September 14, 2024 • 39 mins
What if the Greek god of the underworld isn't who you think he is? Join us as we uncover the mysteries of Hades with our special guest Jamie Waggoner, an accomplished author, pagan priestess, and expert in the occult. Jamie shatters common misconceptions by distinguishing Hades from the devil, providing clarity on the difference between the ancient Greek underworld and the Christian concept of hell. Drawing insights from her book "Hades: Myths, Magic, and Modern Devotion," Jamie offers a fresh perspective on Hades, highlighting his often overlooked aspects and exploring his significance in both ancient and modern contexts.
We dive into the topics of death, shadow work, and desires, discussing the collective trauma and death phobia that plagues our contemporary society. Jamie elaborates on the importance of experiencing death within a community, explaining how communal grieving can make the process less intimidating. We touch on the role of mythological figures like Hypnos and Thanatos in life's transitions and consider how embracing death as an advisor can lead to more meaningful life decisions. Jamie also emphasizes Hades' role in shadow work, particularly through his epithet "Clemenos," shedding light on his notorious actions in mythology.
In our final chapter, we explore the mystical teachings and tools of ancient Greek gods, focusing on Hades and his Helm of Invisibility. Jamie explains how Hades' unseen nature can guide us in knowing when to assert ourselves and when to remain concealed. We introduce our listeners to the "Way of the Weaver" program, which offers inclusive teachings on magic, and share Jamie's exciting news about her upcoming follow-up book. Wrapping up, we express heartfelt gratitude to our listeners and promise more intriguing content in future episodes. Don't miss this enlightening conversation that promises to reshape your understanding of the divine and the mystical.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Granddaughter Crow (00:00):
Welcome to Belief, being and Beyond with
your host, Granddaughter Crow.
Hi everybody, GranddaughterCrow here with another episode
of Belief, being and Beyond and,as I love to do, bring you guys
the beyond to be Jaand andtheir book about Hades.
(00:32):
Gotta love it.
I've got so many things but,Jamie, just before I give you a
full intro, say hello to theBelief, being and Beyond
audience.
Jamie (00:46):
Hey everybody, I'm so glad that you could join us, and
thank you so much,Granddaughter Crow, for inviting
me to talk with you today.
Granddaughter Crow (00:54):
It is my pleasure and my honor and I'm
going to go ahead and give youguys a brief intro of Jamie W,
author, pagan priestess andoccult expert, which I love this
because, in looking at herbackground, philosophy, etc.
Been practicing for witchcraftfor over 25 years.
(01:17):
Author of what we're going tobe talking about today Hades
Myths, magic and Modern D, whichwas released in 2024 by
Llewellyn Worldwide.
There is so many wonderfulthings that you get into and,
just looking over everything,one you can't ignore Hades.
(01:41):
The beauty around what I foundwith this is in doing so much
research about you, about Hades,I'm like is this the first book
of its kind with moderndivination towards the god Hades
?
Jamie (01:59):
Yeah, pretty much, pretty much.
Yeah, there's a lot.
If you, if you want to studythe Greek god, ades, and the
Greek underworld, there's a lotof sort of scholarly material
out there that you that you cancheck out.
Hades does you know?
Hades gets a mention if youhave a book about, you know,
working with the Greek gods ordoing witchcraft with the Greek
(02:20):
gods.
Astrea Taylor and Jason Mankeyreleased a book pretty recently
about that, but he gets kind ofa passing mention but he doesn't
get a lot of attention.
And when I started working withHades in 2016, I had to do a
lot of my own research andexperimentation and this book is
the culmination of all of thatand I'm really excited that
(02:42):
Llewellyn wanted to publish itso that it's all there in one
place for other people like mewho might be interested in
working with Hades.
Granddaughter Crow (02:50):
I absolutely love it.
So, yes, people, we're going togo there.
You know, the beauty aroundthis, jamie, is that you know,
I'm granddaughter Crow and crowsand ravens are my main totem,
and crows and ravens are my maintotem, and we are known as
going to the underworld, goingto the darkness, going to the
mysticism and finding thosejewels and that light, as well
(03:21):
as we are known to bepsychopomps, you know the people
who help carry them over to theother side.
The people who help carry themover to the other side, and so
that's why I really love thisbook is because we get to talk
about bringing to light some ofthe darkness and the unseen and
the unknown.
So how would you describe Hades?
I think one of themisconceptions is that Hades is
the devil and the underworld ishell.
(03:43):
Clear this up, for us Right?
Jamie (03:46):
No, that's actually one of the primary misconceptions
about him.
So you know there's a number ofreasons why that happened.
It was a little bit of a lostin translation situation, when
you know, when the ChristianBible was being codified and
being put together, the OldTestament is in Hebrew, the New
Testament is in Hebrew.
The New Testament is in Greekoriginally, and in Hebrew
(04:08):
there's a word called shul, andshul is a place for the dead to
go.
It's a realm of the dead, butthere's not really an equivalent
translation into Greek.
And the closest thing they cameup with was Hades, because
sometimes the god is calledHades and sometimes the
underworld is also called Hades,which can be a little confusing
for us.
(04:29):
So they've translated this oldHebrew word into Greek as Hades
and eventually, as the Biblekept being translated and
different versions were produced, hades became synonymous with
hell.
So the underworld becamesynonymous with hell and Hades,
the god, became synonymous withthe devil.
(04:49):
But in reality, in the ancientGreek understanding, as well as
my personal understanding, theChristian mythos and the ancient
Greek mythos are two completelydifferent belief systems.
And then we had other, you know, poets that came along, such as
John Milton in Paradise Lost,and Dante and his Inferno, and
(05:11):
they sort of sprinkled in lotsof ancient Greek and Roman
mythology in amongst their likedescriptions of, you know,
either Christian paradise orChristian hell.
So, yeah, we had a little bitof a lost in translation issue
going on for a long time.
But I'm happy to clear that upbecause I think it's one of the
reasons that people getintimidated to approach Hades or
(05:34):
approach working with him orthe underworld is because that
misconception persists eventoday.
Granddaughter Crow (05:41):
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
Yeah, I absolutely agree, andyou know this is one of the
wonderful things that I see thatyou've done in your work.
(06:01):
So, in the pagan witcherymysticism community, about the
rise of the feminine divine,female, female, female and being
raised in a very strictChristian upbringing, very
patriarchal, masculine typething, that seemed to be a
revival for me.
But you actually now areintroducing the rise of the
(06:25):
masculine divine in such adifferent way.
I just caught that and I'm likeoh, this is going to help
rebalance and reshape usindividually and as a community.
What do you have to say aboutthat?
Jamie (06:40):
Oh, thank you so much for recognizing that.
Oh, thank you so much forrecognizing that.
So you know, I've been a pagan,a practitioner of magic and
witchcraft for just over 25years now, and when I first
started out I worked withgoddesses only basically, you
know, because, coming from aconservative background, being
(07:01):
raised in Christianity, like youalso mentioned, of background
being raised in Christianity,like you also mentioned, I
didn't really I wanted to kindof get away from the sort of
patriarchal top-down notion ofbelief and wanted to explore
some different energy.
And so it was a very long timethat I worked with primarily
goddesses from Welsh mythology,from the Mabinogion, so like
(07:21):
Ceridwen and Bronwyn, Rhiannon,Lodioweth, yeah, which was great
, which was fabulous, and Istill work with them and have
relationships with them.
And then working with Hades sortof was an opportunity that like
fell into my lap.
I didn't really seek it out, sohe sought me out in a sense.
But the more I worked with himand sort of got to know him a
(07:46):
little bit, better I was likehe's a very different way of
being masculine, presenting Hisway is much more steadfast, it's
much more nurturing.
It's not so much power overit's power with and supportive
(08:07):
power over it's power with andsupportive.
And it is really interesting,especially when I talk to some
of my friends from, like, thegoddess communities that I was
part of before, and you knowthey're like, how did you start
working with Hades?
And you know it's like, once Ireally felt the depth of his
personality and his characterand his care for his family and
for the.
(08:28):
You know the mortal shades, theshades of the deceased, that
live in his realm.
There is really no question forme anymore.
There is no way I could notwork with him after experiencing
the depth of his personality.
So I'm really hoping that itmight, you know, like you said,
give people something to thinkabout when they think about
(08:49):
masculinity and maybe balancingthat with femininity and what
that can look like.
Granddaughter Crow (08:54):
I absolutely , really appreciate that and I
think my listeners will reallyappreciate that as well.
So you know I don't want togive too much away.
So you know I don't want togive too much away people, but
(09:29):
this is a book that shouldaccompany any witches.
You know library, just becauseit's not only you know with.
You know Jamie's background anddeep research and credibility
with this.
There's a lot of personalitywithin.
You know, I think you begineach chapter with a little prose
or something, so that we kindof get to know Hades from a
personality aspect.
Jamie (09:41):
Yeah, I do so.
Each chapter begins with anarrative piece.
Yeah, I do so.
Each chapter begins with anarrative piece and it's in
first person, it's in Hades'voice, speaking about different
aspects of his life and hisrealm and his family, and I did
it for that purpose that I wastalking about earlier of really
introducing his personality topeople outside of what most
(10:05):
people know of him and what mostpeople know of him.
It kind of falls into a little acouple different categories.
Either it's like pop cultureHades, it's like, you know, blue
Hades with fire hair from, likethe Disney movie, or it's you
know.
Or it's, you know, Hades fromthe Homeric Hymn to Demeter,
which is the story whenPersephone gets kidnapped and
(10:25):
Demeter searches for Persephoneand we get the allegory for the
changing of seasons, and that'swhat people really sort of know
about him.
And so, just to bring out hispersonality a little bit more,
he and I wrote those portionstogether.
I did a lot of trance journeyand talking to him and asking
him, you know.
So I'm writing this for amodern audience.
I'm writing this, you know theyear I was writing.
(10:47):
It was 2022 to 2023.
You know, what do you wantpeople to know about you now,
Like what's important to knownow, and he really, you know,
led that process a lot,especially for those narrative
pieces.
Granddaughter Crow (11:02):
I love that, I love that.
So why would one want to workwith Hades?
Legit question.
Jamie (11:14):
Yeah, there's actually a lot of reasons, you know.
First of all, I think you knowkind of the obvious answers come
up as far as if you're someonethat's drawn to the mysteries of
death and dying andcommunicating with the dead.
Hades is sort of a naturalpatron for you to work with or a
natural mentor for you to workwith.
But because there are otherfacets of his personality, you
(11:38):
can work with him for manydifferent things.
For example, one of Hades'names is Polydegmon, which means
host of many, and it refers tothe fact that it's his
responsibility to host all ofthe dead between lifetimes.
And you know, if you want tolearn more about being a good
host, and you know, if you wantto learn more about being a good
host, you know whether it's ahost for your own heart, your
(11:58):
own spirit, or a host for thoseyou love friends and family, or
a host in the community, forsomething Hades can really teach
you a lot about that.
I mean, he's had lots ofexperience.
You know he can teach you a lotabout being.
Another one of his epithets isAdamastos, which means like
unyielding or unbreakable, andso he can teach you a lot about,
(12:22):
you know, sticking to yourconvictions, being in a place of
integrity, things like that.
So there are many, manydifferent reasons.
I find Hades and the wholeunderworld crew to be highly
protective of those who workwith them.
So if you are looking for likegreater levels of protection for
yourself or your home, they'rehappy to do that.
(12:51):
I also find that you knowthere's a lot of justice wrapped
up in the underworld.
One of Persephone's epithets isPraxidiki, which translates to
exactor of justice or somethingvery similar to that.
The Furies, who are thesebeings that have like wings and
they fly with these like whipsof you and they go after like
the big bads out there, like thepeople that are abusers, the
(13:13):
people that are murderers, thepeople that commit horrible,
horrible crimes, and Persephonesort of sends them out, gives
them their tasks, and so there'sa lot of sort of justice magic
that we can work here, workingwith those energies, and I don't
think people really realizethat that the underworld and all
of the beings that inhabit itare very diverse and have like a
(13:37):
wide array of things undertheir purview, not just death.
Granddaughter Crow (13:41):
I absolutely love that.
I'm comfortable with death.
I have been.
Maybe it's because I'm a crow,a raven, but I do know that a
lot of people are notcomfortable even with that word
or the concept.
Jamie (14:01):
But I'm like circle of life people, you know circle of
life and it's hard because, yeah, it's hard, because we're very
death avoidant, especially I'mspeaking from my perspective as
a person in North America, inwhat's currently called the
(14:22):
United States, and so you know,we don't see death, we don't
slaughter our own animals, wedon't harvest our own vegetables
.
We go to the store and getthings packaged in plastic.
When people die, when ourfriends and families die,
oftentimes they die in ahospital or in a care facility,
(14:42):
or even if they die at home,cremated, whatever the process
might be that the person haschosen, and so we were very
detached from it.
And even when we're grievingsomeone very close to us, we may
(15:05):
have little to no time out ofour daily responsibilities.
We may have to be back at workwithin a week or maybe a month
if we're lucky, or not at all insome cases.
So we have this sort ofcollective trauma around death
because we just don't see it andour nervous systems are not
(15:26):
able to process change on thatscale, especially if someone
very close to us dies in thatamount of time.
Right, like we're.
Just, we're not meant to dothat, and you know so we.
The death phobia of modernculture continues to increase
and I completely understand thatthis is a heavy topic, a hard
(15:49):
topic and a scary topic reallyAbsolutely understand that.
But I think that if we can startin small ways, we can start
opening ourselves up more andmore to the idea that death is
actually a natural process andin most cases, death is not an
(16:10):
emergency, it's something thatis just naturally happening.
Of course, there are sometraumatic events that happen and
things like that, but and it'spart of what we're supposed to
experience as humans, and notonly as humans but we're
supposed to experience it incommunity.
I believe that.
I believe that we're meant tobe there when our loved ones and
(16:33):
our friends transition you know, I include our pets and all of
our furry family too and we'remeant to help take care of their
bodies.
We're meant to help create therituals and perform the rituals
surrounding, you know, belovedly, putting them to rest, all of
those things.
Those would help us out so muchmore if we were able to engage
(16:57):
in that and have those outletsfor catharsis, and it would help
death seem less scary.
Granddaughter Crow (17:05):
Yeah, if you're enjoying the Belief,
being and Beyond podcast andwould like to support it, I'm on
Patreon.
Just go to PatreonGranddaughter Crow or you can
find it at granddaughter crowcom.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, and you know, moreover.
I mean, although you know,jamie and I are talking about
(17:26):
the death of, you know, thetransition of a human soul, if
you really kind of look at it,we go through so many micro
deaths within our lifetime, toinclude the releasing, the
letting go, I mean, even in theevening.
That's a form of I'm going tolet go of the light today and
(17:48):
I'm going to go into a coma andthen I'm going to come and rise
up again.
I mean, so for me, I see itthat like familiar.
What do you think about that?
Jamie (18:01):
Oh, I absolutely agree with you.
I absolutely agree with you andI think it's, you know, one of
the interesting things two ofthe characters that live in the
underworld are Hypnos andThanatos, right?
So Hypnos is the being thatbrings you sleep every night and
they're brothers and Thanatosis actually the being that at
the end of your life, if you'velived a long life and it's just
(18:22):
time for you to go, thanatos iswho comes to get your soul, and
so there's sort of reflectionsof one another, of those small
deaths that happen every eveningand then sort of that bigger
death that happens, you know,once the life cycle is over.
But so many other things happenJobs end, relationships end,
all kinds of things end.
(18:44):
These are all transitions.
These are all little deaths inour lives.
Also, death happens on like anexistential scale.
Right, we can talk about, youknow so many things.
Deforestation we can talk about, you know, when there's
tragedies of you know, out inthe world where folks are
involved in wars or resourcegrabs or things like that.
(19:07):
So there's, you know, death asa concept is vast, right, like
it's, you know, more immediateto us when our friends and
family and loved ones die.
But death itself is.
It encompasses many, manythings, so I I definitely agree
with you.
Granddaughter Crow (19:24):
Love that.
I didn't know that, you know I.
I remember there was this onepart of this old old book old
old book, maybe in the seventsit's not that old Well, 50 years
ago.
And it said use death as youradvisor.
Everybody's death is sitting ontheir left shoulder, and when
(19:45):
you're walking through life andyou don't know which way to go
and you don't know what decisionto make, ask your death.
Jamie (19:53):
Death will tell you that, yeah, I love that, because you,
yeah, ask your death, because,I mean, none of us really know
what happens after we die.
You know, personally I dobelieve in the transmigration of
the soul.
I believe that we, you know,live different lifetimes and we
go on somehow, but I don't knowthat for sure.
And I really like that quotebecause it speaks to, like
(20:17):
what's really important, what'sthe important decision to make,
like what would you regret ifyou didn't do so?
Yeah, I really like that, yay.
Granddaughter Crow (20:28):
Also, you know, in looking at it, I do a
lot of shadow work and I'm aboutto come out with Shamanism in
the Shadow book and I thought,well, would Hades help with
shadow?
Jamie (20:44):
work.
Yeah, there's a whole chapteron that.
Yeah, there's a whole chapteron that in the book and Hades
can really help with it a lot onthat in the book and Hades can
really help with it a lot.
In particular, you know, hadeshas sort of a shadowy aspect to
(21:05):
the, you know, to his mythos,one of his.
Another epithet and if you'renot familiar with that word,
epithet is, it's like a poeticnickname, it's like a
descriptive nickname.
It's Clemenos, and Clemenosmeans notorious, and Hades the
Notorious is where he's referredto.
That refers to the abduction ofPersephone, his role in the
(21:25):
story of Persephone and Demeter,and so you know, it's very
interesting to consider the, youknow, aspects of his
personality that seem difficultfor us to understand or aspects
of the story that seem difficultfor us to understand.
So, you know, I think workingwith him can help with that.
(21:46):
I think a lot of things that are, you know, things that you
can't necessarily talk about inthe light of day, you can take
to the underworld, things thatyou can't necessarily talk about
in the light of day, you cantake to the underworld.
It's a place where oftentimes,like, what seems sacred and
profane are intertwined and it'svery, very helpful for shadow
work and one of the things I'velearned about Hades now and I do
(22:09):
a lot of practices with him.
I do trance journey and I talkto him.
I've also, you know, physicallyembodied him.
I invited him to be in my bodyand participate in rituals and
things like that.
So I've overheard hisconversations with other people
and he oftentimes asked themabout their desires, like what
(22:31):
do they desire?
And it reminds me of the quotethat you brought up from the
book, because he's very muchinterested in you.
Know what compels people Likeyou.
Know what do you desire?
What is the thing, like yousaid, what is the thing Like ask
your desk to advise you?
And he's very much aware ofthat.
And a lot of times desire andshadow go hand in hand.
(22:53):
We're very much approvalseeking Speaking for myself and
maybe some of you, maybe some ofyou can identify with that
statement yeah, and so weoftentimes downplay our desires
or maybe even bury them so deepbecause we're afraid.
We're afraid that if we are whowe truly are, that we won't get
(23:14):
the approval that we love andwant.
And that's a very natural thing.
That's, you know, that's a verynatural thing.
That's just being human.
But Hades can kind of help yoususs out kind of what you desire
and also work with you to havethe confidence to sort of bring
that out in yourself more andmore and become more comfortable
(23:35):
with it sort of bring that outin yourself more and more and
become more comfortable with it.
Granddaughter Crow (23:45):
Love that.
I absolutely love that.
Because, you know, sometimes Itell, I talk to my son, he's 33
and I keep advising himthroughout his life to really
deep dive into what does theword quote, unquote success mean
to you today?
Because a lot of times peoplejust put it on like this
measuring stick that equals, youknow, a house, picket, fence,
(24:05):
whatever, blah, blah, blah, aMercedes.
This is success.
Well, maybe that's not what Idesire.
Maybe what I desire is to be apart of something greater, Like
I get to go.
Oh, I was a part of that.
Look how we changed the world.
You know, that's one of my deepdesires and so and I love that
(24:30):
and the ability to come forth, Iremember I think it might have
been when you did LlewellynCon2024.
And just a quick shout out tofind out more about Jamie Wagner
, go to jamiewagnercom.
It's easy as that, guys, Tokeep track of what's going on in
(24:50):
the underworld.
No, I don't know, but to keeptrack of what's going on, sign
up for her newsletter.
There's a lot of.
I mean.
I checked it out on socialmedia.
It is jmwagonercom.
Jamie (25:03):
W-a-g-g-o-n-e-r social media.
Granddaughter Crow (25:08):
That's right .
So you know and I was watching,I was reviewing you and people
you can check it out.
Go to YouTube LlewellynCon2024,look up Jamie and there's a lot
of other wonderful authors onthere.
Just it's a really wonderfulway to spend a weekend, or
actually 10 days.
I think that they went on for10 days.
Jamie (25:30):
Yeah, yeah, they do that every year and it's always free.
It's a really great event.
Lou Ellen sort of rounds upsome of us authors and we all
take about half an hour and talkabout whatever our specialty is
.
Granddaughter Crow (25:41):
So yeah, I love that.
And so one part in there youalso talked about this dichotomy
of the one who can cloak andthe one who can do glamour, and
can you share just a little bitabout that, because we were
talking about how to come out inthe world.
But there's also a time to kindof go.
These are not the droids youseek, so to speak.
Jamie (26:07):
I love it.
Yeah, I can talk about that.
So the word Hades, it comesfrom an older form of the word
Aedes, or Idonos or Idonaeus,like.
There's kind of like morphedover the years.
But the root of that word meansunseen and it refers to a couple
of different aspects of hispersonality.
(26:28):
I mean first of all the.
You know, the dead in the realmof the underworld are not seen
by the living.
They're sort of out of sight,out of mind.
It also refers to the fact thatduring the war where Hades and
his Olympian siblings becausehe's of the Olympian generation
many people don't realize that,but he's not considered an
Olympian because he doesn't liveon Mount Olympus, but he's of
(26:49):
that generation they overthrewtheir father Kronos and in order
to do that they had somemagical weapons.
Zeus was given the thunderbolt,poseidon was given his trident,
hades was actually given what'scalled the helm or helmet of
invisibility, and you canimagine it's on the front of the
book, it's, there's there, itis right there.
It just looks like a Greekhelmet or a Trojan helmet and
(27:11):
when you put it on you disappear.
And so what happens?
I think with that aspect of hispersonality, the unseen one, he
can kind of teach you a lotabout like oh okay, now's the
time to come forward and to beunyielding in my commitments and
stand in my integrity.
And maybe now is the time tosort of like you know, go back
(27:32):
and sort of conceal and wait andbide my time, or maybe, you
know, maybe it's not safe for me, so I need a little more
concealment.
I need a little bit more ofthat invisibility type of
glamour versus the out in theworld glamour.
So, yeah, I think he's a greatagain, a great mentor to work
with, to teach you about thatand, who knows, maybe if you ask
nicely, he'll loan you the helmof invisibility if you need it.
(27:59):
He does loan it out.
He loans it out to peopleoccasionally, so we have record
of it.
He's loaned it out to Athena.
He loaned it out to Hermes once, yeah, so, among others, I love
that and you know also.
Granddaughter Crow (28:08):
I really just wanted to reiterate what
you had shared earlier about theprotection aspects of the
underworld and the whole, all ofthe beings in the underworld,
and there is a lot of protectionwith it terms of you talk to
those guys.
(28:29):
Hey, I think I need protection.
You better realize who you'reasking, because they are down
and dirty, literally down anddirty, right.
What do you think about that?
Jamie (28:40):
yeah, their, their, um, their energies are heavy, their
energies are heavy and they'rebig.
So, um, you know, but they,they can be.
I mean, if you need, if youneed that, if you need that sort
of heavy support and heavyprotection, they're the ones to
ask.
I would just say that, um, youknow, be in reciprocity, be in
right relationships.
So, if you are asking somethingfrom them, um, ask also what
(29:04):
you can do for them andnegotiate that right, because I,
you know, um, in my perspectiveof modern devotion and working
with the gods in a modern way,there's a process of negotiation
and consent on both sides, andthat's how we end up being in
right relationship, and you know.
So I think that, yeah, ifyou're going to ask them for
(29:24):
something, kind of build it upas if you were building a
friendship or another type ofworking relationship.
Granddaughter Crow (29:31):
I love that you threw that in, jamie,
because I completely, 100% agree.
I believe that when you'reworking with any deity, it is
good to treat it like afriendship, a respectable,
honorable friendship, where youget to know each other and then,
(29:53):
when you make a request, youalso offer something as well,
and maybe this offering is justto light a candle, or maybe it's
to write a book.
I don't know if this is anoffer or not, but you know and
that there is a lot of give andtake.
Jamie (30:13):
Yeah, no, absolutely Absolutely yeah.
And I, you know, anotherquestion I get asked a lot.
They're like, so, like, how doyou, how do you just, how do you
work with, like, how do youhave a Hades altar in your house
like all the time?
How do you work with Hadesevery day?
How do you like?
I think you know just to, Ithink, different energies are.
(30:34):
They there's, they're sort ofuh, they're, they're like
magnets, they're drawn to eachother, and so I, um, I'm, I'm a
pretty saturnine chthonic sortof person myself.
I have a lot of earth in mychart, um, you know.
So I'm drawn to those energiesand I'm drawn to working with
them.
And you may or may not be like,it might be more of a short
term thing for you, right?
(30:54):
But I think that's fine as longas you're clear and upfront,
even when you're working withdeities or working with an
animal ally, a plant ally,anybody, you know, I think
that's just just being arespectful person Absolutely.
(31:26):
I 100 percent agree, I 100%agree.
So I mean is basically aprogram where we have, we have
classes, we have communityevents, all kinds of things like
that, and we combine teachingmagic with social justice work
and also building community.
So and it's called Way of theWeaver because we don't we
(31:46):
wanted to make it something thatwasn't really specific to a
tradition.
So, you know, because it's whatwe teach is magic and energy
work is sort of like an opensource skill set right Like,
here are the tools, and so youtake the tools, learn the tools
and then apply them to whateveryour belief system might be and
what makes sense to you, and sowe do a couple different things
(32:08):
this summer.
We just had Weaver Camp, whichis really fun.
It's like a four-day witchycamp for grownups in the
mountains of Vermont and thatwas a lot of fun.
The next thing that we havecoming up as far as an event or
an offering is that we're goingto be teaching a three-month
deep dive into trance journeywork, and that's going to be
(32:30):
online.
That's an online class.
It'll run January through theend of March in 2025.
But if you want to know a littlebit more about us and what we
teach and kind of get to knowour personalities, murphy and I
have a podcast.
It's just Way of the Weaverpodcast.
We put out two episodes a month.
One at the beginning of themonth is a tarot review.
(32:53):
We kind of review what happenedin the previous month and we
look forward to the next month.
And then the one that comes outin the middle of the month is
more topical.
So the one we actually justrecorded, one on Monday, hasn't
launched.
It hasn't released yet.
It'll release on the 13th ofthis month, but it's a it's on
out of body and near deathexperiences.
So we talk about all kinds ofthings and you can kind of get a
(33:15):
sense for our personality andwhat the community is like.
But yeah, if you want to checkit out, the website is
wayoftheweavercom.
Granddaughter Crow (33:23):
Yeah, and people, I checked it out.
I was drawn in, not justbecause of the occulty work, but
also this social justice, thisqueer friendly environment, this
, of course you had a spider,because we're talking about
weavers, and I love you know, Ilove that because it really kind
(33:45):
of creates this interconnection.
And I was looking at it and itsaid something to the effect.
There was like this really coolthing.
It said first, be of service toself, do your shadow work, get
to know yourself, blah, blah,blah, and in beautiful words,
not just blah, blah, blah.
And then it said and then,secondly, hi, now I'm a goofball
(34:07):
.
And then, secondly, be ofservice to community and balance
.
And be of service to communityand that'll look different
depending on who your communityis.
And then, third, be of serviceto that which is unseen, be it
the Hades, hail Hades or be it.
(34:28):
You know, whatever that is toyou, because here at belief,
being and beyond, we keep goingbeyond to stretch our mind, to
find out wow, I didn't know thatwas out there too, you know and
and to be able to do this.
But, yeah, and I was actuallylistening to, to one of your
podcasts I think it was thelatest one, you and Murphy.
(34:52):
It's just, it's so pleasant andit feels like light.
And then all of a sudden, oh,we start talking about world
events.
Then we come back and we'relike how is that with the Eight
of Cups, you know?
And it's just like you knowit's and I love that social
(35:12):
justice and community aspectthat you've got going on.
It's not just another witchpodcast, it's a brilliant
interconnection, weaving, if youwill, of some beautiful things,
of you know being able to domagic and then actually being
able to put it in our world, seeit in ourselves, bring it to
(35:32):
our community.
So, yeah, if you wanted acommercial about your podcast,
there you go.
Jamie (35:39):
Oh, thank you so much.
I'm glad you're enjoying it.
Social justice is very near anddear to both my heart and
Murphy's and you know we talkingabout that, three levels of
service, we, you know, we, inour own practices, before we
started working together andeven before we were friends, we
noticed that sometimes there wassome polarization.
(36:00):
You had, like some magicalpractitioners who were very
focused on self, likeself-improvement, and you had
some magical practitioners thatare very focused on like, either
like social justice, work outin the world, or you know, just
like sort of those larger issues, and people tended to not they
tended to our events of like,okay, we can actually work and
(36:36):
operate and do magic on allthree of these levels
simultaneously, and in fact weshould.
You know, yeah, we have a lot offun, we do some very serious
magic, but we have a lot of fun,kind of like what you were
talking about, the podcast.
We laugh and we're serious, butbut yeah, it's and it's really
really wonderful and thecommunity itself is amazing as
(36:59):
well, because I, you know, we,we do talk about like on our
website and in our podcast.
We're, we are definitely queercentric and very inclusive, and
so we, you know, we're a homewhere, if you're you know, if
you're not feeling like you fita lot of places you probably fit
with us.
Granddaughter Crow (37:18):
Oh, I love that.
I absolutely love that.
And quick to the listeners.
You can text this show.
Yeah, you can text the show andI'll get it.
I won't know who you are, butI'll know that you came from
California, so shout out tothose Californians that are
already texting the show.
Once again, back to your book,hades.
(37:41):
Jamie.
You outdid yourself.
Many, many blessings, many,many blessings to you, because
this is going to be many, manyblessings to you, because this
is going to be, um, a revelationto a lot of people who don't
know how to do or don't have allthat time to do the work.
But feel a connection, people,if you don't know what it feels
(38:03):
like to have a connection, whatI thought was great that jamie
said was well, I didn't goseeking hades, hades found me,
and I love that about theunderworld gods, they tend to be
that way, you know.
They kind of come out andthey're like, oh yeah, but if
this is of interest, please pickit up.
It's really, really good forany collection to balance you
(38:26):
out, you know, so that you'renot just high in the sky, that
you actually came back to earthjust like a tree.
So is there any last words thatyou want to say, jamie.
Jamie (38:37):
Oh, my goodness.
Well, thank you so much.
I feel like I could talk to youfor about three more hours, but
we have to close ourconversation for now.
But I've been wonderful talkingto you and I'm really, really
excited to meet you and to getto know you more.
And also, hey, everybody, thankyou so much for for listening,
and I'm very excited to announcethat I am writing a followup to
(39:00):
Hades right now.
So even more, even more aboutthe underworld, even more about
the diverse character ofcharacters and beings that are
down there, the landscapefeatures, and it was written all
in the context of being a deafpriestess and that's priest with
an X on the end to make it alittle bit gender neutral.
So if you're someone thatreally likes working that kind
(39:22):
of magic or being that person inyour community, I'm writing
this one for you.
So that's what I'm working onright now.
Granddaughter Crow (39:29):
I absolutely love that, so priest X I love
that.
Yeah, it's beautiful, that'sbeautiful.
Well, thank you once again, andthank you, guys, for once again
tuning into another episode ofbelief being in beyond.
Please like, subscribe andshare.
Welcome to Belief, being and Beyond with
your host, Granddaughter Crow.
Hi everybody, GranddaughterCrow here with another episode
of Belief, being and Beyond and,as I love to do, bring you guys
the beyond to be Jaand andtheir book about Hades.
(00:32):
Gotta love it.
I've got so many things but,Jamie, just before I give you a
full intro, say hello to theBelief, being and Beyond
audience.
Jamie (00:46):
Hey everybody, I'm so glad that you could join us, and
thank you so much,Granddaughter Crow, for inviting
me to talk with you today.
Granddaughter Crow (00:54):
It is my pleasure and my honor and I'm
going to go ahead and give youguys a brief intro of Jamie W,
author, pagan priestess andoccult expert, which I love this
because, in looking at herbackground, philosophy, etc.
Been practicing for witchcraftfor over 25 years.
(01:17):
Author of what we're going tobe talking about today Hades
Myths, magic and Modern D, whichwas released in 2024 by
Llewellyn Worldwide.
There is so many wonderfulthings that you get into and,
just looking over everything,one you can't ignore Hades.
(01:41):
The beauty around what I foundwith this is in doing so much
research about you, about Hades,I'm like is this the first book
of its kind with moderndivination towards the god Hades
?
Jamie (01:59):
Yeah, pretty much, pretty much.
Yeah, there's a lot.
If you, if you want to studythe Greek god, ades, and the
Greek underworld, there's a lotof sort of scholarly material
out there that you that you cancheck out.
Hades does you know?
Hades gets a mention if youhave a book about, you know,
working with the Greek gods ordoing witchcraft with the Greek
(02:20):
gods.
Astrea Taylor and Jason Mankeyreleased a book pretty recently
about that, but he gets kind ofa passing mention but he doesn't
get a lot of attention.
And when I started working withHades in 2016, I had to do a
lot of my own research andexperimentation and this book is
the culmination of all of thatand I'm really excited that
(02:42):
Llewellyn wanted to publish itso that it's all there in one
place for other people like mewho might be interested in
working with Hades.
Granddaughter Crow (02:50):
I absolutely love it.
So, yes, people, we're going togo there.
You know, the beauty aroundthis, jamie, is that you know,
I'm granddaughter Crow and crowsand ravens are my main totem,
and crows and ravens are my maintotem, and we are known as
going to the underworld, goingto the darkness, going to the
mysticism and finding thosejewels and that light, as well
(03:21):
as we are known to bepsychopomps, you know the people
who help carry them over to theother side.
The people who help carry themover to the other side, and so
that's why I really love thisbook is because we get to talk
about bringing to light some ofthe darkness and the unseen and
the unknown.
So how would you describe Hades?
I think one of themisconceptions is that Hades is
the devil and the underworld ishell.
(03:43):
Clear this up, for us Right?
Jamie (03:46):
No, that's actually one of the primary misconceptions
about him.
So you know there's a number ofreasons why that happened.
It was a little bit of a lostin translation situation, when
you know, when the ChristianBible was being codified and
being put together, the OldTestament is in Hebrew, the New
Testament is in Hebrew.
The New Testament is in Greekoriginally, and in Hebrew
(04:08):
there's a word called shul, andshul is a place for the dead to
go.
It's a realm of the dead, butthere's not really an equivalent
translation into Greek.
And the closest thing they cameup with was Hades, because
sometimes the god is calledHades and sometimes the
underworld is also called Hades,which can be a little confusing
for us.
(04:29):
So they've translated this oldHebrew word into Greek as Hades
and eventually, as the Biblekept being translated and
different versions were produced, hades became synonymous with
hell.
So the underworld becamesynonymous with hell and Hades,
the god, became synonymous withthe devil.
(04:49):
But in reality, in the ancientGreek understanding, as well as
my personal understanding, theChristian mythos and the ancient
Greek mythos are two completelydifferent belief systems.
And then we had other, you know, poets that came along, such as
John Milton in Paradise Lost,and Dante and his Inferno, and
(05:11):
they sort of sprinkled in lotsof ancient Greek and Roman
mythology in amongst their likedescriptions of, you know,
either Christian paradise orChristian hell.
So, yeah, we had a little bitof a lost in translation issue
going on for a long time.
But I'm happy to clear that upbecause I think it's one of the
reasons that people getintimidated to approach Hades or
(05:34):
approach working with him orthe underworld is because that
misconception persists eventoday.
Granddaughter Crow (05:41):
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
Yeah, I absolutely agree, andyou know this is one of the
wonderful things that I see thatyou've done in your work.
(06:01):
So, in the pagan witcherymysticism community, about the
rise of the feminine divine,female, female, female and being
raised in a very strictChristian upbringing, very
patriarchal, masculine typething, that seemed to be a
revival for me.
But you actually now areintroducing the rise of the
(06:25):
masculine divine in such adifferent way.
I just caught that and I'm likeoh, this is going to help
rebalance and reshape usindividually and as a community.
What do you have to say aboutthat?
Jamie (06:40):
Oh, thank you so much for recognizing that.
Oh, thank you so much forrecognizing that.
So you know, I've been a pagan,a practitioner of magic and
witchcraft for just over 25years now, and when I first
started out I worked withgoddesses only basically, you
know, because, coming from aconservative background, being
(07:01):
raised in Christianity, like youalso mentioned, of background
being raised in Christianity,like you also mentioned, I
didn't really I wanted to kindof get away from the sort of
patriarchal top-down notion ofbelief and wanted to explore
some different energy.
And so it was a very long timethat I worked with primarily
goddesses from Welsh mythology,from the Mabinogion, so like
(07:21):
Ceridwen and Bronwyn, Rhiannon,Lodioweth, yeah, which was great
, which was fabulous, and Istill work with them and have
relationships with them.
And then working with Hades sortof was an opportunity that like
fell into my lap.
I didn't really seek it out, sohe sought me out in a sense.
But the more I worked with himand sort of got to know him a
(07:46):
little bit, better I was likehe's a very different way of
being masculine, presenting Hisway is much more steadfast, it's
much more nurturing.
It's not so much power overit's power with and supportive
(08:07):
power over it's power with andsupportive.
And it is really interesting,especially when I talk to some
of my friends from, like, thegoddess communities that I was
part of before, and you knowthey're like, how did you start
working with Hades?
And you know it's like, once Ireally felt the depth of his
personality and his characterand his care for his family and
for the.
(08:28):
You know the mortal shades, theshades of the deceased, that
live in his realm.
There is really no question forme anymore.
There is no way I could notwork with him after experiencing
the depth of his personality.
So I'm really hoping that itmight, you know, like you said,
give people something to thinkabout when they think about
(08:49):
masculinity and maybe balancingthat with femininity and what
that can look like.
Granddaughter Crow (08:54):
I absolutely , really appreciate that and I
think my listeners will reallyappreciate that as well.
So you know I don't want togive too much away.
So you know I don't want togive too much away people, but
(09:29):
this is a book that shouldaccompany any witches.
You know library, just becauseit's not only you know with.
You know Jamie's background anddeep research and credibility
with this.
There's a lot of personalitywithin.
You know, I think you begineach chapter with a little prose
or something, so that we kindof get to know Hades from a
personality aspect.
Jamie (09:41):
Yeah, I do so.
Each chapter begins with anarrative piece.
Yeah, I do so.
Each chapter begins with anarrative piece and it's in
first person, it's in Hades'voice, speaking about different
aspects of his life and hisrealm and his family, and I did
it for that purpose that I wastalking about earlier of really
introducing his personality topeople outside of what most
(10:05):
people know of him and what mostpeople know of him.
It kind of falls into a little acouple different categories.
Either it's like pop cultureHades, it's like, you know, blue
Hades with fire hair from, likethe Disney movie, or it's you
know.
Or it's, you know, Hades fromthe Homeric Hymn to Demeter,
which is the story whenPersephone gets kidnapped and
(10:25):
Demeter searches for Persephoneand we get the allegory for the
changing of seasons, and that'swhat people really sort of know
about him.
And so, just to bring out hispersonality a little bit more,
he and I wrote those portionstogether.
I did a lot of trance journeyand talking to him and asking
him, you know.
So I'm writing this for amodern audience.
I'm writing this, you know theyear I was writing.
(10:47):
It was 2022 to 2023.
You know, what do you wantpeople to know about you now,
Like what's important to knownow, and he really, you know,
led that process a lot,especially for those narrative
pieces.
Granddaughter Crow (11:02):
I love that, I love that.
So why would one want to workwith Hades?
Legit question.
Jamie (11:14):
Yeah, there's actually a lot of reasons, you know.
First of all, I think you knowkind of the obvious answers come
up as far as if you're someonethat's drawn to the mysteries of
death and dying andcommunicating with the dead.
Hades is sort of a naturalpatron for you to work with or a
natural mentor for you to workwith.
But because there are otherfacets of his personality, you
(11:38):
can work with him for manydifferent things.
For example, one of Hades'names is Polydegmon, which means
host of many, and it refers tothe fact that it's his
responsibility to host all ofthe dead between lifetimes.
And you know, if you want tolearn more about being a good
host, and you know, if you wantto learn more about being a good
host, you know whether it's ahost for your own heart, your
(11:58):
own spirit, or a host for thoseyou love friends and family, or
a host in the community, forsomething Hades can really teach
you a lot about that.
I mean, he's had lots ofexperience.
You know he can teach you a lotabout being.
Another one of his epithets isAdamastos, which means like
unyielding or unbreakable, andso he can teach you a lot about,
(12:22):
you know, sticking to yourconvictions, being in a place of
integrity, things like that.
So there are many, manydifferent reasons.
I find Hades and the wholeunderworld crew to be highly
protective of those who workwith them.
So if you are looking for likegreater levels of protection for
yourself or your home, they'rehappy to do that.
(12:51):
I also find that you knowthere's a lot of justice wrapped
up in the underworld.
One of Persephone's epithets isPraxidiki, which translates to
exactor of justice or somethingvery similar to that.
The Furies, who are thesebeings that have like wings and
they fly with these like whipsof you and they go after like
the big bads out there, like thepeople that are abusers, the
(13:13):
people that are murderers, thepeople that commit horrible,
horrible crimes, and Persephonesort of sends them out, gives
them their tasks, and so there'sa lot of sort of justice magic
that we can work here, workingwith those energies, and I don't
think people really realizethat that the underworld and all
of the beings that inhabit itare very diverse and have like a
(13:37):
wide array of things undertheir purview, not just death.
Granddaughter Crow (13:41):
I absolutely love that.
I'm comfortable with death.
I have been.
Maybe it's because I'm a crow,a raven, but I do know that a
lot of people are notcomfortable even with that word
or the concept.
Jamie (14:01):
But I'm like circle of life people, you know circle of
life and it's hard because, yeah, it's hard, because we're very
death avoidant, especially I'mspeaking from my perspective as
a person in North America, inwhat's currently called the
(14:22):
United States, and so you know,we don't see death, we don't
slaughter our own animals, wedon't harvest our own vegetables
.
We go to the store and getthings packaged in plastic.
When people die, when ourfriends and families die,
oftentimes they die in ahospital or in a care facility,
(14:42):
or even if they die at home,cremated, whatever the process
might be that the person haschosen, and so we were very
detached from it.
And even when we're grievingsomeone very close to us, we may
(15:05):
have little to no time out ofour daily responsibilities.
We may have to be back at workwithin a week or maybe a month
if we're lucky, or not at all insome cases.
So we have this sort ofcollective trauma around death
because we just don't see it andour nervous systems are not
(15:26):
able to process change on thatscale, especially if someone
very close to us dies in thatamount of time.
Right, like we're.
Just, we're not meant to dothat, and you know so we.
The death phobia of modernculture continues to increase
and I completely understand thatthis is a heavy topic, a hard
(15:49):
topic and a scary topic reallyAbsolutely understand that.
But I think that if we can startin small ways, we can start
opening ourselves up more andmore to the idea that death is
actually a natural process andin most cases, death is not an
(16:10):
emergency, it's something thatis just naturally happening.
Of course, there are sometraumatic events that happen and
things like that, but and it'spart of what we're supposed to
experience as humans, and notonly as humans but we're
supposed to experience it incommunity.
I believe that.
I believe that we're meant tobe there when our loved ones and
(16:33):
our friends transition you know, I include our pets and all of
our furry family too and we'remeant to help take care of their
bodies.
We're meant to help create therituals and perform the rituals
surrounding, you know, belovedly, putting them to rest, all of
those things.
Those would help us out so muchmore if we were able to engage
(16:57):
in that and have those outletsfor catharsis, and it would help
death seem less scary.
Granddaughter Crow (17:05):
Yeah, if you're enjoying the Belief,
being and Beyond podcast andwould like to support it, I'm on
Patreon.
Just go to PatreonGranddaughter Crow or you can
find it at granddaughter crowcom.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, and you know, moreover.
I mean, although you know,jamie and I are talking about
(17:26):
the death of, you know, thetransition of a human soul, if
you really kind of look at it,we go through so many micro
deaths within our lifetime, toinclude the releasing, the
letting go, I mean, even in theevening.
That's a form of I'm going tolet go of the light today and
(17:48):
I'm going to go into a coma andthen I'm going to come and rise
up again.
I mean, so for me, I see itthat like familiar.
What do you think about that?
Jamie (18:01):
Oh, I absolutely agree with you.
I absolutely agree with you andI think it's, you know, one of
the interesting things two ofthe characters that live in the
underworld are Hypnos andThanatos, right?
So Hypnos is the being thatbrings you sleep every night and
they're brothers and Thanatosis actually the being that at
the end of your life, if you'velived a long life and it's just
(18:22):
time for you to go, thanatos iswho comes to get your soul, and
so there's sort of reflectionsof one another, of those small
deaths that happen every eveningand then sort of that bigger
death that happens, you know,once the life cycle is over.
But so many other things happenJobs end, relationships end,
all kinds of things end.
(18:44):
These are all transitions.
These are all little deaths inour lives.
Also, death happens on like anexistential scale.
Right, we can talk about, youknow so many things.
Deforestation we can talk about, you know, when there's
tragedies of you know, out inthe world where folks are
involved in wars or resourcegrabs or things like that.
(19:07):
So there's, you know, death asa concept is vast, right, like
it's, you know, more immediateto us when our friends and
family and loved ones die.
But death itself is.
It encompasses many, manythings, so I I definitely agree
with you.
Granddaughter Crow (19:24):
Love that.
I didn't know that, you know I.
I remember there was this onepart of this old old book old
old book, maybe in the seventsit's not that old Well, 50 years
ago.
And it said use death as youradvisor.
Everybody's death is sitting ontheir left shoulder, and when
(19:45):
you're walking through life andyou don't know which way to go
and you don't know what decisionto make, ask your death.
Jamie (19:53):
Death will tell you that, yeah, I love that, because you,
yeah, ask your death, because,I mean, none of us really know
what happens after we die.
You know, personally I dobelieve in the transmigration of
the soul.
I believe that we, you know,live different lifetimes and we
go on somehow, but I don't knowthat for sure.
And I really like that quotebecause it speaks to, like
(20:17):
what's really important, what'sthe important decision to make,
like what would you regret ifyou didn't do so?
Yeah, I really like that, yay.
Granddaughter Crow (20:28):
Also, you know, in looking at it, I do a
lot of shadow work and I'm aboutto come out with Shamanism in
the Shadow book and I thought,well, would Hades help with
shadow?
Jamie (20:44):
work.
Yeah, there's a whole chapteron that.
Yeah, there's a whole chapteron that in the book and Hades
can really help with it a lot onthat in the book and Hades can
really help with it a lot.
In particular, you know, hadeshas sort of a shadowy aspect to
(21:05):
the, you know, to his mythos,one of his.
Another epithet and if you'renot familiar with that word,
epithet is, it's like a poeticnickname, it's like a
descriptive nickname.
It's Clemenos, and Clemenosmeans notorious, and Hades the
Notorious is where he's referredto.
That refers to the abduction ofPersephone, his role in the
(21:25):
story of Persephone and Demeter,and so you know, it's very
interesting to consider the, youknow, aspects of his
personality that seem difficultfor us to understand or aspects
of the story that seem difficultfor us to understand.
So, you know, I think workingwith him can help with that.
(21:46):
I think a lot of things that are, you know, things that you
can't necessarily talk about inthe light of day, you can take
to the underworld, things thatyou can't necessarily talk about
in the light of day, you cantake to the underworld.
It's a place where oftentimes,like, what seems sacred and
profane are intertwined and it'svery, very helpful for shadow
work and one of the things I'velearned about Hades now and I do
(22:09):
a lot of practices with him.
I do trance journey and I talkto him.
I've also, you know, physicallyembodied him.
I invited him to be in my bodyand participate in rituals and
things like that.
So I've overheard hisconversations with other people
and he oftentimes asked themabout their desires, like what
(22:31):
do they desire?
And it reminds me of the quotethat you brought up from the
book, because he's very muchinterested in you.
Know what compels people Likeyou.
Know what do you desire?
What is the thing, like yousaid, what is the thing Like ask
your desk to advise you?
And he's very much aware ofthat.
And a lot of times desire andshadow go hand in hand.
(22:53):
We're very much approvalseeking Speaking for myself and
maybe some of you, maybe some ofyou can identify with that
statement yeah, and so weoftentimes downplay our desires
or maybe even bury them so deepbecause we're afraid.
We're afraid that if we are whowe truly are, that we won't get
(23:14):
the approval that we love andwant.
And that's a very natural thing.
That's, you know, that's a verynatural thing.
That's just being human.
But Hades can kind of help yoususs out kind of what you desire
and also work with you to havethe confidence to sort of bring
that out in yourself more andmore and become more comfortable
(23:35):
with it sort of bring that outin yourself more and more and
become more comfortable with it.
Granddaughter Crow (23:45):
Love that.
I absolutely love that.
Because, you know, sometimes Itell, I talk to my son, he's 33
and I keep advising himthroughout his life to really
deep dive into what does theword quote, unquote success mean
to you today?
Because a lot of times peoplejust put it on like this
measuring stick that equals, youknow, a house, picket, fence,
(24:05):
whatever, blah, blah, blah, aMercedes.
This is success.
Well, maybe that's not what Idesire.
Maybe what I desire is to be apart of something greater, Like
I get to go.
Oh, I was a part of that.
Look how we changed the world.
You know, that's one of my deepdesires and so and I love that
(24:30):
and the ability to come forth, Iremember I think it might have
been when you did LlewellynCon2024.
And just a quick shout out tofind out more about Jamie Wagner
, go to jamiewagnercom.
It's easy as that, guys, Tokeep track of what's going on in
(24:50):
the underworld.
No, I don't know, but to keeptrack of what's going on, sign
up for her newsletter.
There's a lot of.
I mean.
I checked it out on socialmedia.
It is jmwagonercom.
Jamie (25:03):
W-a-g-g-o-n-e-r social media.
Granddaughter Crow (25:08):
That's right .
So you know and I was watching,I was reviewing you and people
you can check it out.
Go to YouTube LlewellynCon2024,look up Jamie and there's a lot
of other wonderful authors onthere.
Just it's a really wonderfulway to spend a weekend, or
actually 10 days.
I think that they went on for10 days.
Jamie (25:30):
Yeah, yeah, they do that every year and it's always free.
It's a really great event.
Lou Ellen sort of rounds upsome of us authors and we all
take about half an hour and talkabout whatever our specialty is
.
Granddaughter Crow (25:41):
So yeah, I love that.
And so one part in there youalso talked about this dichotomy
of the one who can cloak andthe one who can do glamour, and
can you share just a little bitabout that, because we were
talking about how to come out inthe world.
But there's also a time to kindof go.
These are not the droids youseek, so to speak.
Jamie (26:07):
I love it.
Yeah, I can talk about that.
So the word Hades, it comesfrom an older form of the word
Aedes, or Idonos or Idonaeus,like.
There's kind of like morphedover the years.
But the root of that word meansunseen and it refers to a couple
of different aspects of hispersonality.
(26:28):
I mean first of all the.
You know, the dead in the realmof the underworld are not seen
by the living.
They're sort of out of sight,out of mind.
It also refers to the fact thatduring the war where Hades and
his Olympian siblings becausehe's of the Olympian generation
many people don't realize that,but he's not considered an
Olympian because he doesn't liveon Mount Olympus, but he's of
(26:49):
that generation they overthrewtheir father Kronos and in order
to do that they had somemagical weapons.
Zeus was given the thunderbolt,poseidon was given his trident,
hades was actually given what'scalled the helm or helmet of
invisibility, and you canimagine it's on the front of the
book, it's, there's there, itis right there.
It just looks like a Greekhelmet or a Trojan helmet and
(27:11):
when you put it on you disappear.
And so what happens?
I think with that aspect of hispersonality, the unseen one, he
can kind of teach you a lotabout like oh okay, now's the
time to come forward and to beunyielding in my commitments and
stand in my integrity.
And maybe now is the time tosort of like you know, go back
(27:32):
and sort of conceal and wait andbide my time, or maybe, you
know, maybe it's not safe for me, so I need a little more
concealment.
I need a little bit more ofthat invisibility type of
glamour versus the out in theworld glamour.
So, yeah, I think he's a greatagain, a great mentor to work
with, to teach you about thatand, who knows, maybe if you ask
nicely, he'll loan you the helmof invisibility if you need it.
(27:59):
He does loan it out.
He loans it out to peopleoccasionally, so we have record
of it.
He's loaned it out to Athena.
He loaned it out to Hermes once, yeah, so, among others, I love
that and you know also.
Granddaughter Crow (28:08):
I really just wanted to reiterate what
you had shared earlier about theprotection aspects of the
underworld and the whole, all ofthe beings in the underworld,
and there is a lot of protectionwith it terms of you talk to
those guys.
(28:29):
Hey, I think I need protection.
You better realize who you'reasking, because they are down
and dirty, literally down anddirty, right.
What do you think about that?
Jamie (28:40):
yeah, their, their, um, their energies are heavy, their
energies are heavy and they'rebig.
So, um, you know, but they,they can be.
I mean, if you need, if youneed that, if you need that sort
of heavy support and heavyprotection, they're the ones to
ask.
I would just say that, um, youknow, be in reciprocity, be in
right relationships.
So, if you are asking somethingfrom them, um, ask also what
(29:04):
you can do for them andnegotiate that right, because I,
you know, um, in my perspectiveof modern devotion and working
with the gods in a modern way,there's a process of negotiation
and consent on both sides, andthat's how we end up being in
right relationship, and you know.
So I think that, yeah, ifyou're going to ask them for
(29:24):
something, kind of build it upas if you were building a
friendship or another type ofworking relationship.
Granddaughter Crow (29:31):
I love that you threw that in, jamie,
because I completely, 100% agree.
I believe that when you'reworking with any deity, it is
good to treat it like afriendship, a respectable,
honorable friendship, where youget to know each other and then,
(29:53):
when you make a request, youalso offer something as well,
and maybe this offering is justto light a candle, or maybe it's
to write a book.
I don't know if this is anoffer or not, but you know and
that there is a lot of give andtake.
Jamie (30:13):
Yeah, no, absolutely Absolutely yeah.
And I, you know, anotherquestion I get asked a lot.
They're like, so, like, how doyou, how do you just, how do you
work with, like, how do youhave a Hades altar in your house
like all the time?
How do you work with Hadesevery day?
How do you like?
I think you know just to, Ithink, different energies are.
(30:34):
They there's, they're sort ofuh, they're, they're like
magnets, they're drawn to eachother, and so I, um, I'm, I'm a
pretty saturnine chthonic sortof person myself.
I have a lot of earth in mychart, um, you know.
So I'm drawn to those energiesand I'm drawn to working with
them.
And you may or may not be like,it might be more of a short
term thing for you, right?
(30:54):
But I think that's fine as longas you're clear and upfront,
even when you're working withdeities or working with an
animal ally, a plant ally,anybody, you know, I think
that's just just being arespectful person Absolutely.
(31:26):
I 100 percent agree, I 100%agree.
So I mean is basically aprogram where we have, we have
classes, we have communityevents, all kinds of things like
that, and we combine teachingmagic with social justice work
and also building community.
So and it's called Way of theWeaver because we don't we
(31:46):
wanted to make it something thatwasn't really specific to a
tradition.
So, you know, because it's whatwe teach is magic and energy
work is sort of like an opensource skill set right Like,
here are the tools, and so youtake the tools, learn the tools
and then apply them to whateveryour belief system might be and
what makes sense to you, and sowe do a couple different things
(32:08):
this summer.
We just had Weaver Camp, whichis really fun.
It's like a four-day witchycamp for grownups in the
mountains of Vermont and thatwas a lot of fun.
The next thing that we havecoming up as far as an event or
an offering is that we're goingto be teaching a three-month
deep dive into trance journeywork, and that's going to be
(32:30):
online.
That's an online class.
It'll run January through theend of March in 2025.
But if you want to know a littlebit more about us and what we
teach and kind of get to knowour personalities, murphy and I
have a podcast.
It's just Way of the Weaverpodcast.
We put out two episodes a month.
One at the beginning of themonth is a tarot review.
(32:53):
We kind of review what happenedin the previous month and we
look forward to the next month.
And then the one that comes outin the middle of the month is
more topical.
So the one we actually justrecorded, one on Monday, hasn't
launched.
It hasn't released yet.
It'll release on the 13th ofthis month, but it's a it's on
out of body and near deathexperiences.
So we talk about all kinds ofthings and you can kind of get a
(33:15):
sense for our personality andwhat the community is like.
But yeah, if you want to checkit out, the website is
wayoftheweavercom.
Granddaughter Crow (33:23):
Yeah, and people, I checked it out.
I was drawn in, not justbecause of the occulty work, but
also this social justice, thisqueer friendly environment, this
, of course you had a spider,because we're talking about
weavers, and I love you know, Ilove that because it really kind
(33:45):
of creates this interconnection.
And I was looking at it and itsaid something to the effect.
There was like this really coolthing.
It said first, be of service toself, do your shadow work, get
to know yourself, blah, blah,blah, and in beautiful words,
not just blah, blah, blah.
And then it said and then,secondly, hi, now I'm a goofball
(34:07):
.
And then, secondly, be ofservice to community and balance
.
And be of service to communityand that'll look different
depending on who your communityis.
And then, third, be of serviceto that which is unseen, be it
the Hades, hail Hades or be it.
(34:28):
You know, whatever that is toyou, because here at belief,
being and beyond, we keep goingbeyond to stretch our mind, to
find out wow, I didn't know thatwas out there too, you know and
and to be able to do this.
But, yeah, and I was actuallylistening to, to one of your
podcasts I think it was thelatest one, you and Murphy.
(34:52):
It's just, it's so pleasant andit feels like light.
And then all of a sudden, oh,we start talking about world
events.
Then we come back and we'relike how is that with the Eight
of Cups, you know?
And it's just like you knowit's and I love that social
(35:12):
justice and community aspectthat you've got going on.
It's not just another witchpodcast, it's a brilliant
interconnection, weaving, if youwill, of some beautiful things,
of you know being able to domagic and then actually being
able to put it in our world, seeit in ourselves, bring it to
(35:32):
our community.
So, yeah, if you wanted acommercial about your podcast,
there you go.
Jamie (35:39):
Oh, thank you so much.
I'm glad you're enjoying it.
Social justice is very near anddear to both my heart and
Murphy's and you know we talkingabout that, three levels of
service, we, you know, we, inour own practices, before we
started working together andeven before we were friends, we
noticed that sometimes there wassome polarization.
(36:00):
You had, like some magicalpractitioners who were very
focused on self, likeself-improvement, and you had
some magical practitioners thatare very focused on like, either
like social justice, work outin the world, or you know, just
like sort of those larger issues, and people tended to not they
tended to our events of like,okay, we can actually work and
(36:36):
operate and do magic on allthree of these levels
simultaneously, and in fact weshould.
You know, yeah, we have a lot offun, we do some very serious
magic, but we have a lot of fun,kind of like what you were
talking about, the podcast.
We laugh and we're serious, butbut yeah, it's and it's really
really wonderful and thecommunity itself is amazing as
(36:59):
well, because I, you know, we,we do talk about like on our
website and in our podcast.
We're, we are definitely queercentric and very inclusive, and
so we, you know, we're a homewhere, if you're you know, if
you're not feeling like you fita lot of places you probably fit
with us.
Granddaughter Crow (37:18):
Oh, I love that.
I absolutely love that.
And quick to the listeners.
You can text this show.
Yeah, you can text the show andI'll get it.
I won't know who you are, butI'll know that you came from
California, so shout out tothose Californians that are
already texting the show.
Once again, back to your book,hades.
(37:41):
Jamie.
You outdid yourself.
Many, many blessings, many,many blessings to you, because
this is going to be many, manyblessings to you, because this
is going to be, um, a revelationto a lot of people who don't
know how to do or don't have allthat time to do the work.
But feel a connection, people,if you don't know what it feels
(38:03):
like to have a connection, whatI thought was great that jamie
said was well, I didn't goseeking hades, hades found me,
and I love that about theunderworld gods, they tend to be
that way, you know.
They kind of come out andthey're like, oh yeah, but if
this is of interest, please pickit up.
It's really, really good forany collection to balance you
(38:26):
out, you know, so that you'renot just high in the sky, that
you actually came back to earthjust like a tree.
So is there any last words thatyou want to say, jamie.
Jamie (38:37):
Oh, my goodness.
Well, thank you so much.
I feel like I could talk to youfor about three more hours, but
we have to close ourconversation for now.
But I've been wonderful talkingto you and I'm really, really
excited to meet you and to getto know you more.
And also, hey, everybody, thankyou so much for for listening,
and I'm very excited to announcethat I am writing a followup to
(39:00):
Hades right now.
So even more, even more aboutthe underworld, even more about
the diverse character ofcharacters and beings that are
down there, the landscapefeatures, and it was written all
in the context of being a deafpriestess and that's priest with
an X on the end to make it alittle bit gender neutral.
So if you're someone thatreally likes working that kind
(39:22):
of magic or being that person inyour community, I'm writing
this one for you.
So that's what I'm working onright now.
Granddaughter Crow (39:29):
I absolutely love that, so priest X I love
that.
Yeah, it's beautiful, that'sbeautiful.
Well, thank you once again, andthank you, guys, for once again
tuning into another episode ofbelief being in beyond.
Please like, subscribe andshare.
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