April 30, 2025 • 41 mins
In this conversation, Iris Quill, known as the Book Witch, shares her transformative journey from a sheltered upbringing in a Mormon homeschool environment to embracing her identity as a writer and spiritual seeker. She discusses the challenges of deconstructing her faith, the impact of societal expectations on her life choices, and her passion for storytelling as a means of rewriting personal and cultural myths. The dialogue emphasizes the importance of community, healing, and self-discovery in the process of reclaiming one's narrative.
Chapters
00:00 Journey of the Book Witch 05:25 Deconstructing Faith and Identity 08:22 Experiencing Freedom and New Beginnings 11:19 The Power of Storytelling and Myth 14:18 Embracing the Witch Identity 17:25 Building Community and Connection
Keywords
Book Witch, deconstruction, personal journey, spirituality, identity, writing, myths, healing, community, empowerment
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Alright, welcome back.
have my guest here with me.
This is Iris Quill.
She's the book witch and I am so excited to get to know her a little bit better and findout what is this journey we came to becoming the book witch and how is it that you are so
far away?
And how did that come to be?
(00:25):
I want to know a little bit about your history.
So we kind of met each other online because we're both in a
a faith journey group where people are sort of deconstructing and leaving theirtraditional or, you know, the culture of faith of their upbringing.
And so I am very curious to hear a little bit about your story.
(00:48):
So where does that story begin?
Yeah, I'm actually writing it out right now.
A lot of it because I'm kind of trying to piece together all of the different steps of it.
um I was a homeschool Mormon in Idaho.
So it was kind of very, very sheltered.
I kind of joke with a friend of mine that it's like the homeschool division of the Mormonexperience, the Mormon cult kind of a thing um because it is like,
(01:21):
you get deeper and then you get deeper into different kinds of things because it's likethe more that you sacrifice and the more ah you give up certain things like the more holy
you are and at least and in homeschooling it just gets more and more insular.
I don't know how much experience you have with that or yeah.
(01:41):
oh
relate to what you're saying.
Yeah.
So I only left the church.
I'm in my mid 30s and I only left the church about four years ago.
I was yeah, yeah.
I was in the middle of
(02:01):
It's a really long story.
I'm like, okay, I need like thinking of like all of like the different pieces, but I gotmarried um in December of 2019.
And I was at the time I was working and living for a little micro school that was kind ofbasically a commune.
um And I was living in a little apartment off the side of the person who owned its house.
(02:23):
Later, I like started tearing that apart and realizing that there were a lot of nothealthy patterns in that as well, Witch was super fun.
But um
I met my ex and got married very, quickly because I was 30 and I hadn't gotten married.
so speeding right along, um I met him, married him, divorced him within the space of abouta year.
(02:48):
um Yes, Witch was a lot.
I was still Mormon at the time, um throughout that entire thing.
And about four months after I filed for divorce,
I, my shelf broke and somebody started saying some history things to me about Joseph Smithand about Emma.
(03:09):
And I read DNC 132 and really started like looking at polygamy and was like, Oh, there islike it at the time I still believed in God because like, I feel like it's a kind of a
step by step thing where you like figure out your pieces.
And some people do like end up believing in God, Witch is beautiful and awesome for them.
(03:30):
um I have a lot of other beliefs Witch are all over the place, Witch is really, reallyfun.
But, so we'll get there.
um And so, yeah.
And so my shelf broke really, really hard.
um I had gotten divorced and like my work life was falling apart and um I found out thechurch was in true within about four months.
(03:50):
So, and I was, it was in the middle of COVID.
It was December, 2020 when this was um going on.
So was kind of intense.
um
Yeah, yeah.
a lot to happen in such a short amount of time as well as the time when the apocalypsestarted in our in our world.
oh
great.
(04:10):
And like, it was it was it was very, traumatizing.
And like, I feel like I was kind of in shock for a while after that.
And like, my work life felt bigger actually at the time than the church and the divorce,Witch was kind of an interesting thing, like looking back on it.
(04:30):
I'm like, okay, but actually, the other things were bigger.
It's just this one.
Yeah, it just was really kind of insane.
But um,
Fast, like I deconstructed over the course of that year and just like tearing differentthings apart, I stopped going to church.
I had a panic attack the first time I bought a tank top, Witch was fun.
(04:51):
ah
Aww.
Yeah, I remember like walking into savers and just like looking at like the tank tops andjust yeah, having an anxiety attack in the middle of savers and just going like, okay,
this is not okay.
um And then I kind of started working through a bunch of things, but I felt like this
(05:15):
It was interesting because I feel like there's been a lot of different stages with thisjourney because there were times where I felt like nothing mattered at all, like period,
like nothing, nothing mattered.
And the kind of nothing mattered where it was the spare nothing mattered.
Cause there's a couple of different kinds of when nothing matters.
There's the nothing matters.
(05:36):
Yay, it's fine.
can, know, like, well, if you know, we're on a rock in the middle of space, nothingmatters.
So you can create whatever.
And then there's the nothing matters that is.
depressive and it was different.
And so there were, and there were a lot of different stages.
I experimented with like some fun psychedelic, can I say that?
(05:57):
Like psychedelic.
psychedelics.
Yeah, we're we're we're currently getting ready to interview some some people locally herethat do psychedelics for healing.
And it didn't interview with them, but we're going to actually redo the interview and dosome sessions with them.
So psychedelics and healing, it's a great option for people who really need it.
(06:18):
So I'm I'm all for it.
So that really, really helped.
And it also, like, it was an interesting thing to leave the church, because I was superin.
I was like one of those, like, BYU mission was like in despair with the fact that Icouldn't get married because of how important that is in it.
I, you know, was working in like homeschool land.
(06:41):
I mean, just, I mean, I wanted to be good.
And like that, I wanted to...
follow God and that was like the most important thing.
And like to have that disappear was a lot.
And so it was a lot.
It was a lot.
like, and it's been interesting, like trying to pull myself together because it has been,I mean, it's been funny because like even in the past two weeks, I've been like, oh,
(07:09):
deconstructing like another piece because even when like, like I, you know how
at for me, it felt like when I first left the church, it felt like in the first like monthor three months that it had been so long.
It felt so long since I'd left the church because it was so present and so big.
(07:31):
And it was like, my goodness, this is huge.
And now that I've been out for four years, I'm like, my goodness, I have like barely beenout.
even though, like, I mean,
that would be considered like a newborn baby out in the world, right?
That wasn't that long ago.
It wasn't that long ago.
But like when I first got out, was like, oh my goodness, like just like a week.
It was like, oh my word, like to not wear garments to, I mean, the first time I triedcoffee, went to an ex-Mormon meetup and I didn't even get coffee because I was like so
(08:01):
scared of getting coffee.
And then after the ex-Mormon meetup, I went through the drive-through because it was likea drive-through coffee place and I got a coffee and I was like, this is what they've been
hiding from me.
and how much I.
thing, something that the rest of the world would look at and say, yeah, coffee.
(08:21):
That's how I wake up my day every, you know, cold struggle.
It's totally fine.
I was wine at dinner, you know.
absolutely like all of these different things and I traveled before and I done all ofthese things before because that's who I was as a person uh but I hadn't experienced so
many things because I was trying to be a Mormon good girl yeah around Europe Witch ishilarious when I was 28 but like yeah yeah I've always wanted to travel I've always wanted
(08:52):
to be like when I
I have this thing in my brain while I've been deconstructing all of this, where when I was12, I wanted to be this homeschool mom with 12 kids, blah, blah, because that is what I
was taught was the important thing for me to be.
But when I look back and I think of when I was six, when I was six, I wanted to justtravel around the United States in an RV with a girl child.
(09:16):
There wasn't a husband, there wasn't a spouse, there wasn't a partner, but having somebodywith me kind of a thing.
And now,
what I am doing is traveling, is international, is building out and going a bunch ofdifferent places.
And so it's been kind of this really interesting thing to be like, okay, what does bringme joy?
(09:38):
What do I really want to be?
Because the thing, yeah, I'm a little bit like a little all over the place.
I apologize.
know like podcast.
That's okay, we're just on this journey with you.
I'm just imagining you and a lot of people, because my heart goes out to people who arethat deeply ingrained in a culture or even a religion that you don't know any different,
(10:06):
you're told this is how to live.
I see it as like almost being buried in mud.
So deep, you don't know any different and the mud feels safe, right?
It feels like deep down in there, at least you have
the mud around you.
You're secure.
You know what to expect.
So it makes sense, then to like finally like somehow climb yourself out of the mud andthen be like, now what?
(10:34):
I'm just imagining how that must have been for you and for so many people.
I mean, I'm in this world too, knowing and working with people who are in that state andthat is such a hard place and also such a beautiful place.
Yeah, I love that metaphor.
Because like, I mean, there's the whole like Plato's cave metaphor, but the one thatyou're describing, I feel like is so much deeper because you're, you're buried, you're
(10:59):
buried, you're safe.
And considering how much of this culture um is about death, and you don't really realizehow much of it is about until after you get out.
And then you're like, my goodness, this is, it's, yeah, it's all about death.
And so it's,
ridiculous, Witch is funny because like that is one thing that people won't think about.
(11:22):
um Intel, yeah.
So um all of these different things, I'd wanted to travel all of this and I left theschool that I was working at after about two and a half years.
Yeah, and I went to, I'd fallen in love with Austin, Texas.
So I actually ended up.
in Austin, Texas for a year.
(11:42):
I house sat my way around Austin, Texas using the Trusted Housetaters app and just likeliterally stayed in other people's homes and took care of their pets for an entire year.
ah was, I was recovering a little bit because like I had gotten so burned out and so like,I mean, between the church and my job and all of these different things, I just, yeah.
(12:08):
didn't really know what to do with myself.
And then about a year and a half ago, realized that, or I'd known for a very long timethat I wanted to live abroad.
If I hadn't been in the church, would have um taught abroad in my twenties.
But because there was so much focus on get married, get married, get married.
(12:31):
And I went on a church before the age changed.
So I was like,
23, 24, Witch is ancient at BYU kind of a thing.
I feel like I could like do that anymore.
Cause like you're supposed to get married and I was already like a crone.
And it's funny cause I like feel so much younger than I ever have in my life.
(12:51):
And I'm much older than I was back then.
it.
It's that old, you know, that belief that we are the crone, but we're also the maiden andwe're the mother.
We're all of those things all the time.
Absolutely, absolutely.
so it's been interesting because one of the things that I realized also leaving all ofthis was like how much more spiritual that I could get and that I felt after leaving the
(13:19):
church.
And that has come and gone a little bit.
Like I've had it and then it goes away and then it comes back.
But it kind of depends on, it depends on me a little bit more.
And it depends on like, I mean, so I did.
I got the teaching English as a second language certificate and I already have abouteight, nine years of experience teaching.
(13:42):
And I, to answer the question about Dubai, I got on, I was looking for a job last Mayactually.
And I found a job that was in a micro school, Witch I had experience in, in Dubai and thatwanted eight years of experience.
And I was like, that actually completely fits all of the things that I've done.
(14:04):
and I've like put on Shakespeare festivals and like all of these different kinds ofthings.
And I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna do that.
And so I applied and I got an interview that night.
um And I got the job within three weeks, Witch was insane.
And it was insane.
I also around that time,
(14:25):
fell in love for the very first time.
And so it was kind of this mix of like devastating with, yeah.
And so, cause I ended up, yeah, leaving them and coming out to Dubai.
Cause I like, I needed to.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
how amazing.
(14:47):
Yeah, it's been really, it's been interesting because like, I mean, I love Dubai andthings.
When are you publishing this?
weeks from now.
Okay, um, sorry.
I so I am probably going to be leaving Dubai and by probably going to be leaving Dubai Iam but I haven't put that out yet.
(15:17):
So that's why I yeah.
Yeah.
The path that is laid out for you that will unfold.
Take you where you're meant to go next, right?
That's the thing, because I have loved divide, but I've also realized that I don't want tobe a teacher.
um And Witch has been a really interesting thing.
So I became a teacher on accident due to the whole going to school to get married and thennot getting married, but having an English degree and not knowing what to do with it kind
(15:44):
of a thing.
I have always wanted to be a writer, but you do need to generally speaking have a job aswell as be a writer to become a writer at first, at least.
At least that's what it's, you know, I'm working on that.
um Right now I actually have a couple of gigs that I am working on developing with mywriter and all of these things.
(16:07):
So yeah, so I'm going to be leaving.
um I'm going to be going, currently the plan is to be going to Spain and to be learningSpanish, to be figuring some things out there.
And then from then on, I'm planning on getting a couple of master's degrees in Europe.
So it's kind of this, I'm going after what I wanted when I was younger.
(16:29):
that I didn't feel like I could fit, Witch is really kind of amazing.
Okay.
not knowing your story before now.
And I just have to kind of outline a lot of the healing work that I do is in cycles,cycles of seasons, cycles of the moon, cycles of our lives.
And you're describing what is so perfectly lined up with even just the cycle of here inthe Northern Hemisphere, we're going through spring, right?
(16:57):
And you talk about like this time of your life, Witch kind of blew up for you.
I mean, it really,
blew up in a lot of crazy, really difficult ways.
Looking back on it, you may be like, thank goodness that happened.
It was super hard to have gone through it.
I call those like mini deaths, right?
We're going through like an equal death.
(17:19):
I felt like I died so many times.
I, and part of you has to die in order for that to reverse.
So that's like your wintering season.
It's the time where you're going through that dark night of the soul.
The parts of you that are like, listen, this is all I've ever known.
It might've made me feel safe or in control in some way, but I'm super not digging it.
(17:41):
I'm not like into all of this.
This doesn't feel right to me.
This feels like constriction and restriction from what I really want.
And then there had to be this like blow everything up moment.
mean, marriage and faith and way of life, all of those things just kind of one by one werelike, not that, not that, not that.
(18:04):
It's that had to happen for you in such a short amount of time.
That is so rough.
But now you're in this like amazing rebirth time where real true self gets to be born fromall of that.
the germination of it, the fertilization of the soil from that death is now coming outinto this new cycle.
(18:27):
And you just are like this amazing flower.
You talk about falling in love for the first time.
I mean, what's more springtime Twitter-painted and like, this is who I really am.
And this is what really aligns with who I'm coming.
And even deciding that maybe teaching was not really like it served a purpose for you.
(18:51):
can definitely attest to that because I have been and am still in some ways a teacher, butI could never go back.
Well, never say never.
But I mean, I choose not to go back to education because I'm like, I've grown from that.
That's who I was.
This is who I'm becoming.
(19:12):
And then aligning yourself with like, wait, I'm a writer.
This is who I am.
This is where I need my path to go next.
Which brings us to what piqued my interest when I found you online and I'm like, we needto chat is the book witch because you know, witchy stuff is really kind of becoming a
(19:32):
popular fad right now.
Unless of course we get ostracized and there becomes this new age of witch hunts, Witchmay happen.
So I've already put it out there.
well, I'll be the first one on the chopping block.
It's fine.
uh So when the first time that like my producer had started introducing me in networkinggroups here locally, she's like, this is our local witch.
(19:55):
And I was a little uncomfortable with the title at first because I'm like, what is thisMormon culture?
Even those who aren't Mormon and just are here in Utah, what are they going to think ifthey hear that?
So want you to just kind of talk to me about where we come to your relationship with thatword, Witch, and then how you're using it to maybe own that a little bit.
(20:22):
Absolutely.
So I came up with the title, The Traveling Book, Witch maybe like at least it was probablyabout a year and a half ago or two years ago.
And it's funny because I haven't been, it's one of those like, you know how you discover aname sometimes that you don't like, you know, it's you, but you haven't quite like
blossomed into it yet.
(20:42):
And you're like still figuring out some aspects.
Absolutely.
And so like, it's something that I've had, have like, I have a sub stack.
called the traveling book, Witch that I am working on posts there.
am posting on weekly right now and developing that.
And my TikTok is also the traveling book, Witch, and so I'm like putting those thingstogether.
(21:02):
The reason book, Witch I, I've loved books my entire life.
I have loved, loved, loved books my entire life.
I was, I have read and reread.
I mean, I joke sometimes that I've read Lord of the Rings.
15 times and it's not really a joke.
um I've read every book that Ella Montgomery, the writer of Anna Green Gables ever wrotethat I could find my hands on.
(21:28):
I studied English in college.
I've read tons of Terry Pratchett.
just reading was like everybody knew that I read and also wrote.
I didn't write as much when I was younger and this has been an interesting thing that Irealized recently.
um
(21:48):
I've been working on a book.
I have been working on a book since I was 12 years old.
I am currently working on, I've got about 80,000 words and I have a whole bunch of otherbooks that I'm also like mapping out, but I have this book that I started when I was 12
and I don't think I could finish it until after I left the church because the message ofit is about people who are stuck in fairy tales and m
(22:16):
they're in a world where fairy tales, they're kind of innocuous.
They're kind of like, this is just life.
This is how it is.
We all know that.
Like if your name happens to be Eleanor and you happen to have like a sick mother, like,I'm so sorry, she's going to die and you're going to become a Cinderella.
Like that's just like, that's the patterning people know that that is going to be life.
Like if you have 12 siblings, I'm so sorry, this is what is going to happen to you, kindof a thing.
(22:40):
And I started writing that when I was 12 years old.
And then,
when I left the church and I started analyzing it and I was like, oh, it's because ofmyth.
Because the thing that fascinates me and the realization of what I was about a couple ofweeks ago is I had this thought of I am a writer of new myths.
I'm a writer of new myths.
The things we have so many different stories and so many different narratives and some ofthem are good, but a lot of them are keeping us like in these ideas, in these patterns
(23:11):
that are
really necessarily good for us.
The story that I had in my head of like, oh I'm like the life path that I'm supposed to beon is to like go to BYU, get married, have a million kids.
Like that is the thing that you're supposed to do.
And that prevented me from living authentically, from living the life that I'm absolutelydrawn to, absolutely want to.
(23:37):
And I see that in women over and over and over and over again.
And a lot of that is from
the patriarchal patterning that we've been taught in numerous ways, not just from theMormon church, but from so many different stories.
Like I remember watching, uh I love media.
And so when I talk about myself as a book, Witch it is because when I watch something,when I read something, when I look at a story, it is in this analytical and pattern and
(24:04):
myth-based way of this is what the concept of this, this is what this is saying at a rootlevel.
And that is what I love to find when I am going uh through these things.
And so as I am deciding that, I am going to be writing, I'm going to be writing out thatbook and writing out another book about a whole bunch of different like ancient gods, or
(24:32):
waking up and discovering themselves.
I'm going to...
write about magical universities, I'm going to write queer stories, I'm going to like allof these different things that I'm realizing that I need and that I've started doing um in
my life as I am building this out.
I'm also like ghostwriting for a couple of different people and am accepting like morethings as I'm ghostwriting and creating these different things.
(24:59):
I also have realized that I'm pretty good at helping people like find
their stories and see them like when I'm talking to people and just like helping people tolike recognize their own stories and who they are.
So when I call myself the Traveling Book Witch is something that I am and something that Iam growing into currently my sub stack is me analyzing what it took to go from a super
(25:26):
conservative Mormon homeschooler to a
atheist, pagan, liberal, queer, witch.
We are all here for that.
And I'm just going step by step of like what that took, all of these analyzing all ofthese things.
(25:47):
And I mentioned before like recognizing part of the reason that I hadn't been writing asmuch.
got, it's funny now, cause I think of it as a spell, but I got my patriarchal blessingvery shortly after I realized that I needed and wanted to be a writer.
And I had this fire and this passion in my soul.
(26:07):
And I knew
knew that God would also recognize that fire and passion in my soul because I was taughtthat he cared about us.
And I was taught that like, oh, we're here to fight for him and all of those things.
And then I went to get my patriarchal blessing and it, I would never have said these wordswhen I was younger, but it was lame.
(26:28):
It was incredibly, incredibly boring, cookie cutter lame.
was not, it was long, it was long, but it was long in the way that like,
a not well done chat GPT can be long where it was all filler words and all like, and allabout.
Yeah, it wasn't anything personal, anything real.
(26:52):
But I realized that like I took that upon myself so deeply, so much.
Because it said the words at the proper time you will meet a man that you will love withall of your heart.
And I heard those words and was like, what if I miss it?
What if I miss it?
What if I'm not in the right place?
Like at the proper time, what does that even mean?
And I like super analyze that and like, and it was so, so important.
And it's funny.
(27:13):
Cause now I'm like, no, I am not getting married.
That's no, that's not a thing that's going to happen.
Or if it does, it's not going to be.
Yeah.
uh
And for those who are uh listening and maybe not sure what we're talking about, thePatriarchal Blessing is a certain patriarch of the church who has the authority to give a
(27:34):
special blessing that you get once in your life, usually when you're very young, andbasically maps out your life with the prophecy of what it is you are meant to do or be.
or whatever that is.
uh I know I waited until I was after uh I was married to get my patriarchal blessing.
(27:55):
Cause I don't know, I just wasn't like ready until I felt ready or whatever that is.
So yeah, and I, you know, we've talked on this podcast before episodes of like how cursesor spells can take part and play in your life.
That can be one of those things that's like, it the, is it that it's a blessing?
(28:15):
or a curse or a spell, or is it that it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, you get toldlike, you're gonna do these things.
And so then you are like, well, then that's what I'm gonna look for.
And then that's the energy that you bring to your life.
So yeah.
Absolutely, absolutely.
I mean, I I love that so much of witchiness is spicy psychology and recognizing your owneffect in what you're doing.
(28:42):
And I'm like learning that more and more all of the time, Witch is lovely.
with the witchiness also, like I do, I mean, I love, I want to know, and I study more oflike my own heritage and Celtic and like,
I'm working on studying like the morrigan and different.
(29:05):
Yes.
Yes.
Love that.
And you know, as you're talking about myth, obviously, like as a Celtic folk, Witch myselflove the mythology and love rewriting, I love that you come at it like, why can't I be a
myth writer too?
I am the ancestors of my descendants.
(29:27):
And so therefore you're like, they'll look to me for those myths.
for the listeners who listened to my episode,
couple episodes back where I retold the story of Bledioweth, Witch is a Celtic folklorefrom Welsh mythology.
What you're saying is so aligned with her story because I think when they wrote her storydown in 1100 AD, know, when they wrote the Mabinagi, they were probably writing it as
(29:55):
like,
this woman is the villain of the story.
She didn't fall in line with what she was supposed to do.
She didn't stay with her husband, she was supposed to marry him.
She was made of flowers for him.
And then she, you know, we could say modern day language, she cheated on him and found alover that's so evil, right?
(30:18):
When in fact, if you just reconstruct the mythology a little bit or
come at it from a little bit different perspective.
You can see that Bladya was a character who was made to be married to somebody.
She didn't maybe want to be married.
Nobody asked her.
Nobody asked her if she wanted to be married to this guy.
(30:39):
So when she found someone she fell in love with, she wrote her own destiny.
And that is so powerful, especially when you're talking about it.
From your perspective, I had this
patriarchal blessing was told this is how my life was supposed to work out.
And then when I was reborn into my new life, I decided for myself what my path would be.
(31:04):
I'm not just made for other people's expectations of me.
I'm not just made for this religion, this marriage, these 12 kids that I'm supposed tohave.
know that's not every Mormon woman's desire, but it was taught to me to be.
It is very much a cultural thing to expect that of everyone that like we all are justsupposed to fall in line with what their idea of life is supposed to be like.
(31:32):
What does it mean to be a faithful, good person?
And that's very much ingrained in expectation and all of that.
So totally understand that whether you want 12 kids or not.
And some people do want 12 kids, so more power to them.
That's great.
Yeah, good for them.
So forging, you know, the myth is just uh kind of that play.
(31:56):
Well, what I'm hearing you say too, and that some of the books that you're wanting towrite is that play with what's destiny.
What am I destined for?
But what am I also the part that I play is that I choose what is the destiny I forge formyself.
Yeah, because a lot of it, I mean, I look at so many of the things that are happening inour world and all of the things, and a lot of it is based on the myths that you believe
(32:25):
and the things that you believe about what a woman is for, the things that you believewhat a person is, shapes a lot of the way that you treat other people and that you create
a society.
And I want to help figure out
what then, and when I say new myths, a lot of it is like really, really, really old myths.
(32:46):
Like I love a When God Was a Woman and how it talks about, yes, my goodness.
Oh my, like, realizing just like what it was like when we weren't worshiping a patriarchof God and what that looks like.
And I'm so curious about like the more people creating their own and understanding thatthere are
(33:11):
different ways of living than what there is right now.
And however idealistic that might be, it's something that I wanna like write about andhelp people see different perspectives on.
Yes.
And stories and storytelling, at least for me personally, have always been such a powerfulway to get those ideas to people.
(33:34):
I mean, I feel like people can read something and they can go, okay, yeah, like, allright.
So maybe God is a woman, cool.
But when a story is told in such a way that it takes you through the emotions, through theideas, living it and
at least for me, but I'm also a Pisces.
(33:54):
So that's just like how I see the world, but it's like, yeah, that's it's, it's justpowerful.
And I love um just to connect with you a little bit.
We're so alike.
I can already tell.
I have a story I wrote when I was 12 as well that I've always like held onto as likesomeday that'll be ready to rewrite and to, know, to work on, but like that's,
(34:22):
Um, it's almost like you have to.
invite the spirit of your inner child, of the part of you that wrote that story from thebeginning, that had that like passion and that drive to tell a story.
And then like partner it with the Crohn's wisdom of your life experiences and how you'vecome at that story from a different way.
(34:46):
And maybe it becomes.
Something, yeah.
something genius, something that will be out in the world.
And I'm excited for that.
Absolutely.
Well, this has been an amazing conversation.
I don't know about anyone else listening, but I feel like we've just made best friends.
(35:09):
um before we wrap up, let people know where they can find you, how they can connect withyou.
Yeah, I have a I have the blog that I mentioned um on sub stack the traveling book, Witchand I'm currently writing about uh that more my experience I am going to be writing about
(35:31):
how to travel for the very first time because I've been realizing as I've been talking tosome of my friends that they don't know how to do a lot of the things that I now take for
granted.
So how to like leave the country and talking about
different kinds of visas and all those kinds of things.
So I am gonna start doing that pretty soon.
(35:51):
I have a couple of different books that I am working on writing, like the Heretics Guideto Happiness and some fun things like that, as well as my fairy tale books.
I have a TikTok right now um that is the traveling book, Witch that I am also growing.
And I also, I don't know if this is something, um
(36:15):
Yeah, I also have a Facebook group that I'm building called the Unbound Collective, Witchis like a business group for women that I just started with to help business.
yeah.
It's like I accidentally got into a Mormon women's business group and realized that weneed more of the not the like I'm going to mentor you to become something, but more of
(36:37):
like let's make connections and oh, I need.
somebody for this kind of position or I know somebody who does like creating that kind ofinterconnected webness because that's the way that I interconnected webness that is not a
word.
But like.
You heard it here first folks.
Love it.
But just because I see, and we know how like so many men get jobs simply because of whothey know.
(37:04):
And we need to build out these connections between, especially like as ex-Mormon women, alot of the time we've lost a lot of financial, any kind of thing.
We've lost a lot of family.
We've lost a lot of connections.
A lot of us have gotten divorced.
There's a whole bunch of different pieces.
So I'm growing that.
um
(37:24):
It has about 30 people in it.
So we are going forward with that.
Awesome.
need to get, yeah, build that up.
Cause you're totally right.
think the culture, it comes from a lot of like the only thing we know if we've been raisedin the Mormon culture or, um or even in Utah culture is like an MLM.
Like how can I sell to you?
(37:46):
How can you join me in what I'm doing rather than, and this is what I've been working onwith the Daybreak Network in business communities is like, we need to build relationships
with people.
We need to have relationships with people and build community first.
It's about like, do you have a friend?
Do you have a friend that does something that could be useful to anyone and then referpeople to that friend?
(38:09):
And this is how we begin, right?
And I have been told time and time again that that's how we fight or resist against someof the oppressive systems that we in America are currently experiencing.
is that we just need to, we need to start with community.
(38:29):
We need to start with putting relationships and people over profits.
And so I feel like it's an act of resistance to be able to build those communities.
So yes, let's connect there and head over to that Facebook group.
If you're looking for something like that, that would be an amazing community to build,especially all over the world, wherever you're at.
(38:50):
You're in Dubai, you're over here in Utah.
Absolutely.
Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
And it's been an amazing conversation.
So I can't wait to see where you go next and to see all of those published works when theycome out.
I'll be looking for them for sure.
It has been lovely.
Thank you so much for inviting me onto here.
(39:11):
And it has been absolutely wonderful getting to talk to you and being here.
I love everything that you're doing.
It's so good.
And if you're looking for any of those handles that she just mentioned, we are gonna putthem in the show notes.
So look there if you want the specifics, you can get connected.
Alright, welcome back.
have my guest here with me.
This is Iris Quill.
She's the book witch and I am so excited to get to know her a little bit better and findout what is this journey we came to becoming the book witch and how is it that you are so
far away?
And how did that come to be?
(00:25):
I want to know a little bit about your history.
So we kind of met each other online because we're both in a
a faith journey group where people are sort of deconstructing and leaving theirtraditional or, you know, the culture of faith of their upbringing.
And so I am very curious to hear a little bit about your story.
(00:48):
So where does that story begin?
Yeah, I'm actually writing it out right now.
A lot of it because I'm kind of trying to piece together all of the different steps of it.
um I was a homeschool Mormon in Idaho.
So it was kind of very, very sheltered.
I kind of joke with a friend of mine that it's like the homeschool division of the Mormonexperience, the Mormon cult kind of a thing um because it is like,
(01:21):
you get deeper and then you get deeper into different kinds of things because it's likethe more that you sacrifice and the more ah you give up certain things like the more holy
you are and at least and in homeschooling it just gets more and more insular.
I don't know how much experience you have with that or yeah.
(01:41):
oh
relate to what you're saying.
Yeah.
So I only left the church.
I'm in my mid 30s and I only left the church about four years ago.
I was yeah, yeah.
I was in the middle of
(02:01):
It's a really long story.
I'm like, okay, I need like thinking of like all of like the different pieces, but I gotmarried um in December of 2019.
And I was at the time I was working and living for a little micro school that was kind ofbasically a commune.
um And I was living in a little apartment off the side of the person who owned its house.
(02:23):
Later, I like started tearing that apart and realizing that there were a lot of nothealthy patterns in that as well, Witch was super fun.
But um
I met my ex and got married very, quickly because I was 30 and I hadn't gotten married.
so speeding right along, um I met him, married him, divorced him within the space of abouta year.
(02:48):
um Yes, Witch was a lot.
I was still Mormon at the time, um throughout that entire thing.
And about four months after I filed for divorce,
I, my shelf broke and somebody started saying some history things to me about Joseph Smithand about Emma.
(03:09):
And I read DNC 132 and really started like looking at polygamy and was like, Oh, there islike it at the time I still believed in God because like, I feel like it's a kind of a
step by step thing where you like figure out your pieces.
And some people do like end up believing in God, Witch is beautiful and awesome for them.
(03:30):
um I have a lot of other beliefs Witch are all over the place, Witch is really, reallyfun.
But, so we'll get there.
um And so, yeah.
And so my shelf broke really, really hard.
um I had gotten divorced and like my work life was falling apart and um I found out thechurch was in true within about four months.
(03:50):
So, and I was, it was in the middle of COVID.
It was December, 2020 when this was um going on.
So was kind of intense.
um
Yeah, yeah.
a lot to happen in such a short amount of time as well as the time when the apocalypsestarted in our in our world.
oh
great.
(04:10):
And like, it was it was it was very, traumatizing.
And like, I feel like I was kind of in shock for a while after that.
And like, my work life felt bigger actually at the time than the church and the divorce,Witch was kind of an interesting thing, like looking back on it.
(04:30):
I'm like, okay, but actually, the other things were bigger.
It's just this one.
Yeah, it just was really kind of insane.
But um,
Fast, like I deconstructed over the course of that year and just like tearing differentthings apart, I stopped going to church.
I had a panic attack the first time I bought a tank top, Witch was fun.
(04:51):
ah
Aww.
Yeah, I remember like walking into savers and just like looking at like the tank tops andjust yeah, having an anxiety attack in the middle of savers and just going like, okay,
this is not okay.
um And then I kind of started working through a bunch of things, but I felt like this
(05:15):
It was interesting because I feel like there's been a lot of different stages with thisjourney because there were times where I felt like nothing mattered at all, like period,
like nothing, nothing mattered.
And the kind of nothing mattered where it was the spare nothing mattered.
Cause there's a couple of different kinds of when nothing matters.
There's the nothing matters.
(05:36):
Yay, it's fine.
can, know, like, well, if you know, we're on a rock in the middle of space, nothingmatters.
So you can create whatever.
And then there's the nothing matters that is.
depressive and it was different.
And so there were, and there were a lot of different stages.
I experimented with like some fun psychedelic, can I say that?
(05:57):
Like psychedelic.
psychedelics.
Yeah, we're we're we're currently getting ready to interview some some people locally herethat do psychedelics for healing.
And it didn't interview with them, but we're going to actually redo the interview and dosome sessions with them.
So psychedelics and healing, it's a great option for people who really need it.
(06:18):
So I'm I'm all for it.
So that really, really helped.
And it also, like, it was an interesting thing to leave the church, because I was superin.
I was like one of those, like, BYU mission was like in despair with the fact that Icouldn't get married because of how important that is in it.
I, you know, was working in like homeschool land.
(06:41):
I mean, just, I mean, I wanted to be good.
And like that, I wanted to...
follow God and that was like the most important thing.
And like to have that disappear was a lot.
And so it was a lot.
It was a lot.
like, and it's been interesting, like trying to pull myself together because it has been,I mean, it's been funny because like even in the past two weeks, I've been like, oh,
(07:09):
deconstructing like another piece because even when like, like I, you know how
at for me, it felt like when I first left the church, it felt like in the first like monthor three months that it had been so long.
It felt so long since I'd left the church because it was so present and so big.
(07:31):
And it was like, my goodness, this is huge.
And now that I've been out for four years, I'm like, my goodness, I have like barely beenout.
even though, like, I mean,
that would be considered like a newborn baby out in the world, right?
That wasn't that long ago.
It wasn't that long ago.
But like when I first got out, was like, oh my goodness, like just like a week.
It was like, oh my word, like to not wear garments to, I mean, the first time I triedcoffee, went to an ex-Mormon meetup and I didn't even get coffee because I was like so
(08:01):
scared of getting coffee.
And then after the ex-Mormon meetup, I went through the drive-through because it was likea drive-through coffee place and I got a coffee and I was like, this is what they've been
hiding from me.
and how much I.
thing, something that the rest of the world would look at and say, yeah, coffee.
(08:21):
That's how I wake up my day every, you know, cold struggle.
It's totally fine.
I was wine at dinner, you know.
absolutely like all of these different things and I traveled before and I done all ofthese things before because that's who I was as a person uh but I hadn't experienced so
many things because I was trying to be a Mormon good girl yeah around Europe Witch ishilarious when I was 28 but like yeah yeah I've always wanted to travel I've always wanted
(08:52):
to be like when I
I have this thing in my brain while I've been deconstructing all of this, where when I was12, I wanted to be this homeschool mom with 12 kids, blah, blah, because that is what I
was taught was the important thing for me to be.
But when I look back and I think of when I was six, when I was six, I wanted to justtravel around the United States in an RV with a girl child.
(09:16):
There wasn't a husband, there wasn't a spouse, there wasn't a partner, but having somebodywith me kind of a thing.
And now,
what I am doing is traveling, is international, is building out and going a bunch ofdifferent places.
And so it's been kind of this really interesting thing to be like, okay, what does bringme joy?
(09:38):
What do I really want to be?
Because the thing, yeah, I'm a little bit like a little all over the place.
I apologize.
know like podcast.
That's okay, we're just on this journey with you.
I'm just imagining you and a lot of people, because my heart goes out to people who arethat deeply ingrained in a culture or even a religion that you don't know any different,
(10:06):
you're told this is how to live.
I see it as like almost being buried in mud.
So deep, you don't know any different and the mud feels safe, right?
It feels like deep down in there, at least you have
the mud around you.
You're secure.
You know what to expect.
So it makes sense, then to like finally like somehow climb yourself out of the mud andthen be like, now what?
(10:34):
I'm just imagining how that must have been for you and for so many people.
I mean, I'm in this world too, knowing and working with people who are in that state andthat is such a hard place and also such a beautiful place.
Yeah, I love that metaphor.
Because like, I mean, there's the whole like Plato's cave metaphor, but the one thatyou're describing, I feel like is so much deeper because you're, you're buried, you're
(10:59):
buried, you're safe.
And considering how much of this culture um is about death, and you don't really realizehow much of it is about until after you get out.
And then you're like, my goodness, this is, it's, yeah, it's all about death.
And so it's,
ridiculous, Witch is funny because like that is one thing that people won't think about.
(11:22):
um Intel, yeah.
So um all of these different things, I'd wanted to travel all of this and I left theschool that I was working at after about two and a half years.
Yeah, and I went to, I'd fallen in love with Austin, Texas.
So I actually ended up.
in Austin, Texas for a year.
(11:42):
I house sat my way around Austin, Texas using the Trusted Housetaters app and just likeliterally stayed in other people's homes and took care of their pets for an entire year.
ah was, I was recovering a little bit because like I had gotten so burned out and so like,I mean, between the church and my job and all of these different things, I just, yeah.
(12:08):
didn't really know what to do with myself.
And then about a year and a half ago, realized that, or I'd known for a very long timethat I wanted to live abroad.
If I hadn't been in the church, would have um taught abroad in my twenties.
But because there was so much focus on get married, get married, get married.
(12:31):
And I went on a church before the age changed.
So I was like,
23, 24, Witch is ancient at BYU kind of a thing.
I feel like I could like do that anymore.
Cause like you're supposed to get married and I was already like a crone.
And it's funny cause I like feel so much younger than I ever have in my life.
(12:51):
And I'm much older than I was back then.
it.
It's that old, you know, that belief that we are the crone, but we're also the maiden andwe're the mother.
We're all of those things all the time.
Absolutely, absolutely.
so it's been interesting because one of the things that I realized also leaving all ofthis was like how much more spiritual that I could get and that I felt after leaving the
(13:19):
church.
And that has come and gone a little bit.
Like I've had it and then it goes away and then it comes back.
But it kind of depends on, it depends on me a little bit more.
And it depends on like, I mean, so I did.
I got the teaching English as a second language certificate and I already have abouteight, nine years of experience teaching.
(13:42):
And I, to answer the question about Dubai, I got on, I was looking for a job last Mayactually.
And I found a job that was in a micro school, Witch I had experience in, in Dubai and thatwanted eight years of experience.
And I was like, that actually completely fits all of the things that I've done.
(14:04):
and I've like put on Shakespeare festivals and like all of these different kinds ofthings.
And I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna do that.
And so I applied and I got an interview that night.
um And I got the job within three weeks, Witch was insane.
And it was insane.
I also around that time,
(14:25):
fell in love for the very first time.
And so it was kind of this mix of like devastating with, yeah.
And so, cause I ended up, yeah, leaving them and coming out to Dubai.
Cause I like, I needed to.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
how amazing.
(14:47):
Yeah, it's been really, it's been interesting because like, I mean, I love Dubai andthings.
When are you publishing this?
weeks from now.
Okay, um, sorry.
I so I am probably going to be leaving Dubai and by probably going to be leaving Dubai Iam but I haven't put that out yet.
(15:17):
So that's why I yeah.
Yeah.
The path that is laid out for you that will unfold.
Take you where you're meant to go next, right?
That's the thing, because I have loved divide, but I've also realized that I don't want tobe a teacher.
um And Witch has been a really interesting thing.
So I became a teacher on accident due to the whole going to school to get married and thennot getting married, but having an English degree and not knowing what to do with it kind
(15:44):
of a thing.
I have always wanted to be a writer, but you do need to generally speaking have a job aswell as be a writer to become a writer at first, at least.
At least that's what it's, you know, I'm working on that.
um Right now I actually have a couple of gigs that I am working on developing with mywriter and all of these things.
(16:07):
So yeah, so I'm going to be leaving.
um I'm going to be going, currently the plan is to be going to Spain and to be learningSpanish, to be figuring some things out there.
And then from then on, I'm planning on getting a couple of master's degrees in Europe.
So it's kind of this, I'm going after what I wanted when I was younger.
(16:29):
that I didn't feel like I could fit, Witch is really kind of amazing.
Okay.
not knowing your story before now.
And I just have to kind of outline a lot of the healing work that I do is in cycles,cycles of seasons, cycles of the moon, cycles of our lives.
And you're describing what is so perfectly lined up with even just the cycle of here inthe Northern Hemisphere, we're going through spring, right?
(16:57):
And you talk about like this time of your life, Witch kind of blew up for you.
I mean, it really,
blew up in a lot of crazy, really difficult ways.
Looking back on it, you may be like, thank goodness that happened.
It was super hard to have gone through it.
I call those like mini deaths, right?
We're going through like an equal death.
(17:19):
I felt like I died so many times.
I, and part of you has to die in order for that to reverse.
So that's like your wintering season.
It's the time where you're going through that dark night of the soul.
The parts of you that are like, listen, this is all I've ever known.
It might've made me feel safe or in control in some way, but I'm super not digging it.
(17:41):
I'm not like into all of this.
This doesn't feel right to me.
This feels like constriction and restriction from what I really want.
And then there had to be this like blow everything up moment.
mean, marriage and faith and way of life, all of those things just kind of one by one werelike, not that, not that, not that.
(18:04):
It's that had to happen for you in such a short amount of time.
That is so rough.
But now you're in this like amazing rebirth time where real true self gets to be born fromall of that.
the germination of it, the fertilization of the soil from that death is now coming outinto this new cycle.
(18:27):
And you just are like this amazing flower.
You talk about falling in love for the first time.
I mean, what's more springtime Twitter-painted and like, this is who I really am.
And this is what really aligns with who I'm coming.
And even deciding that maybe teaching was not really like it served a purpose for you.
(18:51):
can definitely attest to that because I have been and am still in some ways a teacher, butI could never go back.
Well, never say never.
But I mean, I choose not to go back to education because I'm like, I've grown from that.
That's who I was.
This is who I'm becoming.
(19:12):
And then aligning yourself with like, wait, I'm a writer.
This is who I am.
This is where I need my path to go next.
Which brings us to what piqued my interest when I found you online and I'm like, we needto chat is the book witch because you know, witchy stuff is really kind of becoming a
(19:32):
popular fad right now.
Unless of course we get ostracized and there becomes this new age of witch hunts, Witchmay happen.
So I've already put it out there.
well, I'll be the first one on the chopping block.
It's fine.
uh So when the first time that like my producer had started introducing me in networkinggroups here locally, she's like, this is our local witch.
(19:55):
And I was a little uncomfortable with the title at first because I'm like, what is thisMormon culture?
Even those who aren't Mormon and just are here in Utah, what are they going to think ifthey hear that?
So want you to just kind of talk to me about where we come to your relationship with thatword, Witch, and then how you're using it to maybe own that a little bit.
(20:22):
Absolutely.
So I came up with the title, The Traveling Book, Witch maybe like at least it was probablyabout a year and a half ago or two years ago.
And it's funny because I haven't been, it's one of those like, you know how you discover aname sometimes that you don't like, you know, it's you, but you haven't quite like
blossomed into it yet.
(20:42):
And you're like still figuring out some aspects.
Absolutely.
And so like, it's something that I've had, have like, I have a sub stack.
called the traveling book, Witch that I am working on posts there.
am posting on weekly right now and developing that.
And my TikTok is also the traveling book, Witch, and so I'm like putting those thingstogether.
(21:02):
The reason book, Witch I, I've loved books my entire life.
I have loved, loved, loved books my entire life.
I was, I have read and reread.
I mean, I joke sometimes that I've read Lord of the Rings.
15 times and it's not really a joke.
um I've read every book that Ella Montgomery, the writer of Anna Green Gables ever wrotethat I could find my hands on.
(21:28):
I studied English in college.
I've read tons of Terry Pratchett.
just reading was like everybody knew that I read and also wrote.
I didn't write as much when I was younger and this has been an interesting thing that Irealized recently.
um
(21:48):
I've been working on a book.
I have been working on a book since I was 12 years old.
I am currently working on, I've got about 80,000 words and I have a whole bunch of otherbooks that I'm also like mapping out, but I have this book that I started when I was 12
and I don't think I could finish it until after I left the church because the message ofit is about people who are stuck in fairy tales and m
(22:16):
they're in a world where fairy tales, they're kind of innocuous.
They're kind of like, this is just life.
This is how it is.
We all know that.
Like if your name happens to be Eleanor and you happen to have like a sick mother, like,I'm so sorry, she's going to die and you're going to become a Cinderella.
Like that's just like, that's the patterning people know that that is going to be life.
Like if you have 12 siblings, I'm so sorry, this is what is going to happen to you, kindof a thing.
(22:40):
And I started writing that when I was 12 years old.
And then,
when I left the church and I started analyzing it and I was like, oh, it's because ofmyth.
Because the thing that fascinates me and the realization of what I was about a couple ofweeks ago is I had this thought of I am a writer of new myths.
I'm a writer of new myths.
The things we have so many different stories and so many different narratives and some ofthem are good, but a lot of them are keeping us like in these ideas, in these patterns
(23:11):
that are
really necessarily good for us.
The story that I had in my head of like, oh I'm like the life path that I'm supposed to beon is to like go to BYU, get married, have a million kids.
Like that is the thing that you're supposed to do.
And that prevented me from living authentically, from living the life that I'm absolutelydrawn to, absolutely want to.
(23:37):
And I see that in women over and over and over and over again.
And a lot of that is from
the patriarchal patterning that we've been taught in numerous ways, not just from theMormon church, but from so many different stories.
Like I remember watching, uh I love media.
And so when I talk about myself as a book, Witch it is because when I watch something,when I read something, when I look at a story, it is in this analytical and pattern and
(24:04):
myth-based way of this is what the concept of this, this is what this is saying at a rootlevel.
And that is what I love to find when I am going uh through these things.
And so as I am deciding that, I am going to be writing, I'm going to be writing out thatbook and writing out another book about a whole bunch of different like ancient gods, or
(24:32):
waking up and discovering themselves.
I'm going to...
write about magical universities, I'm going to write queer stories, I'm going to like allof these different things that I'm realizing that I need and that I've started doing um in
my life as I am building this out.
I'm also like ghostwriting for a couple of different people and am accepting like morethings as I'm ghostwriting and creating these different things.
(24:59):
I also have realized that I'm pretty good at helping people like find
their stories and see them like when I'm talking to people and just like helping people tolike recognize their own stories and who they are.
So when I call myself the Traveling Book Witch is something that I am and something that Iam growing into currently my sub stack is me analyzing what it took to go from a super
(25:26):
conservative Mormon homeschooler to a
atheist, pagan, liberal, queer, witch.
We are all here for that.
And I'm just going step by step of like what that took, all of these analyzing all ofthese things.
(25:47):
And I mentioned before like recognizing part of the reason that I hadn't been writing asmuch.
got, it's funny now, cause I think of it as a spell, but I got my patriarchal blessingvery shortly after I realized that I needed and wanted to be a writer.
And I had this fire and this passion in my soul.
(26:07):
And I knew
knew that God would also recognize that fire and passion in my soul because I was taughtthat he cared about us.
And I was taught that like, oh, we're here to fight for him and all of those things.
And then I went to get my patriarchal blessing and it, I would never have said these wordswhen I was younger, but it was lame.
(26:28):
It was incredibly, incredibly boring, cookie cutter lame.
was not, it was long, it was long, but it was long in the way that like,
a not well done chat GPT can be long where it was all filler words and all like, and allabout.
Yeah, it wasn't anything personal, anything real.
(26:52):
But I realized that like I took that upon myself so deeply, so much.
Because it said the words at the proper time you will meet a man that you will love withall of your heart.
And I heard those words and was like, what if I miss it?
What if I miss it?
What if I'm not in the right place?
Like at the proper time, what does that even mean?
And I like super analyze that and like, and it was so, so important.
And it's funny.
(27:13):
Cause now I'm like, no, I am not getting married.
That's no, that's not a thing that's going to happen.
Or if it does, it's not going to be.
Yeah.
uh
And for those who are uh listening and maybe not sure what we're talking about, thePatriarchal Blessing is a certain patriarch of the church who has the authority to give a
(27:34):
special blessing that you get once in your life, usually when you're very young, andbasically maps out your life with the prophecy of what it is you are meant to do or be.
or whatever that is.
uh I know I waited until I was after uh I was married to get my patriarchal blessing.
(27:55):
Cause I don't know, I just wasn't like ready until I felt ready or whatever that is.
So yeah, and I, you know, we've talked on this podcast before episodes of like how cursesor spells can take part and play in your life.
That can be one of those things that's like, it the, is it that it's a blessing?
(28:15):
or a curse or a spell, or is it that it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, you get toldlike, you're gonna do these things.
And so then you are like, well, then that's what I'm gonna look for.
And then that's the energy that you bring to your life.
So yeah.
Absolutely, absolutely.
I mean, I I love that so much of witchiness is spicy psychology and recognizing your owneffect in what you're doing.
(28:42):
And I'm like learning that more and more all of the time, Witch is lovely.
with the witchiness also, like I do, I mean, I love, I want to know, and I study more oflike my own heritage and Celtic and like,
I'm working on studying like the morrigan and different.
(29:05):
Yes.
Yes.
Love that.
And you know, as you're talking about myth, obviously, like as a Celtic folk, Witch myselflove the mythology and love rewriting, I love that you come at it like, why can't I be a
myth writer too?
I am the ancestors of my descendants.
(29:27):
And so therefore you're like, they'll look to me for those myths.
for the listeners who listened to my episode,
couple episodes back where I retold the story of Bledioweth, Witch is a Celtic folklorefrom Welsh mythology.
What you're saying is so aligned with her story because I think when they wrote her storydown in 1100 AD, know, when they wrote the Mabinagi, they were probably writing it as
(29:55):
like,
this woman is the villain of the story.
She didn't fall in line with what she was supposed to do.
She didn't stay with her husband, she was supposed to marry him.
She was made of flowers for him.
And then she, you know, we could say modern day language, she cheated on him and found alover that's so evil, right?
(30:18):
When in fact, if you just reconstruct the mythology a little bit or
come at it from a little bit different perspective.
You can see that Bladya was a character who was made to be married to somebody.
She didn't maybe want to be married.
Nobody asked her.
Nobody asked her if she wanted to be married to this guy.
(30:39):
So when she found someone she fell in love with, she wrote her own destiny.
And that is so powerful, especially when you're talking about it.
From your perspective, I had this
patriarchal blessing was told this is how my life was supposed to work out.
And then when I was reborn into my new life, I decided for myself what my path would be.
(31:04):
I'm not just made for other people's expectations of me.
I'm not just made for this religion, this marriage, these 12 kids that I'm supposed tohave.
know that's not every Mormon woman's desire, but it was taught to me to be.
It is very much a cultural thing to expect that of everyone that like we all are justsupposed to fall in line with what their idea of life is supposed to be like.
(31:32):
What does it mean to be a faithful, good person?
And that's very much ingrained in expectation and all of that.
So totally understand that whether you want 12 kids or not.
And some people do want 12 kids, so more power to them.
That's great.
Yeah, good for them.
So forging, you know, the myth is just uh kind of that play.
(31:56):
Well, what I'm hearing you say too, and that some of the books that you're wanting towrite is that play with what's destiny.
What am I destined for?
But what am I also the part that I play is that I choose what is the destiny I forge formyself.
Yeah, because a lot of it, I mean, I look at so many of the things that are happening inour world and all of the things, and a lot of it is based on the myths that you believe
(32:25):
and the things that you believe about what a woman is for, the things that you believewhat a person is, shapes a lot of the way that you treat other people and that you create
a society.
And I want to help figure out
what then, and when I say new myths, a lot of it is like really, really, really old myths.
(32:46):
Like I love a When God Was a Woman and how it talks about, yes, my goodness.
Oh my, like, realizing just like what it was like when we weren't worshiping a patriarchof God and what that looks like.
And I'm so curious about like the more people creating their own and understanding thatthere are
(33:11):
different ways of living than what there is right now.
And however idealistic that might be, it's something that I wanna like write about andhelp people see different perspectives on.
Yes.
And stories and storytelling, at least for me personally, have always been such a powerfulway to get those ideas to people.
(33:34):
I mean, I feel like people can read something and they can go, okay, yeah, like, allright.
So maybe God is a woman, cool.
But when a story is told in such a way that it takes you through the emotions, through theideas, living it and
at least for me, but I'm also a Pisces.
(33:54):
So that's just like how I see the world, but it's like, yeah, that's it's, it's justpowerful.
And I love um just to connect with you a little bit.
We're so alike.
I can already tell.
I have a story I wrote when I was 12 as well that I've always like held onto as likesomeday that'll be ready to rewrite and to, know, to work on, but like that's,
(34:22):
Um, it's almost like you have to.
invite the spirit of your inner child, of the part of you that wrote that story from thebeginning, that had that like passion and that drive to tell a story.
And then like partner it with the Crohn's wisdom of your life experiences and how you'vecome at that story from a different way.
(34:46):
And maybe it becomes.
Something, yeah.
something genius, something that will be out in the world.
And I'm excited for that.
Absolutely.
Well, this has been an amazing conversation.
I don't know about anyone else listening, but I feel like we've just made best friends.
(35:09):
um before we wrap up, let people know where they can find you, how they can connect withyou.
Yeah, I have a I have the blog that I mentioned um on sub stack the traveling book, Witchand I'm currently writing about uh that more my experience I am going to be writing about
(35:31):
how to travel for the very first time because I've been realizing as I've been talking tosome of my friends that they don't know how to do a lot of the things that I now take for
granted.
So how to like leave the country and talking about
different kinds of visas and all those kinds of things.
So I am gonna start doing that pretty soon.
(35:51):
I have a couple of different books that I am working on writing, like the Heretics Guideto Happiness and some fun things like that, as well as my fairy tale books.
I have a TikTok right now um that is the traveling book, Witch that I am also growing.
And I also, I don't know if this is something, um
(36:15):
Yeah, I also have a Facebook group that I'm building called the Unbound Collective, Witchis like a business group for women that I just started with to help business.
yeah.
It's like I accidentally got into a Mormon women's business group and realized that weneed more of the not the like I'm going to mentor you to become something, but more of
(36:37):
like let's make connections and oh, I need.
somebody for this kind of position or I know somebody who does like creating that kind ofinterconnected webness because that's the way that I interconnected webness that is not a
word.
But like.
You heard it here first folks.
Love it.
But just because I see, and we know how like so many men get jobs simply because of whothey know.
(37:04):
And we need to build out these connections between, especially like as ex-Mormon women, alot of the time we've lost a lot of financial, any kind of thing.
We've lost a lot of family.
We've lost a lot of connections.
A lot of us have gotten divorced.
There's a whole bunch of different pieces.
So I'm growing that.
um
(37:24):
It has about 30 people in it.
So we are going forward with that.
Awesome.
need to get, yeah, build that up.
Cause you're totally right.
think the culture, it comes from a lot of like the only thing we know if we've been raisedin the Mormon culture or, um or even in Utah culture is like an MLM.
Like how can I sell to you?
(37:46):
How can you join me in what I'm doing rather than, and this is what I've been working onwith the Daybreak Network in business communities is like, we need to build relationships
with people.
We need to have relationships with people and build community first.
It's about like, do you have a friend?
Do you have a friend that does something that could be useful to anyone and then referpeople to that friend?
(38:09):
And this is how we begin, right?
And I have been told time and time again that that's how we fight or resist against someof the oppressive systems that we in America are currently experiencing.
is that we just need to, we need to start with community.
(38:29):
We need to start with putting relationships and people over profits.
And so I feel like it's an act of resistance to be able to build those communities.
So yes, let's connect there and head over to that Facebook group.
If you're looking for something like that, that would be an amazing community to build,especially all over the world, wherever you're at.
(38:50):
You're in Dubai, you're over here in Utah.
Absolutely.
Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
And it's been an amazing conversation.
So I can't wait to see where you go next and to see all of those published works when theycome out.
I'll be looking for them for sure.
It has been lovely.
Thank you so much for inviting me onto here.
(39:11):
And it has been absolutely wonderful getting to talk to you and being here.
I love everything that you're doing.
It's so good.
And if you're looking for any of those handles that she just mentioned, we are gonna putthem in the show notes.
So look there if you want the specifics, you can get connected.
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