illustrations from Pamela Coleman Smith and the Rider Raid Smith deck. It can be helpful to see what I'm referring to. So very briefly, this card is a full moon in an eclipse.

Golden Yards are raining down. there's heightened activity here. Divinely led stuff. And we've got two pillars. We've got a wolf and a dog. We have a path leading from the water towards this full moon and eclipse. And we have a crayfish or lobster coming up from the water.

And this really is a card of.

being uncertain, but trusting in the process. Using your intuition to guide you, feeling your feelings, even when things feel murky, cloudy, you're not sure, just keep going one foot in front of the other.

Megan Hamilton (06:52.78)
I don't know why it's like this, but sometimes we don't know if something's gonna work, if everything's gonna be okay.

Megan Hamilton (07:04.472)
But if we just keep going forward, not avoiding, but allowing maybe even surrendering to whatever is happening as opposed to trying to control it, which you know, ha ha ha ha funny humans. We really have so much less control than than we think we do. And that was a big one for me with this full moon.

was releasing control. Even though, you know, I feel like I've been trying to do that my whole life. And that is what, you know, comes up a lot is.

Megan Hamilton (07:48.802)
These lessons, they don't necessarily go away. We don't necessarily like achieve them and move on. It's just different levels, I would say, of control.

All right.

Megan Hamilton (08:09.216)
So magic and activism, know, that moon really did come up, I think, for an interesting reason and not just because we've gone through a Scorpio full moon, but instead we know that right now.

There is a lot of injustice happening around the world. There are a lot of folks who really, really appear to be behaving in bad faith. One might even say, evilly. I actually don't like to.

Megan Hamilton (08:56.11)
try to figure out the why just instead that these actions are happening. I'm also and have been very curious about different ways that our brains are affected by different things. And one of the things that I've been looking at quite a lot is how power affect your brain and I think good it reorganizes your brain. It corrupts your brain.

And if we think of money as a form of power, which it is, then we're dealing with folks who have corrupted brains and

You know, you can say it doesn't mean they're not responsible for their actions and that is 100 % true. But we also have to know general, you know, debate is not going to work with these folks. Playing the game by the usual rules is not going to work for these folks who have absolutely taken the rules and flush them down the toilet.

So then what do we do, right? We're dealing with a completely different beast.

Megan Hamilton (10:14.264)
Part of the reason I wanted to talk about this today, activism, you what are our responsibilities, especially as witches or spiritual practitioners or folks in different spiritual modalities.

Megan Hamilton (10:30.094)
few months ago, I was looking on Instagram and somebody who I've really enjoyed their work for several years, Biddy Tarot, had posted, this was after the US election.

And she had just posted that she didn't want to comment because it wasn't her country. And she's just trying to stay, you know, in terms of like avoiding talking about something important. I felt like she did sort of a better job than most. But at the same time, she really just didn't want to talk about it. She was like, I don't feel like I have enough background to comment. So.

Right? This is where we start to get hung up. If we know or if we feel that something is wrong, we might feel like we don't know enough about it to be able to comment. That's come up a lot over the last 18, 19, 20 months. Or, you know, who am I to say? Or I don't want to mix politics with, you know, tarot.

Well, I'll tell you what it did. It just, had me realize that I could no longer abide by this person. I didn't want to follow this person. I wasn't interested in what they were putting out any longer. I think that magic, magical practices, tarot, especially anything to do with witches is absolutely political.

Biddy Tarot would not be allowed to exist had it not been for the work of activists and rebels and people saying no, you know, this these witch trials are heinous, terrible, unacceptable. People who have fought for the right for

Megan Hamilton (12:43.126)
which religions to be seen as religions like all other religions like Phyllis Curot. If you don't know her story, highly recommend listening to the Witchwave episode. That's Pam Grossman hint. Pam Grossman is a hero of mine and also you might be hearing more from her. Anyway, the Witchwave episode with Phyllis Curot is incredible.

And it talks about how hard she had to fight for a religion to be seen as a religion. So you know about the stigma stigma stigma that comes with magic and magical practices and witches and witchcraft. And again, we know that the folks who were getting dunked, burned at the stake, tortured were not calling themselves witches.

They were just either strong women because people didn't call themselves witches back then by the way, like that was not a thing. They were either strong women or they were women that people wanted to get rid of. And so in the year 2025 to be able to say I'm a witch or I practice magic or I'm interested in spirituality.

but not in your way is something that was fought for.

Megan Hamilton (14:21.132)
And that is partially why I think anybody who is interested in this realm has a responsibility towards ending oppression. And that means activism. That means acting. And you got to figure out what you care about, what's meaningful and important to you.

the rights that you have that were hard fought. Think of your suffragettes, think of the folks who voted for civil rights, ending slavery, all of this stuff, all of it is connected.

Megan Hamilton (15:12.27)
I think one of the things that can happen that can be really tricky, it's 11-11 right now, by the way, you can make a wish after the date. I think that part of why we...

Megan Hamilton (15:30.786)
feel inclined to hide and not, you know, quote unquote, get too political is one we're afraid of the pile on which is happening more and more in online spaces where people get absolutely lambasted online and it can be very harmful, you know,

We talk about cancel culture and I will admit that I didn't really believe it was a thing for a while. I just thought it was kind of something made up by people who were butthurt, who were sort of like jerks anyway, and people calling them out. And then I experienced secondhand what it actually looks like. And I don't want to.

this person in any further danger but it was somebody I was supporting who's a speaker and it was astonishing how

quickly and violently and...

Megan Hamilton (16:51.566)
horrifically the swarms of people came and were saying horrible things about this person and there was violent threats. It was unreal and absolutely uncalled for. These folks were absolutely wrong.

And you couldn't stop it. And so, you know, this is what people get worried about in terms of increasing their visibility.

which is again something we talk about in my speaking coaching business, but it all boils down to.

wanting to silence somebody control which I talked of earlier the thing that I realize I'm needing to work on once again

Megan Hamilton (17:58.903)
and

Megan Hamilton (18:03.052)
The truth is, unless you have a giant platform for your on television or XYZ, most of the time, anything you say or do, especially if it's in the online space, is going to be fairly benign. You might get a couple of people who get mad at you. get every once in a while, you know, I say something about feminism or I say something about

the patriarchy and I'll get, you know, folks signing up for my newsletter or like signing other people up for my this happened a couple of years ago. Somebody just started signing people up for my newsletter and then I was getting all of these like angry unsubscribes and like, why am I signed up to this? And I'm like, I don't know you because you did or somebody did. But all of that is fairly manageable and definitely worth it to have a voice.

but it does feel jarring and uncomfortable if you speak up and you get some retaliation from it. So we're not going to pretend like there's not discomfort to be had. However,

You know, I always go back to what kind of world do want to live in?

Megan Hamilton (19:22.348)
because right now we're kind of on the precipice.

Megan Hamilton (19:29.974)
And so all of us, whether you are into magic, spirituality, witchcraft or not, all of us are responsible for how things are going to go forward.

if they're suffering.

I think we have a responsibility towards ending that where we can, especially if we are enjoying the fruits of somebody else fighting the oppression that we once would have had to have felt.

So with that, let's take a break and listen to some friends of the pod who have some ideas about magic and activism.

Megan Hamilton (20:22.658)
Alright, welcome back. If you are watching on YouTube, then you might notice that I have red lipstick on and this is on purpose.

Red lips. This is from the National Geographic. I mean, I've known this for years, but I tried to find it, you know, easily. I've known that red lips are associated with power and strength, especially for women. And I, you know, if you look, if you probably have more time than I did, you can find why witches might wear red lips. Now, of course, not everybody who's wearing red lipstick might identify as a witch.

And certainly I do and don't like I think I identify with the concept of which and certainly I like to do some spells and rituals. So am I which you know, this is this is actually the subtitle of my book that I'm writing, which is not about public speaking by the way, everybody seems to think it is. OK, anyway, so this is from the National Geographic article about red lipstick and I

find this very, very interesting. By 1770, a law was passed stating that any woman deemed to be using makeup as a means of tricking men into marriage could be tried as a witch.

So if you wore makeup in 1770, you could be considered a witch. And when they say tried as a witch, there's no trial.

Megan Hamilton (21:59.767)
And then...

red lipstick took on new significance during the 1920s suffragette movement symbolizing the fight for women's rights. Interesting. So this is the re imagining of what used to be something that was part of oppression and turning it into something powerful, right? yeah.

You think my red lips make me a witch? Okay. Now I'm going to use them to fight for my rights to wear red lips. That sounded a bit corny, but I think you know what I mean.

Megan Hamilton (22:48.034)
So, some people turn to this stuff, these different modalities of spirituality, because they don't feel like they fit in. And so there's kind of this counterculture involved. And that's another reason why it feels so.

fitting that activism should be part of your spiritual practice to me. This is my opinion. mean, you know, do as you will. But here's the thing.

When I was first starting to talk about the fact that I was reading tarot cards and even giving tarot readings, a friend said to me, you know, be really careful because there's a lot of people out there that this is not a friend necessarily within the space. There's a lot of people out there that are gonna equate you with.

Megan Hamilton (23:53.162)
certain kind of spirituality, which is the good vibes only, right? The, the manifesting, and again, there's nothing wrong with the word manifesting. We love to manifest, but manifest really just means taking action on something you want to see in the world, right? It's not just like magical thinking, except that for some people it is. And

I am pretty, I have a long.

Megan Hamilton (24:36.738)
I really enjoy letting people be who they are and discovering the next path. I think that shaming people doesn't actually do much help. And I like to think that people that I trust that people will come to good decisions on their own. But there's definitely a spirituality that I don't love. And

It is appropriation of other cultures. It is not being thoughtful about that, right? It is again, back to the good vibes only back to the only high vibes around here. You know, I don't want to deal with negativity, etc. That is not I'm not into that. I think that is a weird form of

control and bypassing certainly, but also it's icky and there's definitely a movement, could you even call it that, of folks around that and they won't want to get political or if they do, it's very self-interest oriented.

Megan Hamilton (26:03.318)
And I think that if spirituality teaches us anything, it's that we are part of something more, something bigger. We are together both, you know, in our human bodies as well as whatever else is out there. And to deny that or to only focus on yourself.

I think is highly problematic and is what leads to the sort of like appropriation of

Megan Hamilton (26:37.75)
enlightenment. The road to enlightenment is not fucking fun. It is hard. You got to take a good look at yourself. You've got to be honest. You've got to change. You have to be clear and you got to realize when you're being a dick. So

Let's take a minute to look at some of the ways that you could use magic and spirituality towards activism. And so aside from general activism, you know, like donating money or donating time by volunteering, letter writing, organizing or participating in protests, you can ask spirit guides for miracles, asking for justice and asking for guidance, right?

Colin Biddell in in a previous episode of embracing enchantment, which by the way is so freaking good. I love him so much.

Colin said, it's a total game changer when we're starting to manifest. And if you're using, you know, the spiritual world or your guys, you might say, how?

would you like to work through me? What would you see me? How do you see me and how can you work through me? Meaning how can I do amazing things in the world, you know, for other people and how can you support me through working through me towards that? Like how can I co-create with you? And I love that idea. Also,

Megan Hamilton (28:29.132)
you know, shadow work to help clarify where you stand and work through your fears. So let's just take a minute to look at once again, my favorite book and yours, or I don't know if it is or not, but women in power by Mary Beard and my friend Marissa introduced this book to me years ago and it has become, you know, like annotated. I've got little stars all over it. But one of the things I talk about again in this

speaking coaching business that I have is, you know, if you are a woman or a non-binary person or anybody who's sort of, you know, outside of the dominant culture, let's say, it is harder for you to speak up and it's harder for you

because of history. And so even, you I say often with the witch trials, your grandmothers, grandmothers, grandmothers, grandmothers, who were alive during that time in order to keep their babies alive, would have had their daughters learn how to be quiet, to listen, to obey. That was how you survived. And so that teaching

would have spread to the next generation, right? And the further we get away from the witch trials, we still have these behaviors. We still have the DNA being passed on the generational trauma and the idea of how we should be or are supposed to be. We're not close to that in, you know, in history. And yet we're still being taught the same behaviors.

out of some ancient desire to protect your family. But now when you've been taught that you should be quiet and listen, it's going to be harder for you to speak up. So give yourself a little bit of grace with that. And here's what Mary Beard said. And this goes back to like really ancient times.

Megan Hamilton (30:45.804)
She said, what I mean is that public speaking and oratory were not merely things that ancient women didn't do. They were exclusive practices and skills that defined masculinity as a gender.

Megan Hamilton (31:03.832)
And again, this book, look, it's not very thick. Get it from the library. It is so amazing.

Megan Hamilton (31:14.476)
But even the idea back in, in that, in, you know, thousands of years ago, it was not part of being a woman, public speaking, speaking up. and there's so much more about that in the book, but if it's hard for you, just know that it's designed to be hard for you. was designed to be hard for you and, and, and that doesn't mean you shouldn't.

It just means practicing some shadow work.

really helping to clarify where your fears come from and also committing to bravery are going to help you get to where you want to go. You can pull some tarot cards to help with action steps. can, you know, convene with your guides and say, show me through the tarot cards what I should be doing. You know what I mean? You can join a group of like minded people to work together.

Some might call that a coven or local activist groups or local groups of folks that that do positive things in the world, cook meals for folks who are living in tents, you know, all kinds of different things. You can work on spells and rituals towards peace or an end to suffering. Sometimes I like to light candles. Is my candle? Yeah.

candle still lit I like to carve the symbol of justice into a candle.

Megan Hamilton (32:53.376)
and ask for justice as a very quick and easy but powerful spell to do. I avoid using curses or hexes or any kind of energetic summoning that begins with harm. And in fact, when I close out my daily practice, I say for the good of all and the harm of none.

Megan Hamilton (33:21.464)
And that doesn't take away justice or the balancing of the scales. It just means that

Nobody undeserving should experience harm for the good of all unless they choose to. Okay. Like I said before, I'm also sometimes asking for the corrupted people in power who are creating suffering to have their power become impotent.

Megan Hamilton (33:59.021)
So.

I'd love to hear from you.

I know this is an uncomfortable topic for some, but I'd love to hear from you. You can leave me a voice note. You can write to me. You can comment on Instagram.

What do you think of all this? Do you think that magic and activism go hand in hand? One more thing I forgot to say actually, another previous guest Carmen Spanula talked about animism, which is, you know, looking at the world as though everything has a spirit. You know, the trees outside the grass.

nature in general. And so if we, you know, quoting sort of not directly quoting, but the idea that Carmen had was if everything is and spirited, then we're all together in this, right? We all

Megan Hamilton (35:10.03)
coexist. It's not just people, but it's also the planet. She even has an altar sometimes for the spirit of her business. If everything is in spirited, then we all have a connection to each other. And therefore when some of us are suffering,

Megan Hamilton (35:37.27)
you may feel as I do that it's your job to help end that suffering.

Megan Hamilton (35:48.716)
All right. You can find all the information and takeaways from today's episode in the show notes or at embracing enchantment dot 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 embracing enchantment dot com. And we might feature it in a future episode as we did today. You're to want to make sure you're subscribed because we have some exciting episodes coming up about witches and magic and music.

And you can catch up on previous episodes where we talk about astrology, scrying, using magic to clean your house, tarot, human design, the question of whether magic is real, and so much more. Until then, here's to building an enchanted life.