Little Rituals: Fashion & Magick

Today’s guest is Dylan Howell, a palm reader, intuitive and clairvoyant. Dylan uses the handle @gettingwitchywitit on Instagram, YouTube and Tik Tok, where she posts witchy tips and cheeky videos about spirituality and astrology. I was charmed by Dylan’s sense of humor and her confidence in her own practice. She believes in glamour magick, Venusian baths and using colors to manifest her desires. She’s also beautiful, and I was not surprised, but I was very intrigued to find out she used to compete in pageants. We talked about all this and a lot more, including crop tops, shadow work and the difference between witchstagram and witch tok.

If you want more fashion magick or to get my insights on tarot and astrology, you can follow me on Instagram @littleritualstarot. I’m also on twitter @tobeyward. The intro and outro music is Song of Sweetness by Potential Gospel. The podcast art is by Juliann Gates. This episode was mastered by Matt Fox.

Today’s guest is Brooklyn-based poet and witch Stephanie Athena Valente. Stephanie’s published works include Hotel Ghost, waiting for the end of the world, Little Fang and Spell Work, and her writing has been featured in Witch Craft Magazine, Maudlin House and Hobart, among others. She’s also the associate editor at Yes, Poetry.

I first encountered Stephanie on Instagram, through the network of witches and writers connected to the online magazine Luna Luna. I was instantly intrigued by her unique blend of poetry, tarot, astrology and glamour. Her writing is unabashedly magickal and femme, and her Instagram persona seems uninhibited in a way I envy.

We talked about everything from covens to Doc Martens, including her teenage obsession with Hot Topic, her overwhelming success with love spells, her Italian and Greek-flavored glamour magick and how she was, in her words, radicalized by The Craft. And since we’re both writers, we couldn’t help nerding out about writing and creativity too.

Stephanie is inspired by the designs of L'école des Femmes.
One of her favorite mantras is from The LA Minimalist.
She recommends Waking the Witch by Pam Grossman and she's excited to read The GLAM Witch by Michael Herkes.
Her vegan boots are from Koi Footwear.

If you want more fashion magick or to get my insights on tarot and astrology, you can follow me on Instagram @littleritualstarot. I’m also on twitter @tobeyward. You can find Stephanie on Instagram @stephanie.athena. The intro and outro music is Song of Sweetness by Potential Gospel. The podcast art is by Juliann Gates. This episode was mastered by Matt Fox.

Today’s conversation is with Gabriela Rosales, a.k.a. The Stylist Witch. Gabriela is a stylist and self-described glamour witch based in Southern California. She specializes in the use of one’s wardrobe as the ultimate magickal tool, and she’s also a Venusian-ruled quadruple Taurus. She believes her divine purpose is to empower others through the self-loving ritual of adornment. For her, beauty is not an obligation or a convention, but a way of being.

I’ve been a fan of Gabriela’s for a while, and I was thrilled when she agreed to be interviewed, because her practice so perfectly embodies what I’m interested in exploring here. If you don’t follow her on Instagram or Twitter, you definitely should. She’s @thestylistwitch on both, and her Instagram feed has this gorgeous, sumptuous aesthetic that moves through color stories as we move through the zodiacal seasons.

It’s also rare that I find someone who truly wants to nerd out about the intersections of magick and fashion as much as I want to, but as soon as this interview began, I knew I’d found a kindred spirit. We talk about claiming the word witch, the foundations of authentic style, her zodiac-inspired power nails, and how you can tell if your glamour magick is working.

You can learn more about Gabriela and shop all her offerings here.

If you want more fashion magick or to get my insights on tarot and astrology, you can follow me on Instagram @littleritualstarot. I’m also on twitter @tobeyward. The intro and outro music is Song of Sweetness by Potential Gospel. The podcast art is by Juliann Gates. This episode was mastered by Matt Fox. Little Rituals will be back next month on the new or full moon.

My guest this episode is Britt Asam, a Senior Art Director at Abercrombie & Fitch and an astrology enthusiast. Britt has always been one of those people who exudes style and charisma, and she seems to have an instinct for knowing what’s cool before anyone else does. We discuss her fashion evolution toward simplicity, her Taurean love of luxury, and her journey growing up and growing older. We also both have strong Aquarius and Taurus placements, and we talk about how we relate to those two energies.

Because our conversation veers into astrology, I start with an introduction about my approach to astrology and how I like to use it and think about it.

Britt listens to To Be Magnetic.
She would wear a Réalisation Par dress.

Astrology Resources:
Chani Nicholas
Kelly Surtees
Steven Forrest
Astrology University
The Astrology Podcast
Bad Astrologers

If you want more fashion magick or to get my insights on tarot and astrology, you can follow me on Instagram @littleritualstarot. I’m also on twitter @tobeyward. You can find Britt on Instagram at @britt_asam. The intro and outro music is Song of Sweetness by Potential Gospel. The podcast art is by Juliann Gates. This episode was mastered by Matt Fox. If you liked what you heard today, please leave a review.

If you’ve listened to other episodes of this podcast, you know I always end by asking my guests if they have any style or self expression goals as they get older. I turned 39 in February, and aging is something I think about a lot. In this introduction, I talk about the crone archetype, the myth of Baba Yaga according to Clarissa Pinkola Estés in Women Who Run with the Wolves, and aging as a woman in a patriarchal society.

My guest today is Ivy Hang, a queer, non-binary, Vietnamese femme, who, in their own words, is "navigating life one day at a time and working on self-love." Ivy has a unique perspective on gender and a nuanced approach to style that I really appreciated. They’ve worked hard to define for themselves what makes them feel good and what kinds of fashion and self expression are right for them. We talked about dark lipstick as a kind of spell, fashion as protection, and lingerie selfies as a tool for embodiment.

Ivy's dress is from I Do Declare.
They're inspired by the lingerie of Creepyyeha.
Their strawberry print jumpsuit is from Big Bud Press.
They would like to wear a Catherine D'Lish dressing gown.
You can follow Ivy on Instagram @sighsuponsighs.

If you want more fashion magick or to get my insights on tarot and astrology, you can follow me on Instagram at @littleritualstarot. I’m also on twitter @tobeyward. The intro and outro music is Song of Sweetness by Potential Gospel. The podcast art is by Juliann Gates. This episode was mastered by Matt Fox. If you liked what you heard today, please leave a review. Little Rituals will be back next month on the new moon.

This month's guest is Elfie Tromp, a Dutch writer and performer. I discovered Elfie when I read her amazing essay in Guernica: "How Rick Owens Taught Me to Wear Love." Elfie is also a novelist and a poet with several books in Dutch, and she hosts an IGTV series called Dichter in Drag, where poets and drag queens share poetry and serve looks.

This is one of my favorite interviews yet, because we start with fashion but cover so many more topics. Elfie told me about the trauma of wearing her first bra and the ways she’s broken free of traditional femininity since then. We discussed the dangers of cis hetero spaces and the liberating appeal of queer spaces and drag. She also told me how hearing voices in her childhood led her to join her aunt’s Wiccan coven, and that conversation led us on a tangent about our own beliefs around religion and spirituality.

Elfie's new boots are from OBSCUR.
The bras she gifted are from Barbara Gongini.
The lingerie brand that inspires her is la fille d'O.
You can follow Elfie @elfietromp.

You can follow me on Instagram @littleritualstarot and on twitter @tobeyward. The intro and outro music is Song of Sweetness by Potential Gospel. The podcast art is by Juliann Gates. This episode was mastered by Matt Fox.

Clothing gives external shape to our identities and the way we feel in our bodies, and poetry does the same for our thoughts and emotions. They’re both a kind of lived metaphor. In this introduction, I bring the two together with "Your One Good Dress," a poem by Brenda Shaughnessy.

My guest is Rachel Lopez-Cerrato, a fashion and costume designer raised in Honey Brook, Pennsylvania and Guanajuato, Mexico. She comes from a lineage of grandmothers who were garment and textile factory workers, designers, and seamstresses, and that lineage deeply informs her work. Rachel believes in the magic of clothing and often designs garments she’s seen in dreams. We talked about all of that and also about the transformative nature of motherhood, as we’re both the parents of young kids.

Rachel's ancestral skills practice was inspired by Spirit Weavers Gathering.
She loves the publication Life As Ceremony.
Her sweatsuit and jumpsuit are from Virgo.
Learn more about Rachel and see her work at cerratoci.com and @cerratoci.

You can follow me on Instagram @littleritualstarot and on twitter @tobeyward. The intro and outro music is Song of Sweetness by Potential Gospel. The podcast art is by Juliann Gates. This episode was mastered by Matt Fox. If you liked what you heard today, please leave a review.

If fashion is an external representation of our inner worlds and magick is about tapping into our deepest selves, then fashion magick is the practice of using clothing and adornment to connect our deepest selves to the outside world.

My guest this episode is eccentric and vintage collector Heather Chuck Craft (she goes by Chuck). We discuss fashion personas, gender fluidity through clothing, ultra femme style, and how all of these can produce what she calls a dichotomy of self.

This episode was mastered by Matt Fox. The music is by Potential Gospel. Artwork is by Juliann Gates. You can follow Chuck on Instagram @heatherchuckcraft. You can follow me on Instagram @littleritualstarot or on Twitter @tobeyward.

My guest today is Katy Feniello, a midwife and self-proclaimed priestess. Katy leads the New Moon women’s circle that I’ve sat in for more than seven years, and she tends a Red Room temple in her house. I wanted to talk to Katy about her relationship to fashion because she first introduced me to the concept of regalia: clothes we wear for ceremonial and celebratory purposes. Here, I ask Katy about her regalia, jewelry as medicine objects, and what it means to her to be a priestess.

Katy's pearls are from Garland of Letters Bookstore.

This episode was mastered by Matt Fox. The music is by Potential Gospel. Artwork is by Juliann Gates. You can follow Katy on Instagram @katycnm. You can follow me on Instagram @littleritualstarot or on Twitter @tobeyward.

My first guest is Kate-Marie Sclavi, a radical art educator and symbiotic art maker. Kate has been a fashion muse of mine for many years, because of the way she confidently and effortlessly inhabits her body and her sexuality. Here we talk about kink, the essence of the erotic, her signature cat-eye, and a lot more.

Kate's essence of the erotic dress is from Réalisation Par.
Her work jumpsuits are by Nooworks.

This episode was mastered by Matt Fox. The music is by Potential Gospel. Artwork is by Juliann Gates. You can follow Kate on Instagram @katerelish. You can follow me on Instagram @littleritualstarot or on Twitter @tobeyward.