Stoner Story Witch weaves together healing from the colonial mind, liberation and embodied social justice, & the responsibility of white wealth, through an animistic worldview, attachment focus, and collapse-aware lens.
Former evangelical Christian→ atheist skeptical Science teacher → Stoner Story Witch explores popular stories to illuminate the trail of breadcrumbs hiding in plain sight once we stop consuming stories as“content” and instead communing with stories as “cracks in the walls” of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy- inviting us to liberation.
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The Podcast is the Process, Sourdough as Metaphor, and Polyamorous Practice in Creative Community
Season 1 · Episode 6
Monday, September 2, 2024 • Duration 57:08
How does our creative process actually create us? How does having a thriving ecosystem of relationships and creative outlets better resource us for ALL our relationships and creative projects? How can we create community and engage in metaphor to support ourselves? What does sourdough have to do with any of this??
Kristyn with a Why gets personal and reflects on the process of season 1, sharing more backstory of the last year of the three-year journey leading up to the release of the podcast in this decidedly un-finale episode of “season 1.”
(Free week on The Numinous Network with Carmen Spagnola is September 9-15, join her newsletter if you would like to join me there! <3)
Spread the word on social media, or check out Operation Olive Branch, a mutual aid organization that has compiled a list of GoFundMe’s for those in urgent need.
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Grateful for all the learning and inspiration alluded to in today’s episode:
Matt Schubbe (Logo) Kevin Carlow (Music and sound editing)
"Crack in the Wall" Invitations to Liberation and Hadestown Vibes
Monday, August 19, 2024 • Duration 01:17:04
This season focuses on the 2019 film “Little Women” and this episode connects it to the 2019 Tony Award winning musical “Hadestown.”
How are period pieces a prophetic praxis that helps us to view the reality of THIS moment in time? In what ways is/can our creative practices be liberatory? How can we reach toward a liberated future when public schools are priming and praising students to obey fascism? Is Orpheus even a real person, a metaphor for creativity, or a manic pixie dream boy?
Kristyn with a Why dives deep into the themes of liberation in stories- how they invite us to liberation through the cracks in the walls: the 4th wall between us and the characters in stories, the walls we build between “us” and “them”, and the walls of domesticity that we build to keep us from remembering our wildness.
(See time stamps and links mentioned in the podcast below.)
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Grateful for all the learning and inspiration alluded to in today’s episode:
This season focuses on the 2019 film “Little Women”
Wouldn’t Sally have a more intimate friendship with Meg if she were better attuned to the gap in their economic realities? If Laurie weren’t so worried about pleasing his rich grandfather would he feel free to pursue his creativity? How did forming attachment with Beth provide the catalyst for Mr Lawrence to move from a place of “charity” to “reciprocity”? In what ways does Aunt March’s scarcity mindset and hoarding tendencies keep her from being able to live her life in alignment with her values?
Kristyn with a Why dives deep into the “wealth wound” in this episode- extending compassion to four people to whom capitalism has severed from earning secure attachment: with their friends, family, community, and themselves.
**We will never pretend that people in up-power positions in systems of domination and oppression are harmed in equal or greater ways than those in down-power positions within those systems. And yet, in order to be ignorant of your power and complacent within these systems- one must be severed from their sense of shared humanity, and this is a wound that needs tending (but never at the expense of folks in down-power positions).**
(See time stamps and links to the scenes mentioned in the podcast below.)
0-6:26: Content Warning
6:26-10:44: Land Acknowledgment, Locating my positionality in the story of Little Women
10:45-13:00: Introduction to “the wealth wound”
13:00-17:24: Sally
17:24-23:28: Laurie
23:30-28:14: Mr. Laurence
28:14-39:50: Aunt March
39:50- 46:35: Unpacking my personal positionality in this story
46:35- 49:00: Striving for the Marmee life: divesting by increasing community
49:00-end: Outro/Gratitude
March Sisters– “Sisters” as Choices, Needs, & Thresholds and Internal Family Systems
Season 1 · Episode 3
Sunday, July 21, 2024 • Duration 54:56
This season focuses on the 2019 film “Little Women”
In what ways is a creative practice also a liberation practice, and why is Jo the only one who gets to carry her creativity with her into adulthood? (hint: it’s capitalist patriarchy) What are the archetypal choices, needs, and thresholds the March sisters represent? What happens when: you can’t get what you want, when you get what you want only to realize you don’t actually “love it as you should,” and when your life circumstances shift in ways that make you question whether you would make the same choice in the present that you did in the past? It’s 2024 and we still need better choices!
Kristyn with a Why dives deep into the March sisters in this episode- inviting us to see ourselves reflected back. What if we reacted to/interacted with each sister as some part of ourselves? How might we unlock the liberatory potential of stories by practicing empathy with its characters: “How do I relate to their choices, big lies, needs, and thresholds? How do their stories resource me for my own life as I reach towards what matters to me?”
(See time stamps and links to the scenes mentioned in the podcast below.)
0-5:00: Scope of season and review of where we are
5:00-7:20: Intro to Episode 3
Jo- : 7:20-15:20
Meg: 15:20-29:30
Amy: 29:30-37:50
Beth: 37:50-43:14
*Kristyn Crying about Beth* 43:14-46:10
More Beth 46:10-52:42
Outro/Gratitude: 53-end
From Misattunement to Marmee: Contact Nutrition in the Wild
Friday, July 5, 2024 • Duration 55:21
This season focuses on the 2019 film “Little Women”
How does “Contact Nutrition” build secure attachment? What is liberation if not people in up-power positions being in solidarity with those in down-power? Specifically, how can we, as parents, teachers, and adults, respect kids when they are occupied and meet them where they are rather than demanding they operate on our schedule? And also, some “Friedrich fan fic” for an important invitation to liberation that was not explicitly told in the film.
Kristyn with a Why dives deeper into secure attachment- through “contact nutrition” and moments of attunement and misattunement. Put differently, “what to do (and not do) when you are in a position of power, rank, and privilege over someone else in order to earn secure attachment with them?” Specifically analyzing Sallie’s ignorance over Meg’s financial status, Aunt March’s power over Amy, Friedrich’s patriarchal conditioning that kept him unaware of Jo’s emotional risk in exposing her work to him, and diving into some deep stuff around rage, repair, and death in relation to Amy burning Jo’s book and falling through the ice.
(See time stamps and links to the scenes mentioned in the podcast below.)
Intro 0-3:00
Overview of Contact Nutrition and (mis)attunement: 3:00-6:00
Jo & Teddy and Jo and Friedrich Meeting-Contact Nutrition as Hollywood’s way to show that “bonding has happened”: 6:00-8:40
Misattunement with kids- Aunt March and Amy: 8:40-14:40
Sally in the Silk Shop: 14:40-18:12
What could Friedrich have done differently? 18:20-26:50
Friedrich Fan Fic: 26:55-32:30
Book Burning/Falling in the Ice: 32:40-40:18
Marmee!! 40:20-52:55
Outro/Gratitude: 53-end
Secure Attachment and the Male Gaze in Little Women
Season 1 · Episode 1
Thursday, June 20, 2024 • Duration 43:28
This season focuses on the 2019 film “Little Women”
What is Secure Attachment? How can period pieces be a useful tool for locating ourselves in our current moment? How “process>product” yields creative practices that help us cultivate secure attachment within ourselves. And Happy Pride Month to Jo!
Kristyn with a Why explores the question “is it possible to earn secure attachment across lines of power, rank, and privilege?” by specifically looking at four men in Jo’s life (Mr Dashwood, her Father, Laurie, and Friedrich), how she relates to them, how they influence her attachment, and their impact on her creative trajectory.
(See time stamps and links to the scenes mentioned in the podcast below.)
What are the questions Stoner Story Witch invites us to ask? Is Stoner Story Witch a set of instructions? In what ways is Stoner Story Witch an archetypal energy? What exactly defines a poem, anyway? How does sourdough relate to any of this??
Kristyn with a Why discusses the title of “Stoner Story Witch” and shares a little bit of backstory to the three-year journey leading up to the release of the podcast in this decidedly un-pilot episode.
Spread the word on social media, or check out Operation Olive Branch, a mutual aid organization that has compiled a list of GoFundMe’s for those in urgent need.
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Grateful for all the learning and inspiration alluded to in today’s episode:
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“Wedding Song”- Orpheus’ Song will bring world into tune and make flowers bloom, and Eurydice chooses to stay with Orpheus (How Jo is in tune when connected to her creativity, and how Meg chooses John despite him being a poor man)
“Hey little songbird”- No good choices in late stage capitalism (Meg stumbles when buying the silk, and Jo “sells out” to Dashwood).
“Flowers” -Eurydice forgets who she is, but vaguely remembers a field of flowers. (Jo isn’t signing her name on her writing and longs for her childhood when her family was enough)
“How Long?”- Persephone makes Hades listen to Orpheus’ song (How Dashwood’s daughters made him see Jo’s book was worth publishing)
Why we build the wall: Capitalism requires we put up walls and remain disconnected, from ourselves, our creativity, from each other, from the natural world.
Spread the word on social media, or check out Operation Olive Branch, a mutual aid organization that has compiled a list of GoFundMe’s for those in urgent need.
*Resmaa Menakem’s book “My Grandmother’s Hands” is a great resource at looking into how systems of domination impact bodies differently depending on their power in that system- specifically racialized trauma*
Dra Rocio Rosales Mesa- for more compassionate holding towards unlearning and healing from colonial programming.
Spread the word on social media, or check out Operation Olive Branch, a mutual aid organization that has compiled a list of GoFundMe’s for those in urgent need.
Spread the word on social media, or check out Operation Olive Branch, a mutual aid organization that has compiled a list of GoFundMe’s for those in urgent need.
Grateful for all the learning and inspiration alluded to in today’s episode:
My teacher Carmen Spagnola for her courses on Secure attachment and Contact Nutrition on The Numinous Network
Virginia Sole Smith’s substack: Attuning with kids: Dinners are a meeting we call and set the agenda, bedtime is a meeting the kids are calling us to that we want to attend.
Spread the word on social media, or check out Operation Olive Branch, a mutual aid organization that has compiled a list of GoFundMe’s for those in urgent need.
Spread the word on social media, or check out Operation Olive Branch, a mutual aid organization that has compiled a list of GoFundMe’s for those in urgent need.
