EP 198: Take Back the Magic with Perdita Finn

In this episode, Kimberly and Perdita discuss Perdita’s latest book “Take Back the Magic,” which was inspired by the death of her father, their ambivalent relationship, and ongoing relationship to him now that he's passed. Perdita shares her experience of communicating with the dead for over thirty years and guides us in how we can do the same. They also discuss the history behind why we fear the dead and the suppression of communicating with the dead by organized religion. She shares how the dead are connected and long for the erotic and how we can return to the inner wisdom and rituals of ancestors that pre-date religion and political systems. She describes the crucial role of the this communication with dead to her key relationships with the living: as a mother, wife, and community member.

Bio

Perdita Finn is the co-founder, with her husband Clark Strand, of the non-denominational international fellowship The Way of the Rose, which inspired their book "The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary." For many years she supported her family writing books for children and educators like the "Time Flyers" series for Scholastic Books, "My Little Pony," and many others. She has been a ghostwriter, a book doctor, a copy editor and a writing teacher, but these days she is happy to be working primarily on her own books. She has a lively substack, "Take Back the Magic," where readers can get sneak peeks into what she's working on right now. Finn now teaches popular workshops on Collaborating with the Other Side, in which participants are empowered to activate the magic in their own lives with the help of their ancestors. She is the author of "Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World" and lives with her family in the moss-filled shadows of the Catskill Mountains.

What She Shares:

–Writing “Take Back the Magic”

–Why we fear the dead 

–Cycles of life, death, and rebirth

–How to commune with the dead 

–Eros and the dead

What You’ll Hear:

–Darkness and dark matter as origin of life

–Circles of entanglement and belonging

–Use of letters in “Take Back the Magic”

–Relationship with father and his death

–Cultural fears of the dead

–Long history of suppression of speaking with dead

–Understanding how dead communicate

–Alchemizing experiences with past monsters

–Finding safety of ancestors

–Starting small with communication

–Assigning worries to those on the other side

–Honoring the dead

–Perdita and husband’s spiritual backgrounds

–Spiritual experiences through birth

–Spiritual community outside of empire

–History of rosary

–Erotic nature of the dead

–Experiencing eternal return of dead and living

–Trusting the long story of your soul

–Everything dies and everything is reborn

–Not every prayer is answered in every lifetime

–What is the prayer we would carry with us beyond this lifetime?

–We are all each others’ mothers

Resources

Website:

wayoftherose.org

takebackthemagic.com

IG: @perditafinn