Happy Virgo season! I'm honestly so baffled. It's been a few weeks since my last full post, and my blog has grown exponentially, like as in I have over a thousand new subscribers. Hello new subscribers/followers! I'm still new to substack, so I'm honestly not sure what the difference is yet. I'll probably figure it out soon though!
Since there are so many new readers here, I wanted to make an introduction post. One to introduce myself, but also to make clear how I'm curating this space.
Positionality:
You can call me Ore! I'm agender, transmisogyny exempt, and I use they/them pronouns. I am a third-generation Japanese-American immigrant and a patrilineal Jew. I'm naming these identities because they shape how I interact with the world and what serves as a basis for my knowledge production.
I've been practicing witchcraft for eleven years. I'm primarily a kitchen witch and a diviner, with my main divination tools being tarot and dream interpretation. My practice is expanding into astrology, spirit work, and Irish paganism. However, since I am still a novice in those areas, I probably won't be making any posts about them anytime soon.
Additionally, I am reconnecting to my shinto heritage. However, shintoism is not witchcraft, and I keep the two practices separate.
Purpose:
The purpose of this page is to share parts of my craft that I've been cultivating for years. However, witchcraft and/or spirituality does not exist in a vacuum. The personal is political and the political is personal. As a result, the work I share here is witchcraft for and a part of our liberation.
Liberation, to me, is achieving our collective freedom from all systems of oppression. My understanding of liberatory politics comes out of the centuries of emotional, physical, and spiritual labor of Black and Indigenous women. As such, I will always name the epistemic ties I pull from to write my posts when discussing deeper theory.
While I have guides and mentors in my witchcraft, the majority of which are not texts I can cite. However, if I am pulling from a specific tangible source, I will name it as well.
Audience:
This blog is for sex workers, trans women, Black and Indigenous folk, Palestinians, people unhoused, addicts, disabled people, refugees, and undocumented people. This blog centers those who are most marginalized. Loving, caring, and protecting these people is how we get free.
If you are not a part of any of the prior communities, that is okay. You are still welcome here as long as you treat others with respect. As a result, this is not a space for SWERFs, TERFs, racists, zionists, nazis, or fascists.
Expectations:
I don't debate human rights. I do not find these conversations liberatory or worth my mental and emotional energy to try to convert people into seeing the value of other human beings.
I block liberally as a result. While I believe in transformative justice, I recognize that not everyone here is following the same path as me and that I can't force them to. Additionally, having access to this space is a privilege, not a right. By centering marginalized people, this space actively de-centers bigots.
I don't vet every single blog I interact with, as there are hundreds, but that doesn’t mean I am excusing their behavior. If I am actively engaging with someone who has done harm, I want to know so I can respond appropriately.
This doesn’t mean I will jump on the cancellation train for anyone or at all. Cancellation does not equal harm reduction or prevention. Additionally, there are marginalized people who are often accused of doing harm because of their identity, i.e. pedo-jacketing for trans women or calling Black men rapists, so I will take the time to verify claims.
I re-stack a lot of posts, some of which are not targeted at me. Interacting with a post does not mean I am actively practicing something that requires an initiation. I just like to share what other spiritual / political people are doing. However, if you want me to remove one of your posts from my blog, I will. No questions asked unless you want to have a dialogue about it.
Lastly, I'm a human being who is trying my best, but I am not perfect. I will inevitably do harm because I take risks and try new things. When that occurs, I want to know it happened, and I want to take accountability for my actions
Education:
At the end of the day, I believe this blog to be an educational space. I want to share tools for witchcraft that help us get free. I know there is ongoing discourse about free versus paid subscriptions on substack. However, I'm not on here enough to have formed an opinion yet. As a result, my blog will be free. Also frankly, I don't post enough for a paid monthly subscription to make sense in the first place.
I would like to eventually offer paid individual readings and dream interpretations. However, I do not have the capacity at the moment, and I don't want to figure out taxes. If I do offer services, it will be in December or in 2026, which is so not a real year.
Posting:
I try to post once a month, and I haven't ignored that deadline yet! Additionally, I hop on substack when planets move around because I want to know what the astrology blogs are saying. While I'm not on here super frequently, I still want to hear from you! My posts are a conversation, not a lecture. If things resonated, I want to know. I love attention, so don't be afraid to say hi!
I am also open to feedback on my posts. If there is a glaring issue or something factually incorrect, I want to know. For grammar stuff, I would not like feedback about, please and thank you. The caveat to that is if my grammar poses an accessibility issue. Also, I know I tend to use jargony terms, so let me know if something is unclear based on word choice. Not everything I write is targeted toward beginner witches or people new to liberation theory, but that doesn’t mean that it should be inaccessible for people who want to learn!
Additionally, I make my tarot spreads with a free Canva account and a dream. If you need a high contrast tarot spread image or want me to update the alt description for images, let me know! And let me know if there are any other accommodations that may be helpful!
Conclusion:
Thank you for taking the time to learn about me and my blog! I don't expect everyone to read this whole thing, so I will also have a condensed version in my about me section. Hopefully, that will be easier to access once this post moves further down my blog the more I post.