Salt & Sovereignty: Witchcraft, Hekate, Shadow Work & Spiritual Healing Podcast

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!For Samhain, my new year, I deep cleaned my meditation space and then warded it properly for the first time: incense, a copper-wrapped quartz wand, Success Florida Water, four copper balls in the corners, and one chant, said a few hundred times: "Nothing is allowed in this space, good or bad, without my express permission." Then I sat down to ground the way I always do, and my roots hit a wall of glass. This is the story of a protection spell that worked exactly as written, the one word I got wrong, what I changed for the gentler ward in my bedroom, and why I'm still flabbergasted every time my magic works (and why I want to stay that way).Chapters0:00 Nothing without my permission0:32 The Salt & Sovereignty app is on Apple2:58 A witchy weekend5:49 I'd never warded a room8:14 The working10:51 Let's see if it worked12:52 My own words15:31 Permission17:29 Magic is symbiosis18:43 A smaller lesson about words19:17 The bedroom ward20:44 Why the bedroom hit harder21:21 One more thingBoth wards will be this month's rite on Patreon. The free version is the whole thing in a form you can do on a Sunday afternoon with what you've got. The paid version has the full build (the Florida water, the copper, all of it) plus the permission list written out the way I'd write it now.The Salt & Sovereignty app is now on Apple. Android needs about 11 more testers to get through the two-week test period, so if you're on Android and want in, come find us in the Discord.Join the conversation in the Discord (free): Salt & SovereigntyPatreon: Salt & SovereigntyInstagram & YouTube: Salt & SovereigntyIf this resonated with you, following, rating and leaving a review really does help the next person who needs this find us.Until next time, honor the truth that keeps you sovereign.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!It's the day before Samhain, and this is the rite I wrote in a single day for my coven's first live ritual: a plate for my own dead, with names on it, for the first time. My line is unknown and it's staying that way, so this is a Samhain ritual that works whether you know your ancestors or not. I walk through what the night is actually for once you take everybody's gods out of it (the four jobs: frame the door, name and feed the dead, ask them one thing, burn what you're putting down), why "who stands at your door" replaced calling one goddess, the coven's new closing line, how the Deipnon is different, and why spells keep working for me on a screen. Then the full 12-step rite, quickly.Chapters0:00 Tomorrow, it's one0:28 Housekeeping1:01 The day before Samhain2:18 A coven, and a rite for two3:48 Whose gods? Who stands at your door4:48 The four jobs of the night5:28 A closing line: by salt we keep it6:34 Now the names7:48 The altar's a screen8:53 Apollo and the honeycomb9:36 Pressure off10:38 The rite, step by step12:34 The door stays openThe simple version of the rite is on the free Patreon and in the community ritual section of the app and website. The full write-up with all three versions (coven, solo digital altar, solo real table) is on the paid side of Patreon. Take all of it, or take the four jobs and build your own.Join the conversation in the Discord (free): Salt & SovereigntyPatreon: Salt & Sovereignty (the bonus show, live paranormal stories told outside in the dark, starts the first Monday after Halloween)Instagram & YouTube: Salt & SovereigntyIf this meant something to you, following, rating and leaving a review really does help the next person who needs this find us.Until next time, honor the truth that keeps you sovereign.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!In The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow, June says proper witching only ever takes three things: the will, the words, and the way. This episode is how I actually write my own spells, through those three: listening for the feeling that lingers, finding words that feel right in your mouth (borrowed, rewritten or talked out with someone you trust), and putting it out into the world as simply as you like. Along the way: the sisters of the book, the maiden, mother and crone, why a spell doesn't need a perfect setup to count, and what spell work has done for my own voice. (Recorded while I was sick, so bear with the voice.)Chapters0:00 It's still your spell0:25 The will, the words, and the way1:09 A conversation with the red heartbeat2:03 The sisters, and the maiden, mother and crone4:07 Spells as small as nursery rhymes5:04 I. The will: the feeling that lingers6:41 The moment June's will changed7:59 II. The words: rhyme, scraps and grimoires8:55 Borrowing spells until they feel right10:41 III. The way: putting it out there11:40 It doesn't need to be a full ritual12:19 Saying it out loud14:09 Start with the willIf you've been wanting to write your own spells but felt like you didn't know enough, or like it had to be complicated to count: start with the will. A rhyme and a match is enough.Join the conversation in the Discord (free): Salt & SovereigntyPatreon: Salt & SovereigntyInstagram & YouTube: Salt & SovereigntyIf this meant something to you, following, rating and leaving a review really does help the next person who needs this find us.Until next time, honor the truth that keeps you sovereign.#witchcraft #spellwork #howtocastaspell #theonceandfuturewitches #paganism #saltandsovereignty

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!I've been dry for months, and I suspect some of you have too. This is an honest look at a long quiet season in my deity work with Hekate (Hecate): why I came back to her wanting something, what happened when I tried to audit a month of results, and why a practice built to be unfalsifiable can't tell a gentle absence from a dead one. Along the way: ancient Greek religion's indifference to belief, the healing sanctuaries that carved their cures in stone and never their misses, the monthly supper rite and the one rule I've never broken, and where faith ends and stubbornness begins. (I've been a practicing witch for years; Hekate has been my patron for about a year.)Chapters0:00 A living relationship, or a dead one?0:37 I've been dry for months2:18 An introduction, then a relationship3:25 Two questions, thirty days later4:46 Auditing her5:36 Unfalsifiable by design6:35 The prediction I wrote down first7:38 What a long dry stretch is actually like8:38 Is it all in my head?10:14 Right practice, not right belief11:42 The stones that only recorded the hits13:19 The supper, and the rule I never break15:12 The cost of being gentle with yourself16:53 Empty rooms, and the one piece of evidence I haveIf you're in a spiritual dry spell right now: it doesn't mean you did something wrong. Keep the practice if you can, and let it go if you can't. Neither of those is a verdict. And come tell me, especially if you presumed you were the only one sitting in a quiet stretch.Join the conversation in the Discord (free): Salt & SovereigntyPatreon: Salt & Sovereignty (new Patreon-only show starting the week before Halloween: real paranormal stories, told in the dark, every week)Instagram & YouTube: Salt & SovereigntyIf this meant something to you, following, rating and leaving a review really does help the next person who needs this find us.Until next time, honor the truth that keeps you sovereign.#hekate #deitywork #witchcraft #spiritualdryness #paganism #saltandsovereignty

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!Most of us speak more than one language to the people we love: the careful voice we save for occasions, and the plain one that shows up at two in the morning. At the top of every ritual I write a line of ancient Greek, one of Hekate's (Hecate's) epithets, and I'm not confident I pronounce any of it right. So what is that line doing on the page?This episode follows that question through the old Egyptian spell books and her many names (Triodītis, Enodia, Phosphoros, Chthonia, Polyōnymos, the "many-named"), the strange "words that aren't words" in those prayers, and an ancient argument that the power was never in the meaning but in the sound. Then three honest answers about what ritual words are for, the one I don't like, and what I call the emergency voice: the one that shows up when there's no time to be heard properly at all.Chapters0:00 Cold open0:33 Two voices for the people we love3:25 Talking to her like an old friend5:17 One woman, two languages6:09 What the oldest books say9:07 Words that aren't words11:31 Three answers14:52 How do you tell which one you've been doing?16:01 The emergency voice17:33 Borrowed words and the workbook19:54 The traffic between us22:38 Something to try24:14 What's still there when we haven't preparedSomething to try: think of who you talk to when nobody's there. Notice which voice you use, and which one comes out when something is genuinely wrong. Then come tell me which voice showed up.Join the conversation in the Discord (free): Salt & SovereigntyPatreon: Salt & Sovereignty (spelled with the ampersand)Instagram & YouTube: Salt & SovereigntyThe show is on video on Spotify and YouTube.If this meant something to you, following, rating and leaving a review really does help the next person who needs this find us.Until next time, honor the truth that keeps you sovereign.#hekate #hecate #witchcraft #prayer #deitywork #saltandsovereignty

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!Two weeks ago I walked you through a road opener spell with Hekate (Hecate) in detail. This is the honest follow-up: what happened, what didn't, and the part I skipped. I changed the rite at the altar, the birthday candles went out in their own order, and every photo I took of the working came back as an even, unbroken field of brown. Then I look at the vow I was meant to speak aloud and only thought instead: why saying something out loud is different from thinking it, the one commitment I was protecting, social anxiety, choosing versus avoiding, the stranger who reached out mid-ritual and apologized before hello, and why the cheapest road opened first.If you're wondering how to know if your spell is working, this is what two weeks of watching one actually looked like, including the signs, the silence, and the prediction that didn't come true.Chapters0:00 The photo that came back brown0:34 What I did instead2:04 The night the roads were lit2:40 The brown photograph4:11 The second half: a set of commitments5:04 The vow I thought instead of said5:42 Why you have to say it out loud6:40 The room I was protecting8:11 Choosing not to, or avoiding?10:58 Did anything move?11:54 A stranger, before hello14:36 The arithmetic16:23 Two weeks in, and tonight's full moonI recorded this on the night of the full moon, the final working of that spell, and it was time I said my vows out loud. If you've ever made a promise to yourself so softly that nobody heard it, come tell me about it.Join the conversation in the Discord (free): Salt & SovereigntyPatreon: Salt & Sovereignty (a free tier and three paid ones; new patrons-only show starting the week before Halloween: real paranormal stories, told properly, in the dark, every week)Instagram & YouTube: Salt & SovereigntyIf this meant something to you, following, rating and leaving a review really does help the next person who needs this find us.Until next time, honor the truth that keeps you sovereign.#hekate #roadopener #witchcraft #spellwork #hecate #deipnon #saltandsovereignty

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!I spent the better part of an hour in front of an empty box, unable to type a price. It wasn't my principles that stopped me. It was a much older sentence about the kind of person I am with money.In this episode I look at what I found when I went back to the thing I'd been building: layer after layer of extra promises, piled on so that nobody could say I was asking for too much. I've started calling it the stack. It's the favor returned in advance, the apology before the question, the explanation nobody asked for. It's everything we pile on top of a request so we never have to make it plainly. Along the way: money shame that got passed down without anyone meaning it to, the quiet rule that says being paid for spiritual work makes it less real, and why a lifetime of yeses we worked for leaves us with no clean evidence about our own worth.Chapters0:00 If every yes came after you'd stacked something0:29 Beliefs that sound like principles1:39 An hour in front of an empty box3:47 An old sentence about money6:43 The scaffolding I built instead9:20 The stack12:08 Not one clean data point13:07 When "free" is also a hiding place14:05 When your principles and your wounds agree16:05 The rule nobody agreed to17:14 I want this to be my job21:21 Something to try22:21 What's changing, and what isn't23:11 A much older habitSomething to try: think of something you'd charge for if somebody else were doing it. Put an actual number on it, quietly, in your own head. Then notice what your body does, and whether you start stacking. I'd love to hear what happened. Not the number. That one's yours.The free feed stays free, and the rite I write each month still goes out to everyone.Join the conversation in the Discord (free): Salt & Sovereignty Patreon: Salt & SovereigntyInstagram & YouTube: @saltandsovereigntyIf this meant something to you, following, rating and leaving a review really does help the next person who needs this find us.Until next time, honor the truth that keeps you sovereign.#selfworth #peoplepleasing #moneyshame #spirituality #witchcraft #paganism #saltandsovereignty

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!Mabon is younger than disco. The name for the autumn equinox was coined in 1974, and Hekate never kept this holiday at all. So why does the turn of the year still feel like hers? This week, Ash goes looking for the real thread between Hekate, the autumn equinox, and the myth of Persephone's descent, and finds something she didn't expect. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter doesn't say Persephone chose the pomegranate. It says she was tricked, and it says she was forced. That distinction changes what sovereignty actually means when the thing that happened to you was never a choice, and when it's set to happen again. Ash walks through what's genuinely ancient in modern witchcraft and what isn't (the answer is less than you'd think), why the Wheel of the Year is a 20th-century invention, and the equinox ritual she built once she stopped pretending she had a receipt for any of it: two slips of paper, two torches, and a pomegranate eaten on purpose. If you've ever felt like you had to find the moment you were "in charge" of your own worst chapter before you were allowed to call yourself healed, this one's for you.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!Tomorrow I'm casting a friendship spell for me and my husband, and I'm recording this before I do it... so I have no idea yet whether it works.On the drive home last Sunday we finally said it out loud: we don't have anybody where we live. My best friend is across the state. His is too. So I'm doing a three-night working with Hekate. A Deipnon clearing at the dark moon, three candles for three roads as the light comes back, and a sealing at the full moon.But this one isn't really about the candles. When I sat down to write out who I was asking for, almost all of it came out as what I don't want. Not fake, not surface-level, not somebody half-assing their own life. A full page of nos. And reading it back, I found myself in it asking for a friend who's honest about money while I struggle to talk about mine, asking for someone who doesn't complain constantly while I get stuck doing exactly that.In this episode: the history of Hekate's (Hecate's) Deipnon and why the ancient offering included the sweepings of your own house; why I'm keeping the words of the spell private; the ethics of asking for people without casting on anyone's will; and why the hardest part of a friendship working isn't magical at all.New this week: Salt & Sovereignty is now in video on Spotify and YouTube.Instagram, YouTube, and Discord: @saltandsovereignty Patreon: Salt & SovereigntyIf the show has meant something to you, following, rating, and reviewing is most of how the next person finds it.

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!What happens when a relationship, a belief, or a version of yourself hasn't done anything wrong, but it's stopped adding anything to your life? In this episode of Salt & Sovereignty, Ash sits with the guilt of outgrowing something you still love, the fear of becoming someone who abandons people, and the difference between fading away from a connection versus consciously closing the door on it. Drawing on Hekate as goddess of crossroads and thresholds, she talks honestly about why releasing doesn't require a villain, and why gratitude and grief can coexist in the same ending. The episode closes with an original ritual, The Release at the Crossroads, a gentler alternative to traditional cord-cutting that works for people, practices, or old versions of yourself, and is written to adapt to any spiritual practice or none at all.