Chokae'

Fall is here.

Something shifts this time of year, and I love every bit of it.

The light hits differently. Evenings arrive a little earlier. Trees start showing off. Markets fill with things that taste like the earth actually meant them. Somewhere, somebody is lighting a fire, pouring something good, cooking too much food, and calling people they love to come eat.

I love this time of year.

The Fall Equinox gives us that beautiful moment of balance before the season really starts moving. Day meets night. Summer hands over the keys. Autumn walks in carrying apples, smoke, wet leaves, good dirt, colder mornings, and absolutely gorgeous decay.

There’s wisdom here, sure. There’s also pleasure.

So eat something wonderful. Get outside. Pay attention to the sky. Light the good candle. Use the beautiful bowl. Invite somebody over. Laugh too loudly. Take stock of what actually grew in your life this year and decide what deserves more of you.

The world is changing right in front of us.

Might as well be awake for it.

I’m sending you love, life, encouragement, and a little witchery for the road.

Blessed Fall Equinox, my friends. 🍂

Love

Chokae’

Fall’s here, and you can feel it turning.

I run these group resets four times a year, on the solstices and the equinoxes, because they do the work. Forty days, starting on the equinox, two days out. Each morning I send you something small to carry: a rite, a question, a tarot card.

We move with the season. Take stock of what actually grew this year, clear out the s**t that’s been sitting around way too long, get your house and your practice together. Body, mind, heart, spirit, all of it gets some attention.

And we enjoy it. That part matters to me. This whole thing is about landing back in your own life and liking it there again.

I’m a witch. October’s my Super Bowl. Come spend it with me.

We start in two days. Message me the word FALL and I’ll walk you in.

Papawitch

samhainseason ritual shutyourmonkey

Here’s the slow punch. The time was yours. You spent it on the easy pull, the loud pull, whatever asked less of you while you stood in front of it. Feed one corner of your life and watch a different one go hungry behind your back. That’s the whole math of it, plain as morning.

So here’s your work. Grab paper, draw one line down the middle. Left side, write the one thing you actually harvested this year, upright and yours. Right side, write the one you let go soft. Fold the left toward you and tuck it where you pass it daily, proof you can build. Burn the right, let the ground take the lesson so you carry it forward instead of repeating it.

That blade on the table serves whoever picks it up. Reach for yours. Start with your own field.

Love,
Papawitch

I came to Bali in 2020 for a month.

Then the world shut down and a month became almost two years.

Pengosekan was my neighborhood. This little morning market was part of everyday life here.

I live farther out in the rice fields these days, but I still come back. I know the faces. I know where I like to buy my vegetables. I know which dogs are going to be underfoot.

This morning I brought my camera.

That’s it, really. A little market in Pengosekan on an ordinary morning.

I fkn love it here.

Papawitch

This arrogant bitch just cut the line. Yeah I said it… Right in front of me. At the airport. Just now.

Walked her privileged ass over, planted herself directly in front of me, and now she’s standing there staring at the departure board like she didn’t just do it. She did it. The vile creature saw me and did it anyway, betting I’d eat it quietly because what’s my option, right? Go off, cause a scene, be the bad guy, the angry black man, catch a charge. That’s the bet she made.

That’s the whole thing. Just strolled into my space dead certain she’d pay nothing for it, banking on my restraint so hard she couldn’t even be bothered to turn around. You saw me. You chose the board.

So I’m standing here swallowing every word that would’ve put me in cuffs while this degenerate pretends the space in front of her is empty. The only reason this is quiet is me… And yeah, I called her a bitch, because that’s what she is.

frustration unitedstates

GRAM

The field is standing right now, grown to whatever height your year took it. Most walk right past it without ever stopping to read what actually came in.

40 Days of Fall runs from the autumn equinox into the warm center of the season. You gather what your year grew, you set down what you have carried too long, and you turn toward the rest the cold months are actually asking you to take.

Three phases. You gather, you release, you return. One tarot card a day, one candle, one honest page, and a group walking it beside you.

This is a real reset, the kind your body feels.

DM me the word FALL and I will send you everything.

Treat yourself to five minutes of chill.

At red lights, your thumb finds the phone before you even decide to look. Quiet shows up for half a second and something in you rushes to fill it with a scroll, a podcast, a snack you didn’t really want. That itch to reach for more, I feel it too, and I’ve spent years learning how to sit still inside it instead.

Light one candle. Give yourself five minutes where the only thing asking anything of you is a small flame. Watch the wick catch. Your breath drops low on its own. Shoulders slide down from where they’ve been living up near your ears. That jumpy creature behind your ribs finally believes nothing is chasing it, and the whole animal of you goes soft.

Repair lives here, in this small pocket of doing nothing on purpose. Rest loosens the grip of the day. Awake and alone and watching wax turn to light, you come back to being a person instead of a running list of everything left undone.

Five minutes. One candle. Staying is the only work.

love,
Papawitch

In this episode of Papawitch and Jade it’s August 1, 2020, and this old witch is making a Lammas Bread in a skillet while Jade attends up close with the patience of a cat near a can opener.
Lockdown Bali.
The dough is rising on the counter, one round is browning in the hot pan, and Jade has just torn into the first warm piece like it whispered something scandalous.

The wheel clicked over to Lughnasadh this week, the cross quarter point where summer quietly starts leaning toward fall. Way before it got the fancy name, this was the grain festival, when the first wheat came off the field and went straight into the season’s first loaf. People broke that bread and passed it around the table, thanking the dirt for coughing it up. That’s the whole spirit of the thing.

And this herbal harvest flatbread… Ridiculous. So dang tasty!

So make some bread this month. Any bread. A scrappy flatbread on the stove like this one absolutely counts. Rip off that first warm piece, taste it while it’s still steaming, and give a little nod to the ground and the fire that pulled off the whole trick. August is harvest season now. Go eat something you made.

Weather’s lying right to your face today. Long days, warm nights, the season struts around like it holds the deed. Truth is, the turn already happened. Dark’s walking back toward you as we speak. Folks who read that shift and ride it land a hell of a lot softer than the poor bastards caught flat-footed when fall boots the door open.

This is the season for honest math. Walk your own life and see it clean, the wins and the wreckage together. Gather what ripened. Sit with what rotted long enough to swallow the lesson it came to hand you. Haul both into the cold months coming.

Today: Point to one thing you fed all summer that’s standing there ready. Say it out loud and own it. Then look dead at the thing you let crumble, steady, eyes wide open, every excuse left at the door. Your life runs its own ledger while you look away.

Sharpest blade in the room belongs to you. Turn it on yourself first.

Love,
Papawitch