CC Ep #3

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Welcome

Hello friends. Welcome to episode three. We are doing it. I'm Sam, your host, also known as The Financial Witch. The Cosmic Co-op is a place for conversations, it's a place for collaboration. [00:01:00] This is a space for many voices coming together and creating something outside of this world that we are currently living in, while at the same time, working to build a better future for the planet that we're currently on.

I don't know about you, but I love my little planet Earth. At the same time, there's much to be learned from the cosmos, and there's much to be imagined in this age, this Pluto in Aquarius era that we've officially entered. So I hope that you're here ready to be curious and imaginative with me.

I am so fucking stoked for you to hear the conversation that I had in this episode with Andrea Webb of Every Light Wellness. They are one of my favorite people to know, to witness, to follow online. They bring such a refreshing perspective to not only herbalism, but anti-capitalism and business ownership, and I am always in awe of the way that Andrea [00:02:00] just exists in the world and runs her business and meets the needs of her people. That conversation is going to rock your fucking socks off.

And I also think it's pertinent to note that this conversation that we had was recorded prior to the assassination of a certain healthcare CEO, in recent weeks. What I'm trying to say is that this conversation is pre-Luigi. and you'll know what I mean when we get into it and why I'm bringing it up now.

Regardless. Such an energizing conversation. I got so fired up after this to just go out and be a fucking problem for capitalism, to be a problem for the dominant culture. And, I don't know if we've ever gotten into-- outside of the conversations in this podcast-- I don't know if I've ever directly addressed why I do this, in this form, and why this is so important to me.

And for me, it is truly [00:03:00] about making these ideas and these conversations more accessible and more relatable, and really bringing anti-capitalism down to earth. What I mean by that is that there's so much fuck ass academia rampant in these spaces, these anti-capitalist, socialist, communist, philosophist, whatever spaces. There's so much of this attitude of, you have to be really well-read and you have to subscribe to Marxism. If you're going to be a real anti-capitalist then you have to understand XYZ, and you have to know all these terms and have read all these theories from all these fucking dead guys. And while those theories can still hold some weight today and they can be built upon, they really rely upon the context in which they were written. The modern context is totally unacknowledged in these arguments.

This is a man who died a hundred years [00:04:00] before the internet was born. A lot of his ideas need to be adapted and adjusted, or maybe even done away with, in the modern context. Marx was responding to issues that were happening in his lifetime, in his own modern context. We have a far different context than Marx did. There's things to be built upon.

The reason I'm using this example is because that's usually who these academia fuckboys will lean on when they come in and try to be exclusionary and try to enact the same attitudes that really caused me to make this whole platform in the first place, because there is no reason why-- and I'll say this in this conversation with Andrea too, but-- there's no reason why your feelings about anti-capitalism can't qualify you as an anti-capitalist or whatever you want to call it. Post-capitalist. exo-capitalist, capitalist critical, whatever it is.

Your feelings can [00:05:00] qualify you. It's enough to just witness what's going on and trace the origins of many things back to the inevitable conclusion, which is always capitalism, white supremacy, racism, these things, besties going together. When you sit down and do any amount of research for more than 10 minutes, you start to put together that there is a common thread here. There's a common theme. There's a common illness running through all of these narratives and all of these collapses.

You also don't need to do that amount of research. You can simply live it. There are people right now living through the negative effects of capitalism, and that is enough to radicalize somebody. That is enough to bring somebody to an awareness of, hey, maybe we need to do something about this.

What I don't think is helpful is insisting that people need to read books by dead guys just to even participate in these conversations. That's what gatekeeping is, and gatekeeping, when it's [00:06:00] coming from these white walled institutions like academia, when it's coming from white, cis, heterosexual men on the internet, which it always is, then it's literally just replicating the same systems they're claiming to critique.

You cannot be a true leftist, you cannot be somebody who is truly invested in building a new world and creating something past this form of late stage capitalism and at the same time, shame and exclude people for not having memorized fucking communist manifestos. Get the fuck over yourself.

And if it's so hard for you to take those big ideas that you've shoved up your ass and to regurgitate them in a way that is actually understandable to other people who don't have the time, energy or interest in reading those things, if you can't translate those ideas, and make them accessible, then you're [00:07:00] just participating in the same gatekeeping and perpetuating the same barriers that keep people in and out of these institutions.

I won't be having that. And I am so fucking glad that Mercury retrograde is easing away, as I record this. Mercury has stationed retrograde, but we do have Mars retrograde for a few more months. So I'll get into that in the Astro Mission Log. I just wanted to give you a little bit of my sermon today about why it's not fucking cool to treat anti-capitalism like some big academic undertaking. You can dumb it down. You can bimbo-fy it, and people have already been doing this work. The bimbos have been evolving economic theory. Get on board.

Astro Mission Log

So let's talk astrology. [00:08:00] We have the full moon in Gemini happening, it has technically passed at the time that I'm recording this because I'm a little bit behind. I had a horrible bout of caffeine withdrawals this week that resulted in this horrible migraine, and it was very appropriate for the combo of Mercury stationing direct after being retrograde for the last three weeks, and Mars stationing retrograde and all of this chaos going on.

There's also been construction outside my bedroom window for the last three weeks at this point. Pretty much since Mercury retrograde started, which is pretty funny. The chaos vibes are undeniable. And obviously in the last few weeks we've also seen the assassination of a certain healthcare CEO. With Mercury being retrograde at the time, going through a cazimi, conjoining the sun, opposing Jupiter, its ruler, who is also in detriment.

It was a lot of memes. It was a lot of jokes. It was a lot of comradery [00:09:00] in response to an assassination, and something that I think slipped under the radar in the last few weeks is Venus, and the fact that Venus was the first planet to make a conjunction to Pluto since Pluto moved into Aquarius. Venus is incredibly subversive. Venus is no rainbows and sunshine and pleasure and delicious food and pretty things. Venus is also war, and literally going to hell and back, and fighting for what's right, and sometimes achieving justice in subversive ways, in unconventional ways. I think it's interesting that Venus was the first planet to pop into Aquarius and say, "Hey, what the fuck is up?" to Pluto and make that conjunction and then immediately after that, go towards opposing Mars, who's in Leo, who's retrograde, who's very agitated. Very fiery. Very ready to just punch a hole through a wall. I think there's something to be said [00:10:00] for the way that the general reaction, the whole zeitgeist's reaction to this assassination was to bring a lot of our values into question, especially the ones that you would think maybe wouldn't be questionable.

But suddenly, the average person is asking, "When is murder justified? And when does the loss of one life protect or somehow benefit other lives or save other lives?" It's crazy to be having these conversations just out in the open, and I think it'll also be very poignant when you listen to the conversation I have with Andrea about this, because a lot of these topics come up, even though we recorded this before any of this happened. I'm excited for you to hear it.

Intro to Andrea

I guess I'm just curious because obviously we know each other. We've followed each other online for a while and have been supporters of each other's work.

So I guess what I'm curious about is how you [00:11:00] got here at the level that you're at currently with Every Light and just becoming the hedge witch that you are. How did you get here?

Ah, messily. Yeah, lots of mess and bending, and responding to various needs, both personal and within the community. Sometimes I see a need and it's, "Oh, you know what? I think I might be able to offer something to that," and it becomes an offering, whether it's a reading or an event. And that's really how my work snowballed.

I started out professionally as actually a doula and did birth work for a while. Wasn't my favorite, but I was there, and then I went to school for clinical herbalism and opened a private practice, and then incorporated astrology. Again, it was a need. I needed something [00:12:00] more than just the body, which herbalism kind of focuses on. There's this whole other aspect to being, and astrology really filled that in, and then incorporating flower essences and yeah, just snowballed. I try to keep a flexible spine and respond to what shows up.

I love that. I think one of the best ways to build out a business is, like you said, just responding to needs or responding to what people want. I remember one time having a conversation with my last guest, Neha. She was asking me about a business offering that she was working on. And I told her my process with offerings was very much like: I share things before they're finished because I want to get the response. Like, I share things that I'm just thinking about doing and I haven't even started yet just to see if anybody gives a fuck, and it's a [00:13:00] lot less pressure than trying to build out something completely and then offer it to the world like "Here, I made this. Don't you want this?" Having that eye for what is needed, I think is so important.

Yeah, absolutely.

So you're an herbalist, you make flower essences, you host classes and things like that, right?

Yup. I hold classes and events and then there's also the Herbal Heathen, which is like a many months long mentorship program for folks who are interested in, whether it's cultivating relationship with local plants, or if they're on a path to becoming a clinical herbalist. It's really a varied, mixed group that's pretty fun. But yeah, I do that in the summer.

Weren't you-- I've been following, for a while, you building out... you have a space now, like your shed, right? What's it, what did you call it? What did you name it?

The Haven.

Yes. Oh my gosh.

Those who know and love it call [00:14:00] it either The Murder Shack, which is hilarious. But I bought one of those, I don't know if they have them out where you are, but you know those like, prefab mini barns?

Yeah.

Sometimes the Amish make them. So I got one. And it's-- I mean, it's beautiful, it's a lovely space. It's all insulated and you know, but it does look like a shed in a field. People are like, "Oh, yeah," they have to come all the way in before they see The Haven-ness of it. Which, hopefully as the years go on, we're going to put in gardens and it'll look less, less...

I love it though. I'm so obsessed with just plopping down a shed in a field, like that's just... that's how you start things.

With a $0 budget, just like, here we are. Let's fucking go! What happens if I do this? Oh yeah. Yep.

I [00:15:00] think it's beautiful: the symbolism, too, of creating a place for that. I think it's really beautiful. I think it's what a lot of people, a lot of small business owners in our realm-- the witchy, spiritual, herbalists, astrologers, all of us weirdos, like I can't speak for everybody, but it's my dream to just have a space for that, and I love that you have always-- the way that I've always perceived Every Light Wellness and what you do is very much.. It's not something that you're at the center of, or it's not something that you're like plastering yourself as the face of. It feels very much like something that you are just tending, but it's a collective force. That's at least what I've perceived.

I love. That's such an amazing reflection and very much what I'm going for. That's wonderful to hear that. I'm very grateful to be seen in that way.

Yeah. I love the way that you tend [00:16:00] space and keep... you keep so much heart at the center of it, and I know that it's also a very ferocious heart. It's not the... yeah, like your business is called Every Light, but we're not doing like love and light all the time.

That's another thing, it's a little bit of a bait and switch. The first year of the Heathens program, we were designing t shirts for everyone who participated and it was a fun group project, and what they decided on was the back of the shirt having two fists with "love" and "light" tattooed on the knuckles. And that was so perfect because that's kind of the vibe, right? Like real, real embodied love and a true, fiery light. It's awesome.

Absolutely. And that real, embodied love is so very ferocious. This has already been a theme on this [00:17:00] podcast, but the idea of anger being...

Yes.

Love, Rage, & Animism

Being a force of love, like I'm tired of pretending that it's not. That ferocity and the... yeah, I really love the way that you write about and just embody that type of... I call it like, "rough around the edges" type of love, but I think it really is just like what you said: it's more embodied. Because especially as a mother, there was levels of rage and protection unlocked in me that I just did not think were possible. You don't have to be a mother to know these things or to experience these things, but I think for me, it unlocked that ferocious love for everybody else, too.

Yep.

As soon as I became a mother, obviously for my child, yeah, I'd rip somebody apart, but it's spilled over into the rest of humanity. I don't know. Did you experience something like that?

Oh my goodness. Yes, in every single way. I have two boys and just the teeth I have grown has [00:18:00] just been marvelous to behold. I haven't always been a very spiky, fierce person, believe it or not. It's really been in the last few years that I've found that within myself, the fight. And then, yeah, that was so easy to translate into my work, that fierceness, and when I first started my practice, I very much wanted to be like the "love and light" typical herbalist, good vibes. And that lasted for all of four months.

"Fuck this. I really can't." And I started writing about being angry and being dark and fierce and loving your claws and loving your teeth and how important that is and how plants embody that, how planets embody that.

Yeah, it leaked everywhere. Just everywhere. And I feel that about my work. I feel that about my clients and this community: I will throw down, and [00:19:00] have, no question.

It's true. And I'm not an herbalist, but I know many and I love many herbalists, and this is something I've picked up from being around that is: yeah, plants embody that so much. Lately, because it's winter, I think a lot about mint.

Just cause I love mint. I love all types of mint, peppermint, spearmint. I don't care. I love it. I have a vanilla peppermint candle going right now. And I think about the fact that mint has such a strong flavor and it's supposed to act as a deterrent, but we as humans, we're like, "Ooh, mouth feels tingly," we're like, "Ooh," and so it's funny for me. That's always the example I think of where I'm like, plants have teeth, plants have feelings, plants have motives. And sometimes we ignore those motives. That really animist worldview, I think, spills over a lot between herbalism and also [00:20:00] astrology.

Yeah.

And just connecting to everything outside of yourself as if it is its own entity.

Yeah. It's everything that participates in existence, as being, has path and purpose and history and future and yeah, absolutely. And honoring that, I think, is such an important part of being an astrologer, being an herbalist, working with clients and being a business owner as well. You can't be a shitty business owner and still respect the being and existence of all things, right?

Yeah. And we see many examples of people not respecting that, in this capitalist hellscape that we live in. Yeah, it's true. Something I've been thinking about a lot lately is this idea that as a business owner, especially with somebody who's anti-capitalist or at least holds some anti-capitalist values, this idea that [00:21:00] your business is not just a way for you to make money. It's also a vehicle for your values. Like it literally allows-- it gives you something to take your values and literally move them through the world and to enact them and to embody them. And I just don't think we're talking about that enough.

What I've been noticing a lot lately-- and there's obviously a lot going on in the world, as there always is, but-- I've been noticing a lot of conversations about anti-capitalism or just even what's after this, like what comes after capitalism, and a lot of hand wringing and a lot of worrying about business owners contributing to the problem, because they've decided to take on the act of making money, basically, and to put it all on yourself, instead of the straightforward act of "I sell my labor to an employer, they give me money." When you become the employer and the employee, you sit in the same body, there's a lot of cognitive distance that I've been noticing in a lot of [00:22:00] people.

Listener Submission

So the submission that we have for this episode-- and all of these are 100% anonymous, even to me. So you can submit questions, if you want to submit just the things you've got to get off your chest about money, capitalism, whatever it is.

I'm here for it all, but I really liked this question that we got, which was: Does owning my own currently solo business in the 21st century really make me petite bourgeoisie? And how might small business owners now differ from small business owners in the time when that phrase was coined?

Yeah, Marx's time 100, 150 years ago or something like that. Is it really possible for small business owners to wield their small power differently? And I was so excited to bring this discussion to you because I was like, who better to talk about this?

I love it.

Okay, so what is petite bourgeoisie? What does that even mean?

In my mind, obviously I'm thinking of middle class [00:23:00] people, right? This isn't necessarily the ruling class and these aren't really the originators of capitalism, right? We think of capitalism as being like, people with capital, right? Investing, creating, consuming and the, middle class, they're the workers.

They're trying to do a little bit better than they need to. But again, it's a very slippery, very slippery slope. And then we come into this idea of 90s suburbia, that's so far removed from so much of reality, and they tended to be the folks who had really traditional values and were very... the cultural context of their religion was very important to them.

So that's what I think of when I hear that phrase. It's just like, "common man."

It's such a funny phrase, because you have bourgeoisie being like, fancy French word for fancy [00:24:00] rich people. And then being like, "Yeah, these people aren't that, but they're a smaller version of that," and the phrase that I like, when you just Google it, the technical definition, referring to them as a social class of "semi-autonomous peasants."

Oooh!

Right? Which I was like, okay, nobody likes to be called a peasant, but I think there's... I think there's something to that. Yeah. For me, just to straight up answer the question, I don't think that the definition as it originally was implied? Yeah, I don't think it applies anymore. There's just too many layers of social, political, economic change that have occurred since then to really keep the essence of what these terms used to mean.

And I think also part of that, too, is because our middle classes has all but disappeared, or is disappearing. So if this is describing what would essentially be out like a peasant middle [00:25:00] class, increasingly fewer people fall into that category every day, due to the funneling of wealth.

So I don't think small business owners are part of the problem. If that's what's being asked, I don't think that's what's happening. Is this an emotional journey that you've been on, or how have you reconciled the feelings about capitalism and being a business owner?

I think about it constantly. I fucking love business. I'm a real small business owner. I've been in management, I've been in production management. I love it. I really do. I've mentored lots of people who've either started their businesses or, want to have business. So I do, I think about this constantly. And, as far as my own kind of path, yeah, there was a lot of wrestling. And I'm currently in a place where I feel incredibly... comfortable isn't the word, but satisfied with my convictions and position, and have held them long enough now that it's like, okay. It's [00:26:00] proving itself.

I love that.

Yeah, but I still think about it because I think, if you're in business with any sort of awareness, every new opportunity, every new idea, every problem, every challenge brings you back to that place: how am I responding?

And I think it's in the response. How we respond to the problems and challenges that everyone has in providing for themselves and their family and their community. How do you respond to that? That's the difference between, are you going to go try and be that middle class? Are you trying to become hierarchy, like aristocratic? How are you using your peasant autonomy? Which I love that it says that, "semi-autonomous peasant."

I know. It stings a little bit, but it also makes a lot of sense because in that, [00:27:00] there's the implication that there's still not full autonomy, like it still implies that yeah, you're not the ruling class. You still are not the ruling class. You're a semi-autonomous version of that. You've got some freedom to...

A little bit of freedom. Just a bit.

Little tiny bit.

Go pick out your college color. You've earned it.

You're right. You're right. It's funny and it sounds... we're not belittling it, but I think that essence is maybe something that can still be identified today because a lot of people that I talk to, especially in the realm of spirituality or astrologers, witches, woo, all that stuff. There's a lot of people who take on running their own business because they don't have any other option, because a regular job is not suitable for them, or straight up could be just [00:28:00] hostile. Maybe they're disabled or the neurodivergent or it just doesn't work for them.

Entering into this semi-autonomous peasant class becomes kind of the only option. And I think that's also where a lot of people are feeling a little bit of that cognitive dissonance or just that internal struggle of, I have to survive and this is the option that I have for survival, but it puts me in a position where, yeah, you have to make more decisions.

You're not becoming a capitalist. You're not entering the ruling class, but you are taking a step closer. You are interacting with it more closely, I think, because like you said, you have to make decisions and respond to things. And in that responding, everything has to be filtered through a set of values.

Right.

Whereas going to a job, you already know what's expected of you. Your values don't always necessarily come up at your job, because there's just rules and things, like there's procedures in place. It's way more personal when you [00:29:00] take it on yourself.

So when I think about this, I'm like, okay, but then what do we do about the people who say, "Hey, this is the thing that I have. I cannot work a normal job. I cannot be an employee for whatever reason," but they feel bad. There's that shame creeping in, like now I feel bad. Now I'm petite bourgeoisie and now I'm a capitalist.

First of all, my questions are, do you encounter people like this? Do you talk to people with stories like this? And then if you do, what do you usually say or what comes out of these conversations?

Are Small Business Owners Capitalists?

Yes. Frequently. This is a conversation I have a lot with the folks I mentor or just arguing with people about it, which is so much fun. We're not arguing, it's a... energetic debate.

Right. Spirited disagreement.

So yes, all the time. One of the things that I host is like a small business, the Swamp Time, the small business bitch and brainstorm session. So one of the things I like to do is offer [00:30:00] people... I don't want to call it a ready-made lens, but something that's a little bit concrete to start the thought process. For me, it's like village economy versus capitalist economy, and you think about and you use those. I wrote down just a short list to you know, abbreviate it, for the sake of time, but, we have this challenge and this solution is possible, and then we can run it through this list of things that kind of help that triggering.

And I really encourage people, especially if they're experiencing shame-- and I want to say, briefly, there is some aspect of being trauma-informed. I'm not always throwing people into their own abyss, but-- not being afraid to accept that and look at it, which is really hard.

Exactly what is it that you're ashamed of? [00:31:00] What are you afraid of being perceived as? Or looking at, what is the thing in there? And it can help us unravel that and come up with better solutions. But the village versus capitalist economy can be a really great place to start.

Like village economy, you are in a role. There is that aspect of being and serving and being a part of something bigger than yourself. Small, local-- and by local, obviously I do a lot of business online, but one of the things I try to do is keep that personalization, like very much working with people and building relationships.

Villages are contained by context, so that idea of a local need, something that your community is needing, or that you want to offer them, right? You may not think, oh, [00:32:00] my community, quote unquote, "needs" art. Yes, they fucking do. You have it to offer. Someone needs that.

And there's also accountability that comes with that as well. Like we think about the village and if you're selling shitty stuff, people are going to know, right? There is that need to have a solid product. You need to have good business ethics because people are going to see that. And the capitalistic structure, like the bigger you get, the less visible you become, right? And so by keeping things small and transparent, even if you're a bigger small business, like I think technically small businesses can have up to a hundred employees or something.

Yeah.

The Profit Games

Micro, micro business, solopreneurs, I think a good village economy ideal is that enough is the success, where capitalism exists to make a profit.

[00:33:00] Yeah.

There is a scope to capitalism, and this is the thing that I keep wrestling with, because in order for a single business, a single entity to grow, it has to be fed. And at some point, its consumption is going to outgrow what you can ethically feed it.

And this is something that I encourage people to wrestle with, but there's always that aspect of "fuck, so how do I do?" So you're always looking for better ideas, you're trying, but product based businesses face this a tremendous amount. Like my consultations, my teachings, that's me.

Right.

I only have so much to give, and let's say I make handmade herbal salves, which I do. The capitalist way to do that is to find the cheapest oil, the cheapest containers, sell more of them, and already, my [00:34:00] very small, adorable herbal business is relying on slavery all across the world in order to do that.

That's a huge ethical dilemma so many of us have, because if I used ethically sourced, single origin oil and harvest all of the herbs myself and use handmade tins from Idaho, no one could afford it. I wouldn't use it to make a living. And I always invite people to sit with that. Don't try and argue or reason yourself out of it.

You have to accept that, and that may change how you do business. It may change who you do business with, and that's good. And I think it's good to be a little bit uncomfortable with that as well, because I think it's going to keep you from pushing into that space where it's like, oh, I'm doing this holistic herbal stuff and I rely [00:35:00] on cheap slave labor in order to do my love and light shit. It's such a fine line, dude. Like I said, it's something I wrestle with personally, but what would someone in a village do?

Yeah.

Then some of them get really creative, like maybe doing this bulk. People bring their own containers. I have a good friend who makes candles and they decided to only use recycled containers and it was absolutely brilliant. And it was sitting with that dilemma that brought them to this now, the trademark of their business. So getting creative and again, using that little bit of freedom you have as a business owner, like wielding that power of creativity and innovation, that's huge. That's absolutely huge.

I'm a huge fan of just playing the game and playing it well. You have to do better, you have to [00:36:00] understand capitalism so that you can fucking beat it at its own game. But that means being uncomfortable and asking big, hard questions and really sitting with yourself. Are you trying to have enough? Or is profit the thing? The only thing, I should say. Obviously I love profit because then I can buy groceries.

Yeah. I love that you talked about profit too, because that in itself is one of those big, uncomfortable questions that I've had to sit with, just for myself as a business owner. These questions of, how much is okay to profit off of the work I do? And then you have to stop and think, then what does "okay" mean? If you really sit with it, you have to really pick apart almost every word to figure out what you feel about it.

I love learning, so I am a part of Storywork Studio, which is run by, Dajé Alōh, and they teach a program called [00:37:00] Soft Profit, and they do this as something in a similar vein of leading anti-capitalist business owners and facilitating groups and things like that. Storywork Studio is really incredible, but Soft Profit is one of those programs that I got, and it teaches about the idea that yeah, profit is necessary if you want a business to... like you said, it needs to be fed.

It's holding these tough feelings of, I know that capitalism is a profit based economy. I know that, and I know that I live in that and that it affects everything that I do. And I also know that profit, some profit, is good for my business and is actually not just good, but necessary. I always think of like "the poison is in the dose" type of thing, where...

I love that.

Yeah. Living in capitalism automatically means you're taking in poison, like those doses, we have no way around it. I love that you said that, like it actually benefits people to understand how [00:38:00] this works. Just like with anything, you learn the rules so that you can break them and change them.

For a while, this is also something that I noticed a lot with the business owners I talked to as well: not necessarily being afraid of learning anything about capitalism, but just because it's so big and nebulous and they understand it as just " bad thing, not good," it's like oh, stay away. You should stay away in the sense of, you should wear gloves when you're handling dangerous objects, but you should still examine this thing.

You should still look at it, and understand, yeah, how the fuck it works. Because if not, you're going to be caught in trying to get out of something without fully understanding how you got in it, basically, or how it came to be.

So, understanding how capitalism works. Yeah, like playing the game. Like you said. I think I was a child when I had that realization that " Oh my God, money, all the shit that the adults are doing, this is just one big game and I'm going to have to figure it out one day. I don't now because I'm six, but one day I'm going to have to [00:39:00] figure out how that game works."

I... I love that.

Yeah.

Yeah. I don't consider, or I don't call myself anti-capitalist, not that I think a wrong phrase. I refer to myself as being a capitalist combatant.

Oh, I love, I haven't heard that one. I love that.

Because I love business so much. So Capricorn rising here, right? I love business. I love money. I love spending money. It's important to me to have. Which is so funny, cause I've been the poorest person I know my whole life. And that's the relationship, right? it's like an ex. Like a toxic ex you're obsessed with. That relationship is really challenging for me. And I think that having my own business and learning the game has been so satisfying, so satisfying and seeing like, where are the lines? [00:40:00] Like capitalism thrives on pyramids, right?

It loves this shape, it loves a triangle shaped structure.

It loves that shape!

And that's another thing that I offer, like a tool to folks, is draw out your fucking pyramid. How many people? So you're a small business owner, so you're a solopreneur, how many people support your work though? Realistically, how many people are needed that you necessarily maybe don't acknowledge because, oh, it's handmade. It is handmade, and everything came from somewhere.

So you have a profit, who else is profiting? Is anyone else profiting? Is the earth profiting? Profit isn't a vacuum. In order for there to be profit, there needs to be lack somewhere. And one of the things that I've seen happen over and over again, going from that village to capitalist [00:41:00] mindset, is scale, right? "I was making these, and now I can make a hundred of them." Do you actually have more money now? Do you have more profit?

The Case Against Scaling Up

Every time you scale up, your expenses and stresses are also exponentially increased, and you need more people to do less in order for you to get there. And you know what? I'm poor as fuck. I worry about the price of eggs. So do those people. They're so worried about the price of eggs and they have the stress and turmoil of everything going on. I love my little peasant life because just that: oh, all right, I'm poor, but I have a lot of time.

Oh my god, yes.

My life matters to me. I'm there for my boys. And let's say I was able to sell a hundred things and then...

I am-- I'm so anti scaling, honestly. I'm not saying you should [00:42:00] never grow your business, obviously, but this idea that scaling is the natural next step or it's what's expected or it's automatically a good thing if you scale up. It's not always a good thing, and I've heard many stories of when it's not been a good thing.

Yeah, I know, because really, are you doing any better? Probably not.

Like you said, they might have more money, but maybe they have way less time and they're way more stressed out because now you're filling hundreds of orders. It's a give and take, like you said, there's lack somewhere.

Who's doing more? You need more containers from China now. Again, someone is-- and I'm going to use this word, because I think it's-- someone is suffering so that you can scale, and your suffering isn't decreased.

So the net suffering has actually gone up. Yeah.

Capitalism in a nutshell, though, like the, toxicity of that poison. Like you said, it's in the dose. You're just increasing the dose. [00:43:00] You're losing the game, dude.

You're falling for it.

So hard. Cause that's the hustle culture. That's what it means to be a good American, is you know, grab business by the balls and run with it.

Yeah, this is the thing that I have dealt-- just this year, like in the beginning of 2024 I had basically like a mental breakdown. I pretty much stopped showing up on this platform for a good six months.

Yeah.

Was going through a lot of stuff financially, like we had to raise a bunch of money in the spring to avoid getting evicted. And then immediately after that, I had an abortion, and it was just like all of these things going on this year. Could not show up for my business in the way I wanted, so I stopped trying to.

In that time, I'd just been having a lot of thoughts, a lot of feelings, observing a lot of discussions about that idea of "enough" and what it means to not constantly be scaling, and [00:44:00] also what we mean when we say something is a privilege. Because like you mentioned, not having a lot of money, but having a lot of time-- and time? So much more valuable than money.

Suffering Olympics

And it's really easy for that shame to creep in because you don't have a lot of money, but you have a lot of time, and I've been thinking a lot about this just really recently too, because there's so much back and forth that people do about what's a privilege and what's not. And especially in the phase of capitalism that we're in right now, where It's almost broken down into, we're not even discussing privileges anymore. It's just "Oh, that's a privilege" as a way to invalidate somebody's experience, maybe. Oh, you're actually not suffering, so what you're saying matters less.

And what I've been thinking about that is when people say-- and especially with moms, there's so many different ways that moms can be shamed these days, but, oh, it's a privilege if you can stay home with your kid. And I had to sit with that for a while. Cause I used to believe that too. I was like, if you're somebody who could stay home all day with your kid and you have all this time to be with your child, [00:45:00] that's a privilege, right? You're a privileged person. you're automatically doing better than somebody else.

But then I stayed home for two years and so did my husband because we couldn't fucking find a job. Like, thousands of job applications in two years, and nothing. So my son, for the first two years of his life, he had both parents at home, which is supposed to be this big, huge privilege. And there are good parts of it. He's really well bonded with both of his parents and that's priceless. But I was like, I don't feel privileged because I have negative $50. Like I'm having to ask my dad to buy his baby formula, but I'm privileged because I can stay home with my kid?

It's this idea of trying to quantify and codify everybody's suffering, and it's like you said, as long as we're still in capitalism, the net suffering is still always just inching upwards. It's not, "you have this privilege, you're suffering less," it's just like, we're all suffering in different ways, [00:46:00] man. I think we need to stop being mad at other people for when they're not openly suffering.

And this is part of what goes into business ownership too, and people who won't even allow their businesses to provide them with enough because of that shame. Because oh, now you've got this privilege. Oh, you get to work for yourself and it pays your bills? That's such a privilege. Yeah, it's better than some situations, but there's still suffering involved in that.

Weaponizing Your Privilege For Good

People hate talking about privilege with me. I'm a queer, brown, weirdo, poor, whatever. I check all the boxes, right? Great. Yay! And I hate it when people argue about privilege. The only thing I want to know is how are you exploiting the privilege you have? We all fucking have some privilege. And some people say that there's a privilege, that it's actually not. That's just how it's supposed to be.

Right. Also that.

Privilege? Dude. And we're [00:47:00] so busy tearing each other's throats out about that, that we're forgetting the atrocities going on by these bigger businesses, and I'm going to bitch at you because you stay at home and I have no clue as to your context? Like I think that's awful and again, that's one of the things I challenge folks to think about is: okay, you have this small business and it's providing for you. That's awesome. How are you weaponizing that? Do you have a house? Awesome. How are you weaponizing that? You've got some time? Do you have a healthy body? Awesome. That's like having a sword in a war.

Some of us have great big swords. I like, run to violent analogy, but it's so real, right? Do you have a sword? So get in front of somebody with a stick. The end. There doesn't need to be this whole fuckin who's got more privilege, who's got more suffering. We're wasting time bitching [00:48:00] about it.

No, that's how I feel too. My default response to those conversations now has turned into, especially when it's about mothers and mothering, or somebody's trying to say whatever, I'm just like, so what are you doing to help the mothers in your life since you care so much about their privilege and their suffering? What are you doing to materially help the mothers in your life?

Seriously. No, that's so real. And I wouldn't have a business if it weren't for the "privileged" people, quote unquote, pouring their money into it. Like people paying at the higher end of the sliding scale. It works out, it balances out and that is weaponizing your privilege. That's why we have money. That's why we have time and bodies. I'm all about that. Using the semi-autonomy you possess. I'm never...

I know. I'm never letting that go. I love that so much.

For [00:49:00] your brothers in arms. We're not gonna win if we're so busy fighting each other.

What you said about weaponizing your privilege is actually, yeah, it's like energizing me a lot, because I'm also poor, but I have the privilege of being white. And so part of the ways that I like to weaponize my privilege is to call out white women bullshit.

Because I am from white women bullshit. I'm descended from it and I'm surrounded by it. And it's also extremely easy for me to become it. I spend a lot of time calling out white woman bullshit, and it's funny to me when I will get pushback from people who are also white women, and they're like, "you're discriminating." I'm not even going to dignify it and say they're telling me I'm being racist because that's not happening, but it's, "You're discriminating. You're stereotyping all white women." I'm weaponizing the white woman privilege that I have by making you, my fellow white woman, uncomfortable.

That's what I was told to do. I was told to weaponize my privilege. [00:50:00] That's what I'm doing. And if it's making you uncomfortable, it's working. But it's funny, too, when the pushback is from people who aren't in those categories. They're like, "Why are you attacking your fellow woman?" I'm like, I'm not attacking them. I make them uncomfortable. And that's what they need.

We really should be weaponizing what privileges we have, and like you said, being capitalism combatant. Like one of my things in my house is I always like to think about, how am I disappointing capitalism today? How am I disappointing it? And that's just really about foiling the expectations that are placed on you.

Yeah.

There's so much wisdom in what you're saying about, I really hope people take that away: privilege is not something to be embarrassed or ashamed about.

I experience this a lot when I talk to people about money. Everybody always wants to talk about financial shame and it makes sense, 'cause shame is the tool that capitalism uses, but I will also hear it from people who were born into very financially privileged lives and they're also experiencing shame. [00:51:00] Because you recognize that... it's like you said, some privileges are just the way things are supposed to be.

It's not a privilege that my child is bonded to both of his parents. It's just how it should be. And so these people are born into situations where they realize, "Everybody should have what I have, and they don't," and then they feel bad about it. Okay, that inflection point where you turn it inwards on yourself, that's where I would like the redirect to happen.

Yes.

Instead of being like, "oh my gosh, I was born into money, oh no," okay, well do something about it, then.

Yes. Sharpen your claws! Get out there! Like I said, find somebody with a stick! I think the weaponizing of privilege, when you keep that in mind, it stops it from becoming saviorism, right? You don't need to save other people, you need to just fight! Just fight. Recognize that's something that you [00:52:00] have and yeah, let it make you bold and fierce and a threat.

Yeah. It's about being unlikable, and I think for me, because I'm a white woman and the ways that white women are socialized, being unlikable is very much... Being unlikable, making others uncomfortable, being impolite, not recommended as a white woman. And so that's what I have to do.

Love it.

It just feels like what I have to do, just to be an unruly, obnoxious, mean, white lady, because like you bitches don't listen. So what am I supposed to do?

God. I love that so much. There's another t shirt idea right there. Mean and unruly white woman.

I am. I try to embody the spirit of Ursula K. Le Guin in everything I do. Yeah.

I love how you've talked about this with business and then also in this sense of this metaphorical war that we're talking about, but responding to what's actually happening and [00:53:00] responding to needs, instead of getting caught in the mental gymnastics of privilege or who's allowed to do what, or blah, blah, blah, that "needs first" is really something I've been thinking about ever since Venus moved into Capricorn.

Yes.

The core wound that I see is that we live in a world where it's not simple for everyone to get their needs met. And it should be simple. It should be simple to figure out how to get someone's needs met and then set off on the path of meeting them. And it's not simple. It's very complicated.

So that's, I think comes back to a lot of the business thing and about profit and scaling and how much is enough. I love the example you used of physical products, because it makes so much sense. Like, somebody who has to fill more orders is-- they might be scaling, but they don't necessarily have more time. And I think about this because a lot of the people that I deal with or talk to don't have physical businesses.

Like me, they do [00:54:00] readings online or they're an astrologer or they're a writer. So the scaling conversation is a lot different because it's deceptively easy to scale on the internet, but, you still have to keep that question of the net suffering of capitalism, because it can seem like, I don't know, like an easy way out. Say you have a digital offering, you sell a $50 PDF and if you go from selling one to selling a hundred, nothing's really changed for you, time wise. And that's really great, and that's very appealing to a lot of people, but then what I usually have to talk to people about then is about not exploiting themselves.

Because they're all the labor. They're the product. They are everything, like there is no physical product. It's you showing up. Say you didn't want to work a regular job because you didn't want to be exploited by an employer. Why would you then turn around and become the employer that's exploiting yourself?

Absolutely.

On the internet, god, it [00:55:00] gets so tricky, but if you have a digital business where you sell a digital product, it's so easy to find websites, like click farms, they'll just sell your links to whomever, and put you on these spam lists and you can do that. And it would get eyes on your product and it would probably sell more products, like more PDFs. I'm sure it would. And for you, there's nothing that has changed except literally more money. And it's hard to locate the suffering in that because it's more hidden, right? Like when it comes to the internet, the types of suffering are much more easily veiled when it comes to stuff like that.

So it's hard for me, a lot of the times, talk to people who don't have a physical product business about, you can still exploit yourself. You can still weaponize capitalism against yourself. And then yeah, same thing, scaling is not going to be a good thing for you. It's going to result in more money, but it's not going to lessen the suffering. Like you said. The net suffering.

Yeah.

[00:56:00] 'I believe so much in small business owners, especially solopreneurs, people like you and me who are just like doing this thing on their own. I believe so much in it because I also think that is a way of getting back to that village role, like you were talking about. We're coming full circle. Like we're returning to the apprentice shop.

Yes!

Returning to that. And I think it's a good thing, honestly, if we can not weaponize the tools that we have to make this worse. I feel like it could be a really good thing.

Oh, absolutely. And I see that in my work constantly. I love how much trouble I am for even just the thoughts and ideas. I love challenging people. I love people looking at what I do and feeling, "The fuck?" I love that response, because that's like the first crack in the shell. And I think that can be so powerful, like you said, the small business and [00:57:00] solopreneurs and to be that example and to not feel like you have to hedge around it.

The Alchemy of Shame

It can be really easy. This is something I have a huge problem with. Oh my god, such a big problem, because I'm so loud about it, and then it's "Oh shit, I don't have any money." And like, how do I freak out about it? Or I totally burn myself out. And I'm not good at all of this stuff. And I feel deep, aggressive shame when I'm able to like, take my kids out to eat because, oh my god, that's money, and then also the delicious triumph of having made enough to do that.

It's so complicated and it can be difficult for capitalist combatant business owners, especially the ones, like you said, who aren't necessarily doing a product based business, who are more service oriented, to feel like they can be loud about that, because so much of the predominant cultural context is: [00:58:00] success is only having more money. We don't care about your health. We don't care. How much money can you tell us that you've made? We don't want to hear about the people that you've helped or the beauty that you've created or ushered into this world or the problems that you've caused for said culture. If you don't have a bottom line that tickles us pink, we don't care. We don't want to hear about it.

And so challenging that, I think, can sometimes bring up shame or embarrassment because you have a bad month, maybe you have a failed launch, maybe you end up having to take on a second job, and it can be easy to face that because then the criticism can also be there. Then you have to go with that, do I fucking care? I don't want them to approve of me and I certainly don't care if they disapprove.

Oh, man. No, that's huge. And I think you just hit on something I didn't even realize that I had gone through that until you said it too, but the, yeah, realizing that I can be a problem [00:59:00] for the dominant culture and I don't have to still appear as a business owner, like a professional business owner.

That was something I struggled with a lot, even on this platform. Even just the choice to make The Financial Witch separate from what I was already doing was very intentional because I was like, I feel like people are going to, if they disagree with my ideas or they don't like what I'm doing, they're going to make it about me. That's the scary part of just having a platform, having a business, being the only one. And the more that time has gone on, I've become more comfortable with letting it get closer to the reality of me and who I am. Like even just little things, just this week I went on my Substack and I changed the name to my actual name instead of just leaving it as The Financial Witch.

Ooh.

Right. For me, I was like, this is big just because I wanted to appear very knowledgeable, very professional, very trustworthy. I'm talking about anti-capitalism. You can trust me. I care about your [01:00:00] well-being, but I didn't want to make it about the person because I'm so messy and imperfect. Like I literally almost got evicted this year. Obviously I'm not the most financially established person and maybe I never will be, but I had to come back around to, I actually don't even want people to know me for my financial situation or how good I am with money. I want it to be more about, the problems I've created, the problems I've solved, and the minds and hearts that have been able to be changed, right? To me, that's my own measure of success.

Yes.

I love to make money. I love to spend money. But for me, it's about having somebody be like, "Oh my gosh, I was so afraid to call myself anti-capitalist," or "I thought that I didn't know enough to explore these things, and now I know that my feelings are enough. What I observe of capitalism doing harm, that is enough to qualify me as an anti-capitalist and I don't have to hide about it." You don't have to feel like you're going to have to defend your [01:01:00] views with an academic dissertation. You can do it with your feelings. You can do it with your feelings and what you see with your eyes and observe.

Oh, absolutely. And the mess is the proof, right? Like you said, to throw a different perspective at it, I've been watching you this year. Sounds like really creepy. And every time I've seen you like, struggle and alchemize and share this and struggle and alchemize, and I'm like, fuck, that's the witch part.

It comes from need. It comes from this raw hunger. I want someone in the shit, tell me how the fuck are you doing this? How is it going? And some days, it's not.

Yeah.

It is not going. And then you get back up and keep doing it. And it's, "oh yeah, no, they.. Okay. That's-- I see that. There you go." And I've learned something too, now, watching that [01:02:00] process. So I applaud you and have a lot of gratitude for your vulnerability and-- I don't want to say vulnerability. I don't like that word there.

Transparency and authenticity. That's the word I want. The bits that you've shown us that are-- like I said, the proof in the mess, the witch in the mess-- has been beautiful.

Thank you for that. For a while I was going through a business identity crisis where, I was like, I didn't know what to call myself. I was like... somebody identified for me last year that I was really like, a shame alchemist. And so I ran with that for a while and I still hold that, but it's just not what I lead with anymore. But it is, I still feel, the core of what I do, because I think for me, I am a person who has experienced many different sides, all sides of the underbelly of capitalism. I've also experienced privilege and I've also experienced like, existing in between these worlds.

Yeah.

I [01:03:00] am somebody who could-- and should, in the eyes of capitalism-- be very ashamed. And I was for a while, but that shame, after a while, it wasn't helping me, and it certainly wasn't dismantling capitalism either. So I had to eventually learn how to turn that into something else, and then now, help other people do the same thing.

It's usually just about a reframe. I remember one example I had with somebody who came to a reading for me, and they were feeling ashamed because they and their partner were in the process of building a house together, like their first house together, and their partner was contributing more financially while they were like switching jobs, and they were feeling a lot of shame about the fact that their partner was having to support them financially.

And I wasn't even trying to say anything deep or anything. I was just doing my job, doing the reading, but they came back to me like six months later and they said the thing that they got out of the reading the most was really nothing about the astrology that I said, but it was really more about, I said it's beautiful that you have a partner who [01:04:00] is willing and happy and able to take care of you while you guys are in this big transition and that you can build a home together.

And I just said that cause I meant it, and six months later, they came back to me and they're like, "It just changed everything for me. I stopped feeling so ashamed of the fact that my partner was taking care of me, and it changed my relationship too, because the gratitude that I was able to access and express with my partner, it changed our whole relationship."

And I was like, great. Like that's the alchemy of shame, right? It's just about understanding that shame is not real. It was given to you. It's a facade, it's a tool, whatever you want to call it, and if you could take that down and look at the truth behind it, then after that, it becomes really hard to shame you again. It's hard to go back because you're like, "I understand what's working against me, and I understand what's in my sphere of influence and what I can do," and if you have a really strong grasp on those two things, then... I don't want to say you're shame proof, but [01:05:00] you've got a lot more armor against shame if you just understand what's in your control and what's not. Just those two things can help so much with shame, financial shame specifically.

That's amazing. I love that. I'm so glad. That they were able to get that counsel from you, because that's life changing. It truly is. That's a wonderful example of alchemy.

Yeah, and I think more people could do that with their own feelings about capitalism. One of my favorite types of people to talk to is somebody who is running a business and like, it's doing fine for them, and they're like, "I would be anti-capitalist, but I am a capitalist, so I can't be anti-capitalist because I run a business and it's making money."

And I'm like, first of all, you're not... I have to say this again. You're not a capitalist. Because you're not in the ruling class.

Right.

You have capital, you have some, but you definitely don't have enough capital to affect global decisions, or even on a national level, right? So you're not a capitalist. You [01:06:00] are a business owner who's participating and you're profiting and I'm glad that's working for you. You can still be anti-capitalist or you can still explore those feelings.

Part of it, too, is the other side: we, you and I, are much more familiar with and more comfortable with the idea of failing at capitalism. I'm very well versed in being a failure in capitalism, guys. What's really interesting to me is the people who aren't, necessarily. Like the people who are meeting the prescribed milestones, maybe they started a business and they're hitting whatever goal, and it's working for them and they're scaling and they're on that path that capitalism says is the right or correct or best path.

There's an even more, I think, insidious version of shame there, right? Because part of it is the survivor skill, "I'm doing well, other people are not, but also... even if I wanted to explore anti-capitalism, I can't because I run a business." It's like they're disqualified or something.

And they think that in order to be anti-capitalist, they would have to somehow stop running their business or they would have to scale it back down, and that's like a [01:07:00] necessary thing that has to happen. And it's it's just alchemy. It's just a shifting of your feelings. And a shifting of your worldview. It doesn't even have to look like anything. Like it can literally be an invisible process, and then on the other side of it, you are now in a very powerful position because like you said, you're somebody who has privilege that can be weaponized. Once you've gotten to that point and you realize "Oh yeah, I'm not a bad person because I make a lot of money. I'm not a bad person because I have a successful business. I'm not a capitalist, but what I can be is a huge thorn in the side of capitalism who wants to like, make me an example, right? Oh, I'm supposed to be a good example of capitalism." Don't be.

Rejecting Capitalist Definitions of Success

Gosh, no, that's so real. And as someone who grew up very impoverished, it was so important for me to be a successful business owner because I wanted to prove that I could pull myself up by my own bootstraps. Like I wanted to do the things, and fucking failed. And that was a huge [01:08:00] part of my process, though, is having to break myself on that rock, having to literally split myself open against that standard, and then saying, "I don't even want that." That's not actually what I want. When you write it all down, and you read the fine print of the American dream, I don't fucking want that.

I don't want any of that shit.

I don't really want any of that. And that's also so powerful and can shift that shame when you realize, this isn't even the race I want to be running. This, wow, this really isn't, and then I can step away or run backwards or be a problem. Be a problem for it and that's incredibly powerful and empowering for folks who are dealing with that, "Oh, I should be..." [01:09:00] fill in the blank.

Should and shame are always deeply intertwined. And that was the same thing that I went through. Like I grew up in a mixed position where one side of my family was just like white, working class, poor, and then the other side was like white, upper class. Maybe that's part of it too, just growing up being in both worlds, alternatively.

There's something so powerful about a person who realizes that the dreams that they've been given are not their dreams. I had to go through the same thing. When I was like 22, got into an MLM, right? And obviously they sell you a huge, big dream, that's like how they get you, and I was like, oh yeah, this aligns with the vision I already had for my life. Yes, of course. And so I was like, this is the natural thing. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. I am going to make two or three million dollars a year, and it's going to be great. And that's going to be my life.

Damn.

Through years of failing at the MLM and also... [01:10:00] Failing at the MLM, and not... I was still also struggling in my real life. I was not doing well in the MLM and it wasn't actually improving my financial situation either. Finally I put it down, and the first year that I was in the process of just deconditioning from that, I still felt a lot of shame, cause I was like, oh my gosh, now how am I going to make my two or three million dollars a year? Like now what? And I still hadn't gotten there, and it was probably honestly not until even after my son was born that I was like, I don't want the life that they sell you in that MLM, which is a life of. They're like, "You're going to impact so many people, and also, you're going to get to buy whatever you want and travel all over the world."

I felt bad for stepping away from that, and then I realized like, I can still have the impact that I want to have. It might not be millions of people, and it's not going to be millions of dollars, but impact... Their whole spiel, like "your income is your impact," that shit was so deep in me and it took so long to get [01:11:00] out.

Wow.

It makes me so angry still when I see people-- and yeah, I could go on a whole rant about like prosperity gospel and everything, but "good people need to make money to do good things in the world," I just was like, my dream is actually to just have enough. It's all that: just to have enough. When I was a kid, I remember fantasizing about this. It was like, I wish that I lived in a world where like, whenever I went to buy something, I just always had enough for whatever it is that I was buying. Just whatever it is, every time I open my wallet, there's enough. Yeah, that sounds like something a five year old would say, but now as a 30 year old, I'm like, she was right though. That's really the dream.

It's not private jets. It's just not having to fucking stress about not having my needs met. And then that spilled into a whole thing, cause I realized I want that for everybody. And then now we're here.

It's part of that failing at capitalism and disappointing capitalism's expectations, right? You have to really examine which of your dreams are really yours.

Yeah. [01:12:00] Oh, and what are going to mean something in your life and people you are in, contact with? So, important.

I'm so grateful that you wanted to do this with me because I really love the role that you've given yourself in your village, right? In your village economy. And I love that you and your business are just an excellent example of that embodied, capitalist combatant nature, right? And how a business can really be that. Because it's a vehicle to make you money does not invalidate the disruption potential of running your own business.

When I think about the combatants, sometimes you take a hit.

Oh, yeah.

Sometimes you get knocked down and that's a huge part of "operating," quote unquote, your business in this way. Sometimes you take a hit, sometimes you take a loss, and that's okay. You get back up and you start making trouble [01:13:00] again.

The Role of Malefics in the Revolution

Pretty much. Yeah, I think that sums it up. I love all of your Martial references because I'm the same way. I'm like, I have Mars in Capricorn and I, too, view everything as a battle.

Love it. Love it. Yeah. I'm a very Martian person. I've got a lot of Scorpio and then my Aries Mars, and we got some heat going on. You can see it.

Yeah, big Mars, fiery nature and just the big malefic nature. The ways that malefic planets work, like the very reductionistic viewpoint is the benefics, Venus and Jupiter, promote life; and then Mars and Saturn restrict life. And I've come to think of it so much more about protecting life than restricting it.

Ugh, love.

Cause it's like, you pull weeds to protect the other plants. Like, you may be restricting one life, but you're actually protecting the balance of all [01:14:00] life. I love talking to people who especially are of a malefic nature, like you and me, because the way that we can just gaze at the gunk and the underbelly without flinching.

Yes.

We need people who can just stare into that, without flinching, without looking away.

Mm.

To turn around and to bring to the other people and be like, "Okay, I consulted with the void and this is what I learned. And so here's what we to do." We need more of that.

I love that so much. A beloved client and friend of mine said that I'm the "village hell mouth," that's my role. And I love that so much. Oh my gosh. I love malefic planets so much. I'm right there with you.

It's, I think, something having to do, like what we said, with the poison. And this is again, why I love herbalists and why I'm surrounded by so many of them, because I think there's just a really beautiful metaphor there about capitalism and the poisoned water that we're all living in, [01:15:00] right? Like we're all breathing. But understanding that there is always poison, figuring out where you can control your dose, right? And then also being cognizant of when, if the dose is increased, are you building up a resistance to that? And is that a good thing? There's some immunity that we need, but then there's some things that maybe you don't want to be immune to. Maybe you do actually need to be affected by that as well.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I see malefic planets being the homeopathic remediation for that, right? Capitalism talks to us about one kind of reality, and then Saturn is like, "Is that real, though? Is that actually real?" And capitalism teaches us about hunger and consumption and the trampling over and--

Competition.

--self profit, and Mars is like, "Is that what it means? Is that what you have teeth for?" It's like they can get in and have that conversation in a way that other [01:16:00] planetary beings or other energies can't in that same way, because Mars knows what it is to want, knows what it is to fight, knows what it is to be hungry. And Saturn knows about the hard fucking truths of reality, and needing containers and needing effort and labor in order for there to be satisfaction. They are the perfect foils to the smoke and mirror show capitalism is always flaunting in front of us.

I've been thinking a lot about Saturn and Neptune conjoining next year in Aries just because of Saturn and Neptune being on either sides of the edges of reality, right? And, oh my god, Neptune in Pisces, the last what, 13 years, has been such a fucking shit show in terms of disillusionment and lies and the smoke and mirrors, like you said, of capitalism.

And obviously we've also seen in the last 10, 13 years, the [01:17:00] extreme ramping up of capitalist consumerism. It's, like a fever pitch, right? I think that Neptune in Pisces has really done a lot to make those smoke and mirrors seem as real as possibly they can, but Saturn and Neptune are going to meet up in Aries next year.

And I don't want to say I'm looking forward to, but I am deeply curious about what that's going to mean, especially for capitalism, because it's Saturn in Aries, which is a really spicy place for Saturn to be, and it's meeting up with Neptune. So it's like Saturn who enforces reality and examines reality, and Neptune who just dissolves it. And these guys are going to come together. I'm hoping that a lot of it will have to do with people internally becoming disillusioned with capitalism too. The wars of the future are going to be fought in our minds and our hearts.

So that's my hope. That's my little blessing on Saturn-Neptune Aries conjunction is maybe it's just about burning down some of your internal illusions that you're still holding onto about [01:18:00] capitalism and about how reality actually works.

It's also scary to confront that, and so I don't ever blame people for not wanting to, or for wanting to escape it or for wanting to numb out to it. I'm never going to blame people for wanting to do that, because it makes perfect sense. But it might be something in the next year that's worth just turning, like 30 degrees more towards. You don't even have to look directly at it, but just get a little bit closer to it and see how that feels.

Yeah. I think curious is a really good word, too. That's what I feel, a real curiosity.

Yeah, I'm just hoping it's a lot of burning down the illusions or burning off any remaining fear about what it means to fail capitalism.

Yeah.

The reason that it works is because capitalism is like, comply or die, basically. So yeah, it's understandable why many people comply.

Of course.

it's just taking any step you can to look more closely at the problem, and [01:19:00] like you said, to sit with the uncomfortable feelings and questions that come up. Not immediately trying to run away from them. Keep yourself in your zone of tolerance, of course. I practice just sitting with all of the dichotomies and the cognitive dissonance that comes up with capitalism, because that's the first, very important step that can lead you to I think more of what people actually want, which is, like we said at the beginning, for their business to be a vehicle for their values. Not just a vehicle for capitalism, but a vehicle for you and what you believe in.

Wrapping Up

Do you have anything going on that you want to tell people about? Anything you're selling? Capitalism you want to do?

My regular menu of things, that you can find on my website. I guess if I was going to plug one, I do have a specific session called the Shit Show. It looks at the two big baddies in the sky, Mars and Saturn, as well as difficult transits. Sometimes people are just having a rough time and need to come and get it all out. Be like, "look at this shit show," and I sit [01:20:00] there, I'm like, "Oh my god, this is a shit show." But, how do we remediate that? Where are some strengths? Where are some loopholes? How do we fight back?

I really love that because it is more than just astrology. I believe that astrology touches everything. It can be really empowering to let yourself, again, see it and say it. That's the first step. And then re-imagining and reconfiguring these difficult, challenging obstacles in a way that then can really give you some steam, really empower you to continue being a problem. I'm going to be a bigger problem than my problems. I'm going to be the problem for my problems.

Yes. I love that. I love that. And yeah, what a great offering. What a great example of just responding to needs because yeah, it's a shit show. And it's so nice to have [01:21:00] an astrologer who is just going to be like, "Yeah, that sucks," and you're not going to sugar coat it.

It's probably my favorite one to do with folks, because I don't even have to pretend like I'm nice. Oh, here we are. Like, I'll sit in my mud puddle. You can sit in yours and be here together. And that's amazing. It's a beautiful experience.

Yes, it is. So yeah, I highly recommend anybody listening. Even if you don't know anything about astrology, if there's a shit show going on in your life, sitting down with Andi's going to be really helpful, I imagine. And very validating and very grounding. So I highly recommend that for people. Is there anything else you want to add? Any other thoughts lingering?

I think we really hit it. I just incredibly briefly want to say, because in my mind, it's sticking out. I don't have anything against product based businesses.

No, not at all.

I have products in my business. I guess I [01:22:00] hit on that because it is something that I personally wrestle with quite a bit, but I just wanted to throw that out there. "Oh my god, she hates people who make candles." I really don't. I promise.

No, we just hate the way capitalism makes it difficult.

Exactly. And this has been so lovely and I'm all fired up. I love, love, love talking about this and I'm so incredibly entranced with what you're doing. I'm excited to see the profit that folks find in your work and the value that you're adding to their lives. You're an amazing person and it's really an honor to be able to talk with you like this. It's pretty great.

Outro/Friends of the Pod

Well,I am blushing. What an incredible conversation. Andrea gets me so fired up to cause some fucking problems. So I'm very [01:23:00] excited to go out and do exactly that.

I wanted to, before we end this episode, share with you some friends of the pod for this week. In my conversation with Andrea, I already mentioned Storywork Studio, which I love and adore being a part of.

I have to give a shout out to Status Glow. I ordered some of her candles for myself, for Black Friday, and I currently have the bamboo coconut one going right now and it just smells so incredible. It's such a soothing grounding candle for my desk. I really love to ritualize my work by letting a candle every time I'm sitting down to do something important here. Love Status Glow. If you go on her website, there's still some promotions available. You can use code ISHOPSMALL for $10 off any order over $40. Or you can use code 2025 for $20 off an order of a hundred dollars or more. So if you're into fragrance, there's also [01:24:00] roll-on fragrances available and there's some seasonal scents that I'm hoping to still get my hands on while I still can.

So get on that. Love Status Glow. And make sure you do shop small for Christmas, if you are still doing some Christmas shopping, or if you just want to buy yourself something nice. Get yourself a desk candle, okay? Lighting a candle while you're at your desk doing work makes it feel so much more important, and it also gives you an opportunity to close down the ritual and set that boundary with yourself when you're done working.

The last friend of the pod that I want to shout out for this episode is Rowan TwoSisters of Preggers Can Be Choosers. I love a pun. Obsessed with this name. Rowan is a certified professional midwife, a labor whisper, and the founder of Preggers Can Be Choosers. They reached out to me to let me know about some pretty cool t-shirts they've designed that are low key ways [01:25:00] to signal to other people that you are pro-choice, and I will link those in the show notes here. I am highly supportive of anybody who supports pregnant people, postpartum people. It's not easy out here to put your body through pregnancy or childbirth or any of those things. Abortion is healthcare and it should be a right for everybody who needs one or wants one.

I am still booking financial astrology readings for January. I have a few spots left towards the end of the month. And if you don't want to do a full year ahead, 2025 outlook, you can also do an introductory reading with me and we'll just go over the basics of your chart, how I approach financial astrology, where we can examine your relationship to money in that chart, and we can look at some other things too.

Very excited to meet all the people who have already booked for January. Honestly, I've never been able to book so many slots [01:26:00] this far ahead. I've never come so close to filling an entire month ahead of time. So it's a little bit surreal and I'm so humbled by being able to do that, and it's also not something that I did alone. It's a result of the communities that I'm a part of. I also want to shout out the Show The Fuck Up community, that I'm a part of, which is run by Aria Leighty, and Aria does such a fantastic job of reminding us to do exactly that: to show the fuck up.

So I highly suggest joining her online community if you are an online business owner, a solopreneur, somebody who's doing things on their own, and you're looking for a community to hype you up, to cheer you on, to make genuine collaborations and connections with. I love being on that app. Highly recommend Show The Fuck Up.

And I also highly recommend booking a reading with me.

And with that, [01:27:00] y'all, we're going to close down the episode.

I hope you enjoyed getting to know a bit more about Andrea. I hope that you have some really juicy tidbits to think about and to chew on in terms of the role that you play in your village. Whether or not you're a business owner. What role do you play in your village? And is it hot? Is it fresh? Are you proud to serve it? Until next time.