Vocati Interview - Angela Mary Magick
Vocati interviews are a bite-sized deep dive into the hearts, minds & sessions of the incredible humans that I am lucky enough to call my clients - or frients (friend + client). Each interview will be a mix of insight and outtakes, each will show a glimpse of the finished work we created as well as a lifting of the veil to see the inner workings, thoughts, images, or intentions that anchor the work. The people I work with are truly magic, I learn from each and everyone, I am inspired and lifted up by each and everyone, and when I do this work I am always reminded of the beauty, power, and bravery found in being seen.
Through these Vocati interviews, my hope is that you too will experience this magic, learn about the work of these incredible humans, and find your own courage to take up your rightful space in the world and generously share your work. I guarantee you the world needs you.
xo
How it all started…
It was 2001 (or somewhere right around there), I was walking into a friends backyard baby blessing, or maybe it was a wedding, and honestly, it might have been in the living room. The truth is the details are fuzzy. But here’s what’s clear, when I entered the space I fell in fast hard love with a tall regal woman who covered me in smoke and blessings. From that day forward my adoration and admiration have only grown. Angela is a master of her craft(s). She’s been doing my hair and reading cards to me in one form or another for almost 20 years and this year when she decided, with the support of her incredible family to “come out” as a witch and share her magick services with the world I knew it was going to be one of her greatest offerings yet.
Enjoy peeking into the mind and heart of this brilliant women through the words, images, and gorgeous songs below.
xo
Q. How did you know that *this* was the work for you to do in the world? What is the call you answer with your work?
I grew up in a family where weaving Spirit at our spinning Wheel of the Year and developing our Soul has been the constant focal point and complete priority. Daily focus on the meditation of prayer as a first language has made me who I am. The power of expanding my visions in an effort to heal myself has shown me first hand and forever that it is my sacred duty to communicate best and first with me that which I choose to see, hear, taste, touch, feel, breathe and know.
As a lifelong hairdresser and beauty professional, the work of adorning our bodies has been my earliest entry point to working within the Magickal realm. Our epidermis is the largest organ of the body and directly effects so many of our six senses. The laying of hands on others and the energy exchange within this partnership has compelled me to go deeper, responding to the beckoning that I intuit, as I work with my Hair design clients.
The call I am responding to is one which I believe to be universal; to love and be loved, in a tender balancing act to hungrily add that which we need and also feed each other by sharing our natural gifts.
As those 80's perms were processing, deep sharing and oracle decks were frequently involved. My love of Tarot unfurled and grew along side of my yearning for all the Spell work that I could possibly devour.
All of this work has evolved very naturally and in time. I have learned that Magick has a temporal quality. The first decade at least I never received funds for any Magickal doings.
Q. Talk to me about visibility, taking up space, sharing your work, and showing yourself to the world. What does it mean for you to say “hey, I have something valuable to offer, come and check me (and my work) out”? Tell us about how this looks and feels for you and how you overcome the tough parts if there’s been any.
Visibility begins, for me, INVISIBLY...What the world sees has brewed deep within me many moons before it reaches the surface to be seen. Visibility requires me to be obedient to the time it takes for each modality I'm developing to season and show, for others to witness.
This is the most simple and challenging part of my Spiritual practice. Patience and editing are my friends.
Thank Goddess that nature gives us our four seasons to move things along, as this is reflected in the rhythm and timing of my practice.
In other words, I like to allow for the natural process of birth, life, death and birth again. This is the welcomed outgrowth of allowing things to ripen, nourish us then slough off and die to create the dance of decay as our fertilizer, which is essential for new life to bloom.
Q. What role does beauty play in your life? When do you feel most beautiful?
Beauty is one of the most precious gifts we can experience. So utterly subjective is she that it feels almost like collecting a nebulous perfume on the air when I attempt to contain her for a closer look.
Beauty is above all self-love, for to be able to witness beauty outside of us we must see a reflection of our own beautiful Spirit.
We do love to fuck this one up though, don't we?
Know this... under the guise of beauty the outside and completely real, evil entity of the 'inner critic' can find entry.
Hold your ground and rebelliously find beauty in yourself and others in any way you can, at all times!
The next bit is an easy answer for an easy question; I feel most beautiful after a glorious makeout.
Q. How has being in front of the camera impacted your growth? (personal, business, or both)
CONTENT WARNING: references to suicide & childhood sexual trauma
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In my business, I refer to my offerings as 'an array of Magick' from completely free to bespoke work for hire. All of this must flow through my filter I call 'Ethical Magick'. My mission in life is to weave more love onto our Grand Web of Life. Sharing the Spirit experiences I have & assisting others in the development of their Spiritual practice is the vehicle of my mission.
Facing the intensely important experience of claiming space in my 53-year-old skin is something that is important to me as a mother of teens and a survivor of young childhood sexual trauma. The Vocati session/photo shoot with Danielle was incredible and a massive leap for me, in which I jumped and let the net appear. Truthfully a few days before our scheduled Vocati session, I was shook to my marrow by the horrific suicide of my oldest bosom friend, the details of which are an entire tome that I won't get into here.
Know this, there is no way I could have come through with this tender giant task of being photographed professionally, with anyone but Danielle. We both knew that the reality of this current tragedy would show up in the photos, which in many ways was my goal all along...to claim space as I really am.
Many of the photos reveal a tear stained face with all of the wear and tear of my life in full view. Because it was Danielle behind the lens, her gifts enveloped us in a protective space.
Those gifts are so numerous that I am tongue-tied to name but include: birth doula, mother, deep intuitive, healer, sisterfriend, confidant, ally, artist, master of holding calm and steady within a pressurized scene. There was an actual shit storm swirling around my environment that never touched me, allowing the rarified scenario to, in her beautiful words, "be seen".
It also needs to be mentioned that this was a couple days before my 53rd birthday and that my family was heading out to tent camp at an outdoor music festival that night. An unexpected and untamed storm blew in at the end of our session and I knew Magick was afoot. The comingled radical energy of our focused demeanor produced some breathtaking photo documentation of an epic event that I was enduring. Grateful and humble am I to have the evidence of my growth handed to me from such a deep and talented sisterfriend.
Q. What question would you most love to be asked right now?
"I've got your passport and I've called a car...Angela Mary, where are we going...?"
Q. So tell me love, what is your walk-on song?
I'm a Libra sun and air is the element that rules this zodiac sign and represents things that travel on air, namely music. Playlists are the daily core of my Magick practice.
To choose a walk on song would be maddeningly difficult and I would have to choose Link Wray Rumble, cuz ya can't enter a room badly to this staccato sound.
...the world that wants me to have a 'walk on song' also has a long a beautiful meandering path which takes its sweet time and is the length of this whole playlist:
...this song is the antivenom to the torturous truth that nearly every womxn in my life is a survivor of sexual trauma, including this Witch. Owning and having agency over our sexual experience and body positivity are extremely core belief of mine.
also:
Lizzo, 'Good As Hell' - thank you for saving my ass this year. Brought into my life by the brilliant artist & friend Genevieve Gaignard ...this is the much better answer to your beauty question D
Lizzo ~ 'Fitness'...pure Magick embodiment
Jenny Hval ~ 'Female Vampires' first Jenny Hval song that I learned, so fucking special...ethereal and direct is my dream come true combo
Princess Nokia ~ Brujas...nothing better than we Witches, and this intensely perfect song pays proper homage to the original, Black Indigenous Women of Color that created our first and best, matriarchal cultures on earth.
Thank you lovely Angela, our world's a better place because you and your work are in it. xo
Angela Mary Bio :::
Angela Mary is a Magick maker, Tarot reader, mother of teens and lover in her native Orange County California. The middle child of a family of nine children, she grew up in a very humble, creative household. Raised on holy water kept in the home and LP records on the turntable, she had a lot of time to cloud watch and moongaze. There was a big organic garden in her backyard and often Catholic mass was held in her childhood living room. From just a baby, Mother Mary beckoned her into her bosom and bespoke coven that became, in the words of Adrienne Rich, her 'rose wet cave' and safe haven.
There from the start, her clairsentient and psychic abilities helped her navigate the rickety bridge created by childhood trauma. Everything is a Spell...and tiny Altars were her second nature and fecund ground for her earliest Spellbound Rites. Angela babysat from a young age in the 70's and one of her early babysitting gigs had a copy of the iconic ‘Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs’ & ‘Linda Goodman’s Love Signs’...bit by the bug of all beautiful Magickal things - she was hooked, line and sinker . As a young teenager in the 80’s Angela worked in a bookstore where she encountered her first Tarot deck which she began to transcribe by hand because she couldn’t afford to buy it. Angela became a teenage cosmetologist in 1984 and in 1986, at 20 years old, a Salon owner, for 13 Magickal years.
Working in a creative field from a very young age gave her the natural freedom to continue to explore her Spirituality. The deep relationship with client’s developed her desire to help and serve folx not just on the surface level with their beauty adornments and treatments, but on the emotional and spiritual level, as well. When client’s haircolour or perm's were processing there would often be oracle card readings and deep intuitive sharing, think 80's super witchy 'Steel Magnolias'.
Her beloved Tarot came roaring back into her flesh before work one day, she asked one of her employee sisterwitches to read her Tarot cards. Her friend said “no I don't read for anyone, but you can borrow my deck and read for yourself” and just like that a Tarot reader was born. She has never parted from her Tarot practice for a single day since.
Angela Mary’s has many offerings including:
Tarot sessions at her home Tarot table in Huntington Beach California, or via video or phone.
She is the creatrix of ATMOSPHERE~Aromatherapy Zodiac Lunar Love Myst sprays, made of a moon infused Holy Mother Water nurtured from the caves of Lourdes France, and the beaches of Southern California. ATMOSPHERE is available in 3 aromas: RESIST MYST, for protection, MOON MAGICK for manifestation, AURA for invocation & SACRED SHADOW, for embodiment. You may order ATMOSPHERE & custom handmade Altar cloths with free domestic shipping at her website.
Also available at her website are house blessings & clearings and bespoke Magick Spells, available upon request.
Angela Mary's most tender and precious offering is MOON COVEN; a year and a day of Spellwork for every full moon, new moon, and 8 turns of the Wheel, from October 2018 - October 2019. MOON COVEN as of this publication, has limited availability.
You can find out more about Angela and her work here:
Website: AngelaMaryMagick.com
Instagram: @angelamarymagick
Facebook: Angela Mary Adams LaBounty