EP:89 – Ask a Witch Anything (Part 2) : Lessons from the Path with Nathalie

In this soulful and no-BS episode, I’m back with my dear coven sister Nathalie for Part 2 of Ask a Witch Anything. . No question is too small all topics are welcome. Between the two of us we have like 50 years of experience, we have cast spells that are powerful and have transformed out lives…. and we have made mistakes and stumbled too. witchcraft.

In this soulful and no-BS episode, I’m back with my dear coven sister Nathalie for Part 2 of Ask a Witch Anything. We’re diving into questions from all of You in the Ear Bud Coven —because no question is too small, and all topics are welcome in this circle.

Between the two of us, we bring over 50 years of lived, magical experience. We’ve cast spells that have cracked open our worlds, transformed our lives, and called in deep healing. And yes—we’ve also stumbled, made mistakes, and learned the hard way (more than once). We are here to share what we have learned with you.

Together, we reflect on the things we wish we knew when we first began——like how to stay grounded in your own magic, why following one path deeply is more powerful than trying to do it all. We discuss the importance of spiritual boundaries. We also unpack the myth of being a “perfect witch” and remind you: there’s no rush. Your path is unique to you it’s not going to look like and IG photo shoot. It will support your life and your goals.

Whether you’re just starting out or deep in your journey, this episode is a soft place to land and a powerful reminder that your magic is already enough.

00:00 Welcome Back and Meet Natalie

02:32 Top Three Things We Wish We Knew

03:45 What Nathalie Learned by Choosing a Path

0906 Truth Behind Traditions of Secrecy

10:29 You Are In the Perfect Place Right Now

17:18 Importance of Building a Ritual Practice

20:11 The Importance of Spiritual Boundaries

23:03 Closing a Circle: Why and How

✨ Tune in for heartfelt guidance, practical tools, and the kind of witchy sisterhood that helps you feel seen.

Transcript

Jodi Anne: Hello, beautiful coven. If you listen to part one of this series, then welcome back. I'm here with the beautiful Natalie, my coven sister, and very dear friend, and we are answering your questions. This is Ask a Witch. You have not just one, but two. Two very seasoned witches to answer your questions and these questions came from you.
So go to Facebook, join the witching half hour or so... earbud coven. You can pop any of your ask a witch questions in there. You can go to my website, Jodiannepsychicmedium.com. Think under connect with me or something. You could send me an email, reach out. You can reply to your monthly love letter with your "ask a witch" question any way you wanna give it to me.
Slide into my dms, give me your questions. We'll do these regularly 'cause I'm having a blast with you. Okay? So Natalie, you wanna do a little introduction? For anyone who didn't hear the first episode,

Nathalie: I am a essentially born witch. So my grandmother's a witch. My mom's a witch and I'm a witch.
We're all very different types of witches. To be exact. I am personally a healer, my job is a healer. Most of the stuff that I do magically tends to be towards healing. I don't tend to hold a whole bunch of high rituals. I don't tend to do a lot of divination. Mm-hmm. Where I am is on the inside healing or body healing is where I tend to do most of my stuff.

Jodi Anne: I think it's neat too, how we're in a coven together and our expertise is, what I'm gonna call it, is very different. So when Natalie needs divination, this is where she comes. Yes. When I need healing for me. Body, mind, soul, or for my children, this is where I go. Right? So it's important to know that each one of us brings something beautiful and magical to your coven.
You don't have to practice the same. And I love how your mom is a different style of which than you and your grandma's a different style of which than you are. My daughter is just starting to openly practice., She's a different style of which than I am. I know my sons have it.
It's really neat to see how everyone can find their own way and their own specialty, right? So you are not gonna be like anyone else. You're gonna have different strengths than us.
And these are your questions. Okay? Let's start with this one. I like this one, our earbud coven asked us, what are the top three things that you wish you knew now that you didn't know when you started?
Nathalie: So I'm gonna kind of reframe this like in the sense of if I could go back and talk to my younger self. What is some of the things that I would give myself as advice? That is a very good question. Probably, I don't have to try to walk down every path.
Jodi Anne: That's good wisdom. Yeah.
Nathalie: There was a time in my life where I felt like I needed to kind of learn it all. Mm-hmm. Right? I needed to learn the Greek pantheon and each of the pantheons different protocols for like Kabbalah type magic or even Christian mysticism,
I went down like quite a few different paths. And it's given me an eclectic view, but I realize now that I don't have to learn each of them.

Jodi Anne: What I'm hearing you say is you don't have to be a witch of all trades.

Nathalie: No.

Jodi Anne: A witch of all pantheon. No. You can be a master of some.

Nathalie: Yeah.

Jodi Anne: Yeah.

Nathalie: And I think my practice really blossomed when I devoted myself to a very single path.

Jodi Anne: Yeah, I agree with that because I've watched you grow over the years.

Nathalie: And I really do feel like when I stepped on one path and stuck to the one path mm-hmm.
It was definitely where I did the most growing so that would be one of the things that I would definitely tell myself.
The other is same type of idea. I do not have to read every book that comes out on the market. That was much easier when I was younger. Mm-hmm. So part of it is when I was taught magic, it was all verbal.
It was all by example and verbal. There was nothing written down. Neither of my grandmother or, well, my grandmother had some recipes written down. Right. My mom Absolutely, absolutely nothing. Yeah, . And she also believes in storytelling,

Jodi Anne: it's interesting 'cause that's often how you teach.

Nathalie: Yes.

Jodi Anne: You teach by storytelling a lot.

Nathalie: I teach by storytelling a lot. And I don't write, I don't like committing pen to paper. I've never been someone, my grim more , is very sparse.
I wanted to learn how other people viewed it, and I wanted to also have the language to describe some of the stuff that my mom and grandmother were teaching me that they didn't necessarily have words for, or categories for
like my grandmother would never have called herself a kitchen witch. But that is a term that would describe her very, very well. The same with my mom being a wild witch. It was not a term that my mom would pick, but it is definitely something that suits her very well.
When I was a teenager. I voraciously spent so much time at, to be honest, the Sunnyside bookstore in Ottawa, which is closed now beautiful old, old building that the, like floorboards creeped and everything. And it was just,

Jodi Anne: I miss old occult shops.
I miss like, the smell of them. I miss the, the wood that they had. They all had wood. I don't know, they all have wood and I miss like. Section behind the counter, right? Like there was gatekeeping in the, there was gate book stores.

Nathalie: Or behind the, like the, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jodi Anne: And the knowledgeable witch behind the counter.
You could go to as a noob and be like, "hi, I'm new ..Hi looking for a spell", and they could guide. There was so much wisdom in those bookshops. Yes. And guidance to like, this is a section that's good for you now

Nathalie: start here.

Jodi Anne: Here love. Here's a great book.

Nathalie: So yeah, part of it is I I consumed a lot of knowledge at that time, and it wasn't all great literature or helpful. And there are, there are some things that are sometimes true in old books where people will write down their spells and they will change something. Yeah. So I only seasoned people would be able to recreate the spell knowing that that particular ingredient had no place in that spell.
I think that's less true today.

Jodi Anne: Yeah. I think if you're going for a good, and you can all call me Cheesy if you want, but Star Hawk has great beginner books. She has amazing beginner books. You can use her spells, they're written well. They're super digestible. Even if you're 25, get the Teen Witch.
It's got great stuff in it, and it's written for a young audience. It's digestible. It's a good place for anyone to start. Yeah.

Nathalie: Scott Cunningham.

Jodi Anne: I love his books.

Nathalie: I had a particular penchant for Patricia Teleco. She was one of the people that I like how she wrote about things. And it was fairly practical in her books.
There's so much options now. Like I would never be able to keep up with everything that's out there it's one of those things that, like now when I'm in a bookstore, I'm [00:08:00] usually passing my hand handover and seeing who's jumping out at me. And, I find that the older I get, the less and less I actually purchase a book

Jodi Anne: Purchasing them often because they're independent writers.

Nathalie: Oh, supporting that is different. Supporting yeah.

Jodi Anne: There's a little section on my bookshelf that I've skimmed and I've gone through, but I'm not buying them for knowledge. I'm buying them for supporting independent presses,

Nathalie: what is another thing?

Jodi Anne: What would you tell your younger soul?

Nathalie: Oh, so. My grandmother filled me with the fear of telling other people that I was a witch.

Jodi Anne: Yeah. Of course

Nathalie: she was from a time where you wouldn't have said that. No. And I get it right. She legitimately would've been afraid. Right. When she was a girl, there would've been a chance where she would've been put in an asylum. So it was one of those things that her information for when I was born no longer applied
Jodi Anne: I love that. So what I'm hearing you say is some of the wisdom you were handed from your elders is coming from. Or I would say coming through their lens of experience. And some of it doesn't apply.

Nathalie: Yeah,

Jodi Anne: Like the need for secrecy no longer applies the way it used to.

Nathalie: And that fear also stopped me from finding people in my community at that time and connecting with people and talking. And I believe this knowledge needs to be shared.

Jodi Anne: Yeah, it does. It does.

Nathalie: There's a certain amount that needs to be safeguarded. Yeah. And there needs to be exchanged in other areas.

Jodi Anne: And I like that we're using the word safeguarding instead of the word gatekeeping, because when I think of safeguarding, it's more about giving the information when someone's ready.
We don't put seven year olds in front of cars and tell them to drive. We wait until you have a little bit more, you know, frontal lobe action happening before we tell you to drive,
okay. I'm trying to think what I would say. 'cause I was listening to you and I'm like, gosh, that's sage wisdom. What are the three things I wish I knew? Some of it's gonna be echoing. So the first thing I wish I knew though, and I tell this to all of my students, is that there is no perfect timeline for this.
Like the gods will wait if you are too busy. If you are doing your master's degree and you feel the calling, if you have young children at home and you feel the calling, whatever's going on for you and you're not devoting time. To your spiritual development, to this crooked path, to this spiral path, to developing your relationship with your gods and goddesses.
They're in divine time. They'll wait. So take all of that shame off your plate and do it as you can. I've had to step back from my practice numerous times when I was in school, I had to step back from my practice when my kids were little, I actually stepped forward into my practice. But then through transitional periods of my life, like I had a, pretty profitable psychic business that I closed down 'cause I needed to take care of myself and I just didn't have what it took to support others and, and hold others in healing.
Take the pressure off yourself, you are exactly where you're supposed to be. Gods can wait. If you have something pressing in this mundane world that absolutely needs your attention, you can tend to it. You're not disappointing Freya, you're not disappointing Isis. They're there waiting and they'll be there.
It's not going anywhere.

Nathalie: I think they understand cycles better than you do.

Jodi Anne: Oh my God. Right.

Nathalie: So they understand breaks, they understand the ebbs and flows of what those things can do.

Jodi Anne: Yeah. Cause they live in that space a bit. That is the whole ritual thing. Like the earth rests. Yeah.

Nathalie: I fail to think of something that is like always on, right? Like always. Constantly this, like, even the sun, right? To us, like the sun looks like it's, but there's bursts that happen, there's like tons of activity and sometimes it disrupts our cell phones and stuff like that down here, right? Yeah. So it's one of those things that I don't know if there's anything that's truly constant

Jodi Anne: only capitalism that needs to be stopped. So what else would I tell myself? The other piece is that I wish I knew echoes what you said.
I don't have to know it all. I don't have to be the most witchiest witch that ever witched. I don't have to know all the things I can be good at some things and I can release what I'm not good at and have no shame about it. I'm just at this space. I'm just getting really good at astrology because I'm curious about it now,

Nathalie: and I am not.

Jodi Anne: I'm a great divination witch, I'm really good at divination. It comes very natural to me. I love reading and I think that leads me to my other piece. I wish I knew, but that thing that lights you up, that you're on fire for that is your calling. So if you hate tarot cards, honey, you don't have to read them.
If you're all about crystals, if all you wanna do is pick up rocks, that's your calling, follow it. That thing inside you, that lights up, that turns you upside down. That gives you the butterflies about this path. That's your calling. That's them calling to you. That's what you're supposed to heed.
So all the things that you're like, whoa, that's so overwhelming. And I'm not really into that. But that's also your intuition, talking to you and telling you that that's not for you right now. Maybe later, maybe another time, but they're calling you forward and that call is what's really lighting you up.
Like I can do really heavy ritualistic magic. I have the concentration for it. I like the ritual of it. I can do it really, really well right now. Simpler forms of that work better in my life. So I just heed that, right? Like I just juje the spell to be more in the flow, right? And I know other witches that, you know, they like big ritual.

Nathalie: The fan flare. Yeah. I know some people that are amazing, to the point where I know that people would describe them as theatrical. Yes. There is a space for theatrics because it gets people into a mind frame.
Yeah. To get the ritual where it needs to be, which is amazing but it's something that I'm not very good at is creating that like over the top feel

Jodi Anne: You're more practical.

Nathalie: I am extremely more practical. Yeah. Yeah. But I also don't have a hard time dropping into ritual space.

Jodi Anne: No. You're really good at supporting a ritual space.
I like all the theatrical I don't have time for it right now,

Nathalie: I can fall into that like grounded space that is needed in a ritual on Right. On a blink of an eye.

Jodi Anne: Yeah. Oh, and I think that's another thing.
I wish I knew, this isn't one of the top three, but I wish I knew how important building a practice is, [00:16:00] like a personal practice. So the reason you can is because you've been on this path a long time and when I'm teaching with students, I sometimes have to remember, oh yeah, I can ground, I can connect and go up really quickly, but that's.
It's not because I'm special, that's because I'm practiced. I have a practice. So, and that's I think why I like the pomp and the ritual because it's a way of me getting into the mindset. Every time you do a grounding sequence, every time you do a connecting to source sequence, you are building a spiritual muscle.
And it gets easier every time, but you have to do it right. You have to take that five pound dumbbell and struggle with it until it's easy, and then you gonna need to go to the 10 pound spiritual dumbbell. So you start with just grounding. Just get really good at grounding. Once you can ground and know when you're ungrounded and grounded, move on to grounding and ascension and connect.
And that's gonna be hard. Every time you connect, you're probably gonna come ungrounded. And then you work in that space and you keep working that muscle so that you can come together with your coven and we can drop into ritual mode very quickly. 'cause it's familiar to us. We're used to it. We've done it for years.
So that's something I would say too, to someone new, build a practice because you are setting up, I don't know if this is for real, so help me on this, but it feels like what you're doing is you're setting up the brain patterns or you're familiarizing yourself with going into, I think it's that alpha or that theta wave in your brain so you can really work with energy and take your monkey mind out of the picture.
Is that right? Am I, it

Nathalie: also reminds me of like. When you walk through a forest the first time and there's brush and everything in your way and stuff like that. But if you've been on a well-worn path a bunch of people have walked down it. It's just an easy stroll, right?
Mm-hmm. And I think it becomes something like you just, you move into that, like that path and that flow. Yeah. With a grace and ease.

Jodi Anne: Yeah. That comes with practice and time.

Nathalie: To the point where like some of the, like the trails around my house, I could have navigated blind. Like entirely like without sight. Mm-hmm. In the middle of the night because I had walked them so often. Yeah. And I think a lot of that is, is because I walked them so often. Yeah. I knew them. Now if there's something new there that's fun,

Jodi Anne: you'll stumble.

Nathalie: And those things happen, right. Every once in a while you're doing a ritual that you've done like a million times, and every once in a while

Jodi Anne: there's a moment. Yeah

Nathalie: did you, did you share your three?

Jodi Anne: I think so, yeah. I might have shared four. Do you have another one?

Nathalie: I have another one that is probably not mine, but one that I witnessed.
And it, it stems to what we talked about last time about protocol. Okay. Perfect. Watching my mom take on too many initiations from different places. Mm-hmm. Okay. And her overloading herself and going into a complete spiral and burnout.

Jodi Anne: Yeah. I have seen other witches do that as well.

Nathalie: I think it, part of my, like deciding on a path and really stick into it was watching somebody else not do that. Mm-hmm. And the cost that it had for that particular for my mom. Yeah. The, we can overload ourselves.

Jodi Anne: Yeah. Yeah. And I think what that makes me think of is spiritual boundaries.
Mm-hmm.
How important spiritual boundaries are. A lot of people that I've taught get very, very excited when we start connecting and we start channeling and we start, you know, getting messages.
'cause I teach a lot of divination and the hardest lesson to teach them is, okay, now you're gonna turn that off and you're gonna go about your day. There's this fear that comes up that, wait a sec, I just touched the divinity. I'm gonna not get to touch it again.

Nathalie: How am I gonna get back there?

Jodi Anne: Yeah. How am I gonna get back there?
And it feels yummy. It's really cool. And you feel really cool. You feel really powerful, right? So you don't wanna let that go. But not letting that go creates burnout. It can create a lot of chaos in your life. It can really, disrupt your world. And so you have to be able to have spiritual boundaries.
And the way I teach it to people is you would never just open your front door. And go, anyone wanna come in here at any time of day? And just let anyone walk in your house just randomly. And that's what we're doing when we are open psychically all the time. You're just allowing every single person you see on City Transit, walk into your brain and walk into your emotions and your energetic space.
And then you're like, why am I so tired? That's why, so psychic boundaries really having a good firm boundary. And this is also something that is not pleasant to say, but if you can't tell the perfume lady at Sears to go away, you probably don't have good psychic boundaries either.
Yeah. Yeah. Because we need to have really good boundaries when we do this work. Especially if you wanna do it professionally. Right? Yeah. Okay. I think that's lots of things we wish we knew. And I did have burnout. I mean, I was exhausted at certain points in my life. I would come home from psychic fairs.
I would be a mess. I would cry. I would like not know why I was crying, because I was bringing people's trauma home and my muggle job is working in healthcare. So I was exhausted because I was walking into people's energy that I had no business in. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm lecturing from experience on that one.
Okay. Next question. Yeah. Okay. The importance of closing a circle, I. And how to close a circle. I do think I have an episode. I'm pretty sure I have an episode on circle casting in the archives if you wanna go and have a look at that one. But also tell me why you must pose a circle, my friend.

Nathalie: I'll be honest, I don't always see it as a circle.
Okay. I see it as setting a space.

Jodi Anne: Okay. I love it.

Nathalie: Right. Like to me,

Jodi Anne: I know how you practice. It makes a hundred percent sense.

Nathalie: The shape doesn't always matter.

Jodi Anne: Sacred space. Yeah. Opening and closing sacred space. Yeah. Yeah.

Nathalie: One is, I think the good boundaries, right? A starting point. An ending point. I think it comes back to a lot of these little questions of like do you have to burn the like candle to the end? No. But when you stop it, there has [00:24:00] to be that intention of stopping it. Yeah. And restarting
same with when you are creating that ritual space or a space, you are opening the doors. And this time you're being specific of what you're calling in, but the idea to keep everyone there, like do you want your in-laws living with you the whole forever. Forever.
Or your house guests, right. Like, you know,

Jodi Anne: the party ends. The party ends, the party can't go forever.

Nathalie: And I think there's a piece of hygiene in that for everyone. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Where like, we are done. And I think it's also a, if you don't close it, there is a missed opportunity for gratitude.

Jodi Anne: Oh, I love that. 'cause this is not what people talk about. So tell me about the gratitude piece of closing a circle.

Nathalie: The idea that things have aligned for you to come in and help you. Mm-hmm. Whether they're being or like the stones that anything are showing up for you.
Right. Or the group there is a certain amount of reverence that I think needs to be taken for the help. Yeah. And the, thank you for coming and thank you for leaving.

Jodi Anne: Yeah. So I'm gonna go back to your, in the idea of in-laws or your house guests. When your house guests leave, you bit them.
Goodbye. You give them their hug, you say, thank you for coming. It was so great to spend time with you. I hope you get home safely. Drive with care. It's that piece what I'm hearing you say is you're doing that piece with the divine. Yeah. Right. Thank you for coming. Thank you for your help. Thank you for your blessing.
And it's actually gonna make your spell better. 'cause when you say thank you for what you've asked for, you're confirming your belief in the fact that you're getting it. There's that reverent piece of, thank you.

Nathalie: There is also the, if you like, if you leave that door open mm-hmm. There's opportunistic being that can take that door.

Jodi Anne: Yes. And I know some people don't believe in that,

Nathalie: which is okay.

Jodi Anne: That's, you can believe whatever you'd like. And I think that's what people hear a lot of is you have to close your sacred space because bad things will happen.
And I agree that you can leave a gateway open and some of the things that can happen is like your own personal exhaustion, right? You're feeding a ritual that's over. Your energy is still tied to it. There's opportunistic energies that can come in that are attracted to what you're doing. I like the gratitude piece better.
That it's about, there's a huge piece, and I think that's one of the things we were talking in our last episode about some of the teachings that are lost in the handing down. And I think that's one that doesn't get talked about a lot is as you close your sacred space, as you finish your ritual, you are acknowledging the help you've received.
You are giving reverence and gratitude, and you're sealing everything up. Yeah.

Nathalie: And I think there's something to be said for the, when you pack up and move on to the next mm-hmm. The, we're done with this. And that close to the next point that you open.
If it stays open and you try to open another Yeah. It's just deplete like. Like you aren't there. You're still tethered to the other book, that is open. Yeah.

Jodi Anne: So it's like messing it, it scattery. Yeah. The energy feels scattered, right? Like it's not gonna be the pinpointed arrow that you want directed at what you're manifesting.
Nathalie: I wouldn't expect my intention to be clear. Yeah. If I didn't close the last one on the next one and I think it's really important, especially with prolonged spell work. In the sense of if it's like a seven day spell that you're doing and stuff like that, you kind of need to make sure you get to the day seven, or you shut the whole thing down.

Jodi Anne: Yeah. Often I know I'll have done the work, close the circle, but I don't take everything off the altar right away. Like the altar often stays up or spell dependent, and then there's another piece when I take the altar down and I change the altar,

Nathalie: I also think like, when I've been to like ceremonies that last days.
When I've been to the Shamanic conference or I've been to one of the other events that I've been that are more than just one day, right? There is a lot of energy that goes into that from the entire group and. I still have a crash afterwards. Right. Yeah. Because there's been so much work, right?
Yeah. And you need rest afterwards. Yeah. There needs to be a downtime. Mm-hmm. At that point. And I could only imagine what that type of work would feel like if you didn't close it. Oh my God. It would be, it's huge. It, it'd be really hard to just function.

Jodi Anne: Yeah. I think it would be. And what I'm being reminded of when you talk is this idea of a closing ceremony isn't just magical.

Nathalie: No.

Jodi Anne: We have graduation ceremonies. The Olympics has a closing ceremony. Like there's all kind like conferences. You go to a conference, they have a welcoming day, and then they have a closing banquet. Right? Like this is not just a magic thing. This is an energetic truth. That closing and sealing, the work is an important step.

Nathalie: It really is. Mm-hmm. So whether it is like half hour spell there is an importance to bringing it back in the book ends. Yeah. Right. You can't keep on reading a story that's already done. You have to close the book. Yeah.

Jodi Anne: I like that

Nathalie: you can open the book again and reread the whole thing, but at some point like it needs to like, you know, go.

Jodi Anne: Yeah. And the gratitude piece. I love that.