Welcome to these final days of summer, where time drips like honey and sunshine. In this episode Zaneta talks about time magic, channeling, and shares the invitations for our art and magic this lunar cycle.
Welcome to these final days of summer, where time drips like honey and sunshine. In this episode Zaneta talks about time magic, channeling, and shares the invitations for our art and magic this lunar cycle.
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About the Host
Zaneta (they/them) is a queer, multi Brooklyn-based sound ritualist, listening educator, nature recordist, creativity activist, tarot reader, and podcast host. At the core of their work is a deep desire to remember how to live in interconnectedness. Whether that is through meditation and connecting with the self, or in community rituals to connect to the land, Zaneta weaves sound and ritual to create experiences that transform the way participants hear and connect to the world.
In the spirit of an interconnected world, Zaneta focuses on supporting folx to make their art and express themselves fully, knowing that interconnection and interdependence are rooted in our individual wholeness and that our authentic creative expression is at the heart of that wholeness. It’s towards this collective vision that Zaneta offers channeled tarot readings for creative liberation, and offers readings to support artists in navigating their careers and projects.
To learn more about Zaneta’s work visit
Instagram @soundartmagic
About the Podcast
Art Witch is where creativity, magic, and healing align for personal and collective liberation. Hosted by Brooklyn-based sound ritualist, arts educator, and tarot reader Zaneta, Art Witch aims to provide resources for the creative journey. In this podcast you’ll hear from a variety of artists, witches, healers, and experts sharing their wisdom and stories, all with the intention of helping folx make art and share their unique magic with the world.
Art Witch has a Patreon community where members meet regularly for group meditations, full moon rituals, and community conversations on art and magic. In addition, we have a full library of meditations and videos for the creative mystical journey.
To support this podcast and become a member, visit www.patreon.com/soundartmagic
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Hello, everyone and welcome back to Art Witch, I'm your host Zaneta and thank you so much for tuning in. I wanted to start this episode with chimes. Because earlier I was playing some chimes by the river and just felt this energy of care coming through. And I thought, "oh, I've got to start this episode with chimes. I just, I have to."
Nothing says late summer. Full sun shine, lazy days like chimes in the wind and cicadas in the air. I hope that that starts this reading with the energy. That kind of brings us together. Uh, brings us on the same page.
I've been doing so much moving and shaking this summer that this is really like a moment of gathering myself, recording this episode. And I feel really, really lucky to come together with you. And sit with the cards, have a little bit of a chat and see what's coming up in this lunar cycle for our art, for our witchcraft, for our magic.
This summer has been extremely dynamic for me personally. I moved to a new place. I am in a whole new kind of territory.
And with that new journey comes new connections. New spirits, new land. Different energies and entities to become acquainted with. And so it's going to take me. It's not. Uh, something in the past tense it's happening and it's going to continue happening. It's going to take me a while to get to know this place and I'm sure I'll be getting to know it for a very long time. But I am now living by a river, which feels- wow, like really incredible and really just soul affirming. Like I've always needed to live by a body of water, but I just, for many reasons, didn't get that opportunity. And now I do, and I feel... oh, my gosh, the magnitude of it is profound.
So, I guess what I'm bringing in to today's reading space is the acknowledgement that this has been a very dynamic time for many of us. If you have been going through breakups and relationship ruptures or the ending of era's. If you've been suddenly aware of the passage of time and how you are not who you were. And you won't be who you are now, five years from now or 10 years from now. I want to take a moment to honor and acknowledge those endings, those thresholds before we get into the reading. In fact, this is part of the reading, you know, It is part of the reading.
We are in the new moon in Leo. And this new moon feels. Just... lush. If I could give it a word, I'd say lush. I'd say easeful. There's a lot of good vibes and good feels flowing right now. And it's so good to just let yourself float. Let yourself float on those currents of kind energy.
Because obviously not every moment of our lives is that easy. And if you had talked to me two weeks ago, I would have been like, "Oh, my gosh, who am I?"
But when it's good, it's good. And it's good to recognize when it's good, right? Like if it feels good, if things are flowing, if you've got some ease, if there's a little cushion or space, mmmm, it's important not to fill that up so easily, right? It's important to not fill it up instantly. So I want to just add that to the reading space, to the conversation around the cards today.
The new moon in Leo begins today on August 16th, which it totally snuck up on me personally. I thought it was tomorrow and it turned out it was today. And I was like, "oh, you sneaky moon."
But the full moon in Pisces is going to come around, august 30th. So that's kind of interesting, right? Like oftentimes we have that new moon. And then the full moon is in the opposite side, but we don't have that this lunar cycle, we have the new moon in Leo followed by the full moon in Pisces.
And then the lunar cycle ends September 13th just before the new moon in Virgo on September 14th. Another note, little cosmic note of interest is mercury goes into retrograde August 23rd through September 15th. So that's also happening in this space. And I think that's something that we're going to want to just connect with a little bit here for this cycle because. It's really, really easy to feel like you have to do more. Be more. Get stuff happening, push stuff through. Make things go. That you have to keep going.
And. If we're really living cyclically there are. R Times for pause there's times rest. So, so. Getting into the cards. Right now. What we're being invited to this lunar cycle. The first car that I pulled. For our creativity, for our care, for our community, for what we offer, for our liberation.
What we're being invited into is the four of swords upright.
So this is an invitation to rest this cycle. If you have been expecting more of yourself or saying, I'm going to get this thing started and I'm going to do this thing - you have kind of a laundry list almost of things that you should be doing or getting into. I'm going to say this lunar cycle maybe you can roll up that laundry list for now and see if it's relevant later on. It might not be relevant after this lunar cycle. That's not to say that we don't do anything because I know that in order to live you often have to work or you often have to take gigs or, you know, just like tend to things. But what if it was in a maintenance kind of approach. What if you were to say, just maintain things for a little bit to chill out. And let stuff ride rather than trying to up the ante, so to speak.
I want you to check in with yourself for a moment here.
When I pose this idea of resting, what is your body's response to that? Like if I said, "Hey, What is rest? How does rest land in your body right now?" What do you notice coming up?
Take a moment to just check in. Are there thoughts that are popping up? Are there feelings, sensations? Anything. I just want you to check in with yourself on where you're landing with rest. Because that's the invitation for us this lunar cycle. It's not to be the king of wands. It's not to be temperance. It's not to activate the Empress or the magician necessarily. We're here in this space of, of grounded-ness. Of stability and ease. Of finding grounding in this moment.
And it's okay to take a lunar cycle to ground. It is okay not to constantly put something out, right? I say that a lot for myself personally, because I know how the inner critic in me kind of rides my ass. It's like, "oh, you've been too quiet. You need to get going. You need to do something."
And I'm just speaking to anyone else's inner critic out there. I hear you. I hear that you care about this person. I hear that you care about your career or about what you're offering about your community. I hear that you care. About what you do and what you want to share with the world.
And.
You deserve to be resourced. You deserve to have rest.
Simple as that.
Now the card that's going to challenge us this cycle in stepping into this invitation is the four of wands. And I kind of think of this as, not like our standard challenge where it's like, "oh, I have some kind of internalized belief or something like that." That's really interrupting me getting into this invitation. No. I don't think it's about internalized anything. I think this four of wands is talking about our social calendars.
It's talking about," oh, do you want to go to the park later and hang out? Oh yeah, let's go hiking. Let's go to this party. Let's like do this thing. Like. The. Kind of energy of like wanting to get together and like hang and like Be with your crew and be with like the people.
I think that social obligations may be a little bit of a challenge. This cycle, not a big one. But enough of one that you could easily fill up the rest of your summer with all sorts of places and plans and people to hang out with, and then you never quite get the rest that you need. And this rest is really crucial. It's a really, really crucial because the next card is going to kind of show us that, but basically you are filling your cup back up.
You're filling your cup back up at a time where it's like the collective energies, the cosmic energies, or working with you to fill your cup back up.
So, if you feel like you're ready to try to like pour forth. If you're thinking like, "oh yeah, I'm going to like collaborate with this person, or I'm going to like, get started on this project or.
I really need to like, do these things before the end of the summer." I'm going to challenge you to just sit with yourself and ask yourself if that's really true. Are you really needing to engage?
This isn't a withdrawal necessarily. It's more. Are you giving yourself enough spaciousness to feel rested?
Are you giving yourself the quality of time that means rest to you?
Notice how I'm like framing this so that it's open-ended and unique to who you are. Different people experience rest in different ways. I would love for you to just be honest with yourself and open to what your body has to share with you about what it needs in terms of rest.
I personally have been experiencing a lot of like back pain from just working really hard and moving. And for me rest really looks like not being on my feet. Like just laying down. Taking a nap. Going to bed a little earlier. Those are like classic things that I think are associated with rest, but let's think of some other things like maybe rest is having more pockets of time throughout the day that you can just breathe. Having more pockets throughout the day where you maybe journal. Or that you get to just veg out, completely- watch a show. Um, go for a walk, like do more walking, you know, and just outside time. Or maybe you've been outside a ton and you need to just like be in some air conditioner with like, a popsicle or something. This is childhood Zaneta talking, you know, Like I find the library to be an extremely restful place. Because it's quiet, it's cold. They have cold water, they have clean bathrooms. And usually you can just pick up a book and like, no one bothers you. I find the library to be extremely restful.
I also find listening to certain artists, listening to certain sounds and listening to certain music to help me access rest. When I'm listening to the sounds of wild beings and wild spaces. And. Just a lot of like elemental sounds and sounds of the season. Like right now, we're hearing a lot of cicadas and, you know, just crickets at night time and things like that.
I feel like those sounds, they really modulate my energy in a certain way and get me to zoom out and I get to like, have a lot more space and not be so focused in this very, very narrow way, from my own daily grind. And I can kind of just like loosen up. And say, "oh yeah, like. Cool. there's no rush. There's no like urgency."
That sense of urgency is occasionally real but often not. Like we don't know what true urgency often feels like because our nervous systems are so ramped up. Like. this is talking about time magic in essence, but our connection to timing and. You know, when we need to do things and when to act, and what's the quote right moment and tapping into kind of like that collective resonance of right place, right time. Kind of magic. We often can't access that because we're so busy being pushed and pulled by these kind of more capitalist forces.
And I am the first person to say that that really influences me so much, but what I want to bring in to this is that there's ways to let that fade into the background and to almost get a better, more holistic perspective on things through being in these wilderness spaces or being with like nature sounds or being just in your garden or in the soil or something.
There's something about the way that other beings experience time , and the passage of time, that's quite healing for us as humans. And this directly connects to our understanding of rest.
We think we have to move all the time. That that is the way things get done. But that's not true, right? Things get done by a collective of beings making something happen together at various times and at various intervals. And phases. Not one being working all the time.
So I want you to kind of reframe this lunar cycle your sense of urgency. Or your sense of time. And understand that rest is like, how you know when to engage, how you know, when to take inspired action. when is that moment when it's important for you to actually step in and do something.
And I know that that's something we've been working on this podcast for ever since the beginning, ever since the very first episode. If you've stuck with me that long, you've really gotten a chance to walk the cycles, walk the seasons, walk the spiral path with me.
And at this moment, the spiral path is like, "I'd love for you to sit down and rest. Put up your feet, relax, chill out. Don't work so hard right now. And also don't work so hard to fill up that time."
I think one of the hardest things about having space and quiet, having stillness, is suddenly we get to hear ourselves a lot louder. Suddenly our thoughts, our fears, our anxieties, our struggles, our issues, the things that we're really, really having a hard time with they become louder in the stillness, in the spaciousness and you don't have to sit in misery obviously And just beat. Marinating in your, your sorrows or anything. But when that stuff becomes louder I think it can be kind of scary to have rest time.
So many of us are pushing, pushing, pushing, doing, doing, doing, because we don't want to slow down to experience some of the harder parts of being alive. Some of the harder parts of being human. That's not everyone, obviously like don't prescribe that to yourself just because I said it. You know, if it doesn't resonate, it doesn't resonate.
But I'm putting it out there for those of you who do experience this, that like, You don't have to be scared of the space. You don't have to be scared of the stillness. The rest. You don't have to fill it with people and plans. You don't have to fill it with things that take up that air.
And I think that there's a couple pieces here that are going to help us feel good about resting. And the card that's going to guide our way into this invitation, this lunar cycle, the card that we can kind of really embody is the queen of cups. I love that so, so much. The queen of cups is probably my favorite card in the tarot deck. Oh, did I say that out loud? I shouldn't have, I'm sorry. If that's now. Tainted. Your either your perception of Art Witch perception of me, or your perception of tarot in general.
Or the queen of cups. I only say it because I think the queen of cups always has something to teach me. And it tends to be a card that comes up when I, I really, really need to be myself and take care of myself.
Basically the queen of cups as an embodiment card, as a card that's going to help us to step into this invitation of the four of swords. The rest. You know, stepping into rest the cycle.
The queen of cups, like all the Queens, is very aware of taking care of themselves and how that is a form of caring for others. This is the first thing I want to say. As we take care of ourselves, we are actually caring for others. Now, obviously when you take care of yourself, you don't need to think about anybody else, you know, but you just know that underneath self care comes the care for others. And this is something that's very literal, you know? When you're too sleepy, when you're too tired, when you're too depleted or exhausted you really can't be there for anyone else. It's just not possible. And I don't care how important your art may seem. I don't care how important that project may be. If you are not getting enough consistent care, it's not worth it. It's just not worth it. Whatever you think is going to come out of you that's going to be so great and so powerful and so like change the world.
Imagine how powerful it would be if you just modeled, that you were going to say, "you know what? I have to push that deadline back, or I need to step away from this project for a beat, because I really actually need to focus on getting some nourishment in my body or something."
We talk a lot about body care. Talk about listening to our bodies about, just listening to ourselves on this podcast. And it's not a coincidence, like magic works through us when we're available often for it.
And it's not that we have to be in the perfect circumstances or anything like that. But. I notice that when I'm feeling well. And I'm taken care of. What I am paying attention to and what I'm available for and what my awareness is, is different than when my basic needs aren't being met.
When you are in survival mode you're much more narrowed. You're much more like. I just need this thing or I need this thing or I need this thing and magic will come through, do not get me wrong. It has many, many, many times for me. Um, and I've heard many, many stories of people in a very challenging moment and magic kind of pulled through for them.
But you get to ask different kinds of questions. You get to play and experiment. You get to be open to some other things when you're not just trying to survive. And this sets the tone for this like latter portion of the year. Like. You're going to make all sorts of stuff. Are you trying to make it from a place of survival mode or a thrival mode?
are you really, really willing to set down your swords for a little bit? Relax, recuperate replenish, restore, refill your cup. And then see what you channel. Because I do think the queen of cups is often a channeler of sorts. They connote this being who accesses the mysterious waters, the void.
The great abyss, you know, they're available to the Infinite and what does that mean? You know, it doesn't mean that you're running all the time, trying to get from point a to point B.
It means that you're actually. Spacious, listening. Not necessarily always still, but you have some degree of stillness so that you can pay attention.
When I think about like channeling. Just literally channeling. You're not going to have your phone on right? You're not gonna have every notification on, you're not going to have like all your screens constantly on you. Usually you try to create a space that allows you to, be present and to be available for, for what wants to come through.
When you have all these extra things in your field it's pretty hard to be available for. That kind of spirit guidance. Not to say it's impossible, but just to say, you're less likely to be able to hear something if there's a bunch of other stuff playing in the background. It's just like listening to a conversation with someone.
If you've got the radio on, if you've got your TVs on, if you've got your blender going, if you've got your microwave going, and then you're trying to hold a conversation with someone it's going to be a little hard. So I'm inviting you this lunar cycle to think about yourself as a channel. Think about yourself as a channel that needs space. Needs space to hear and be present for something else. Don't try to fill up your calendar this lunar cycle. Don't try to fill it up with, you know, " oh, I'm going to go see my friend and I'm going to have this date and I'm going to go on this retreat and like take this class and do this thing."
Like, if you are one of those people who likes to pile high on your plate, a bunch of social activities. This cycle, I'm going to encourage you to cut down a little bit. Give yourself a little less. Because there's something else that wants to come through.
There's something else that's going to flow. And are you going to be available for that? Well, you won't be available if every minute of your summer is lined up and planned out with friends and activities.
The other thing I want to say about the queen of cups is kind of what we've been talking a lot about on this podcast this summer, which is care. You know, you really can't have a queen of cups without like , Let me nourish myself. Let me refill my cup. And this is where we kind of talked about, every person is a little different. Weaving that back in here, the queen of cups gets refueled or gets replenish by different things. What is it for you that replenishes you truly? Don't think about what your default is necessarily. Think about what actually sounds nourishing. Is it going and eating a juicy watermelon right now? That's what I'm thinking. Um, Is it taking a nice week to just not do anything scheduled? Is it maybe just having time to do a hobby that maybe you have been wanting to do, but everything just keeps stepping in the way.
I don't know what it is for you. I just want you to be open to what the queen of cups might find nourishing in this cycle. What might rest, what might replenishment look like for you?
We have a retrograde too right? You don't have to do it all this cycle, you probably shouldn't. I'm not saying that the retrogrades determine everything.
But I have had a lot of literal experiences around the retrogrades. Literally my computer broke or literally like my car broke down those kinds of things. And usually they happen during a retrograde. And so what I'll say is this. always give yourself a little extra grace, a little extra space. Like don't feel the need to be more. truly you are enough.
We are enough. It's enough to rest. It's enough to relax. It's enough to have some space. I have some time, take a beat, take a month.
You know, like if you can, if you have the means. And it's available to you. Why wouldn't you take a break?
And this queen of cups, there's so much, I want to say about. The queen of cups, like. They are a channeler. They are extremely creative, but they're not doing it from a place of depletion. They're doing it from a place of true resourcedness. I think all the Queens do. But it's really interesting how the queen of cups is one of the more mysterious figures, their timing, their way of working through things. It's very intuitive. And so there's an innate intelligence within you, within your body, within your intuition, within your sense of, Instincts and where you're pulled in your desires, that kind of leads you towards things at the right time at the right place. And quote, "doing the right thing".
I don't want to get to with the word "right" cause it kind of gets perfectionist sounding, but that's not what I mean here. It's like you're hitting that resonance. You're hitting those things at those times where it makes the most sense. And the queen of cups really, really has that sense of intuition about things. So like, okay, now's the time for me to act on this thing. Not sooner, not later now. And to really activate that time magic, to Intuit when you're supposed to engage, you have to be paying attention. You have to be paying attention to yourself. And to your surroundings. You know, it's a little high priestessy actually, There's an inner /outer component to this. An awareness within an awareness without.
So rest is the only way actually that we're able to really pay attention to ourselves and our surroundings.
It allows us to have the energy and the attention span to be aware, to be available.
So this lunar cycle we are being invited to step into rest. To replenish ourselves. To give ourselves a lot of space. A lot of mental space. You know, You can take the four of swords in a more literal direction and say, you know, I'm going to take a screen-time detox or I'm going to, you know, In just less podcasts. I don't know, whatever you want to do. Read more books, watch less shows. I don't know. I don't tend to love to go in that direction too hard because, I think it can be kind of restrictive. That's not the feeling I'm getting from these cards right now. But more that the time that you give yourself now to just find ease and flow and just relax is going to really, really help you later in the year. And as much as you may want to then go and hang out with your friends and do a bunch of things and, you know, maybe attend a bunch of stuff. That four of wands as a little bit of a challenge. I think saying, Hey, maybe back off the gas a little bit.
Don't add fuel to the fire. You don't need more to do.
But maybe instead spend some time really savoring the quality of that time. You know, if you're going out side and you're going for more walks as part of this month of rest, this lunar cycle of rest. Then why don't you, instead of trying to listen to a podcast on that walk or trying to call a friend.
Or listen to music. Why don't you really listen to where you're walking? Listen to the cicadas, listen to the birds, listen to the water. Listen to the confluence of song.
Be there be really, really present. Savor that time, that space.
If you're laying in hammocks, if you're napping, like feel the deliciousness in your body, savor it. The word lush comes to mind and also the phrase freedom starts from within. It's not about just everything in your external circumstances being perfect. It's about you accessing this stuff internally. Like rest may not seem easy in your circumstances. But the way that you experience life and time. That can be very restful.
You know, rather than trying to multitask and do like a thousand things at once. You let yourself do one thing and you do it with deliciousness, with joy. With fullness, like you're really, really absorbing it. Can you let yourself be fully in something?
Say you want to take yourself on a date to the beach, just you. Go to the beach, listen to the waves. Lie down find like you're comfortable way of being at the beach. Maybe it's with your favorite foods, maybe it's like with the really nice cold drink. Maybe it's like barely wearing anything. I don't know. And really, really enjoy the feelings and the sensations of being there, like. The sand, the wind, the sun shine the calls of the gulls. You know, like be in it, play in the water, like feel the water in your hands, in the webs of your hands and your fingers. Let all of it kind of pull you in and let you sink and immerse into those energies, because if you're talking about rest, it's a quality of experiencing life.
It's a quality of experiencing life. Can you let yourself be so fully present that that's all you're there for? You know, when it doesn't have to precipitate into something else, doesn't have to be art. It doesn't have to be, you know, something you share on Instagram, it doesn't have to be anything or can be that it can be something that you're so excited about.
But just really doing it for yourself first. That queen energy, like. I give myself permission to focus on myself. To give myself everything that I need and anything that I need. And I don't mean materially necessarily, but that could be part of it. But really, really taking up all the space, luxuriating in what you're experiencing this moment. So.
that's an example. And there's many, many, many more that we could get into. We did walking, we did going to the beach. You could be floating. You could be meditating. You could be napping. But it's a quality of time. And an experience of time that we are. Uh, embodying with this queen of cups.
The spaciousness, this lusciousness this fluidity, this like, Let me just sink into all the goodness of this moment. And there's so much goodness with this new moon in Leo, right? Like the energy is like, Lazy summer vibes. It's so good. Why wouldn't we want to absorb that?
Why wouldn't we want to really, really get into that. And then I'm curious, as the lunar cycle progresses. You know, if you're taking this advice, if you're taking this to heart. You may notice that by that full moon in Pisces there's some interesting stuff that surfaces. That emerges through your dreams. Through your daydreams. Through your visions and stirrings and knowings. Just pay attention to what surfaces in your channel as a result of resting very, very intentionally. Committing to rest, committing to that sense of care and replenishment that the queen of cups is asking for us to do.
Yeah. I'm very, very excited about this particular lunar cycle, because it feels like we've had this dynamic summer filled with all sorts of changes, all sorts of chapters closing. And it's like, okay, we are in that little space between one book closing and another one opening. Okay. Like we're in that space between when you finished a good book. And when you're about to choose another one. And sometimes that space can feel a little bit like, oh my God, what am I going to read next? But you're absorbing what you just experienced from like this really massive set of changes that happened in this last season. And for many of us last several years, like even five years.
I want you to just like, let yourself have absorption time. Think of a sponge, right? Like a sponge isn't going to absorb the water instantly. It's going to take some time. A whole deluge of things just happened. Can you let yourself be a sponge and absorb some of that in this lunar cycle, so that when you go to the next lunar cycle, you're feeling refreshed, you're feeling like you've got some grounding.
Okay. That's it for today's reading. I have no announcements other than that, I'm just here. I'm going to be doing more interviews. I have some really great ones coming out very soon with some guests that I have just been loving. I hope you enjoyed the last episode. Which was, Care as creation with Hope Carpenter of @hopehealingarts on Instagram. Their episode was so profound to me and has really helped me through the summer in remembering what art really even is and what it means in our personal healing journeys. So check that out. That's episode 44 on the podcast. And until next time. I hope you have a wonderful lunar cycle. And if you enjoy this episode,
I really, really would appreciate it if you left a review. Your kind words, your thoughtful perspectives and ideas and insights, help others find this podcast and help others really determine whether or not they even want to listen. Or if they'd get anything from this. As always the intention behind this podcast is to support more people in their authentic expression and in their wholeness and sharing their magic and art with their communities. This is a podcast about collective and personal liberation. Created by a queer brown person. So I feel like there's a lot here that we're doing together. And I am openly saying that I could use some support in being able to share this work with other people. So if you have enjoyed this podcast, please leave review, share an episode, share it on social media. Find us on social media. This podcast is @artwitchpodcast on Instagram and also my personal Instagram is @soundartmagic. So. Hope to see you there. Catch up with me on there. I'll post a picture of the cards so you can see them online, but until next time.
Have a wonderful lunar cycle. And take care.