PODCAST

Sabrina Marie Chase
Welcome to the Grounded Magic podcast! We have a unique and beautiful experience for you today. We’re joined by T. Thorn Coyle, who is best known as a powerful and prolific witch and writer. But guess what? Thorn is also an amazing dispenser of universal wisdom who’s here to share some of that good stuff with us! So, T. Thorn Coyle worked in many strange and diverse occupations before settling in to write novels. A queer, nonbinary mystic, Thorn has been a student of the magical arts for forty years and taught in nine countries, on four continents, and in twenty-five states. Author of the Seashell Cove Paranormal Mystery series, the Pride Street Paranormal Cozy Mysteries, The Steel Clan Saga, The Witches of Portland, and The Panther Chronicles, Thorn’s multiple non-fiction books include Sigil Magic for Writers, Artists & Other Creatives, Kissing the Limitless, Make Magic of Your Life, and Evolutionary Witchcraft. Thorn’s work also appears in many anthologies, magazines, and collections. An active creative, Thorn has written and co-produced four music albums, is a former professional dancer, and an avid amateur photographer. An interloper to the Pacific Northwest U.S., Thorn drinks a lot of tea, pays proper tribute to the neighborhood cats, and talks to crows, squirrels, and trees.

April Terreau
Hello and welcome back to the Grounded Magic Podcast. I’m April Terreau.

Sabrina Marie Chase
And I’m Sabrina Marie Chase.

April Terreau
And today we’re excited to welcome T. Thorn Coyle. Hello, Thorn.

Thorn Coyle
Hello. Thanks for having me.

April Terreau
We’re so, so excited that you’re here. You are a prolific witch writer. You have done so many amazing things. And we’re just really touched that you said yes to our podcast and we know you have so much to share. So let’s get right into it. We’ll start with the first question we ask all of our guests is, “What is magic to you?”

Thorn Coyle
Well, I have a couple theories about magic. My main definition is magic is the marriage of breath, or life force, breath, will, and desire. Right? So we access life force, we invoke our will, which are, is our ability to put intention into action. And then we are able to better manifest our desire. And magic, to be powerful and effective, needs, breath, will, and desire. But another aspect of magic that I love, that I work with more and more deeply, as time goes on, is magic as a sense of wonder, you know? I approach the world with a sense of wonder. I go for my walks every day, and I noticed the tiny little things that most people pass on by, and that keeps feeding my sense of magic. And we need more wonder in the world. So I think we need more magic in the world. So those are my two current working definitions.

April Terreau
I love it. I’m so, I’m all about the wonder as well, like bringing just that wonder back of just being with your dog, and, you know, walking with your dog. And for me, it’s, I walk with my dog, and seeing nature, and seeing the trees, and feeling the trees, and feeling all the energy and love it.

Thorn Coyle
Yeah, it offers a sense of connection in a world that so often seeks to disconnect us.

April Terreau
Mm hmm.

Sabrina Marie Chase
So I’m really curious. If you look at your life as a tapestry, and you trace out some of the important threads that brought you here, can you tell us about what those are, and how they brought you to this place in your life? Well, I’ve really always been a spiritual seeker. I had a profound experience around age six or seven where I was surrounded by light, and it was palpable. I could feel it, I could see it, I could touch it. And that light stayed with me through my childhood, and my teenage years. It really, I felt, protected me from an often violent, tumultuous life, you know, I was dealing with in my childhood. And so that’s where it started. I was raised Catholic. Around age 13, I started saying, “Well, I believe like, all gods are the same.” And my parents would say, “Well, yes, but Jesus is the true God.” Right? And I was like, “That, that’s not what I mean.” And by age 16, I could no longer recite the Nicene Creed. I literally couldn’t force the words past my lips. And that’s when I started studying the Craft.

Thorn Coyle
I started studying magic, and witchcraft. And I realized, “Oh, what I am, and what I’ve always really been, is an animist.” You know, the world is alive. It’s a magical living place, I interact, and have communication, and connection, with all these things. And that’s what started me on my magical path. So magic has been with me since my teens. I’m now in my mid-to-late 50s. And on the way, I have studied other things, being a spiritual seeker. I’ve studied various new age philosophies, you know, in the eighties. I’ve studied with Buddhist friends of mine. I did a deep dive with the Gurdjieff Work. And I also studied with the Mevlevi, Whirling Dervishes, which, and all of that came into a connection. You talk about a tapestry. All those threads came together, to deepen and inform my work. And so all of my practice and my teaching, is all of those threads woven together, and cycled through my own deep spiritual practice. So, I’m not a traditional witch in a lot of ways. But on the other hand, you know, magic workers use what’s available to us. And that is what I have done. But spiritual practice has been at the top of my priority list from a very, very young age.

Sabrina Marie Chase
That’s incredibly exciting. And it’s interesting to hear all of the threads that have contributed to your work. Because reading it, it’s really clear to me that you are someone who pulls together and transmits universal wisdom that works across tradition. Looking at “Crafting a Daily Practice: A Simple Course on Self Commitment,” that you wrote, it’s very Craft-friendly. But I can see it working across a bunch of different traditions for people who come from different places, and I love that. And you mentioned practice. And there’s one quote that I thought was especially powerful. It was when you said, “For me, practice should always aim toward the integration of all of our parts, and the expansion of our capacity to be kinder, more creative, more aware, and more powerful human beings.”

Thorn Coyle
Yes.

Sabrina Marie Chase
So I’d love for you just talk a little more about that. And you’re very, you tell the story of how you came into practice really well in this. And I’d love if you could tell a little more of it to our listeners.

Thorn Coyle
Thank you. Um, so I think because of my tumultuous childhood, I was raised to be a perfectionist. I was raised to be codependent. I was raised in a, you know, all those traumatic, you know, the trauma response that so many people have. And I realized I was trying to cut parts of myself away, or suppress parts of myself. And the more I did that, of course, the more they fought back, and the more they controlled my life from behind the scenes. So, in trying to cut them out or suppress them, I was not aware of their influence. The more I practiced embracing all those parts, sitting with those parts on the cushion every day, bringing all those parts of self to the altar every day, the more I realized what they had to teach me, and what the rest of me had to teach those parts. And so I realized integration was key. Right? So bringing my whole self to my practice.

Thorn Coyle
I had to teach myself how to learn as an adult, because my default as a young person was I only did what I thought I was good at, because I would get punished if I did things incorrectly. And, you know, I was also precocious, so doing what was easy to me, came easily, right? And now I *love* to learn. I love to practice new things. I love to stretch those muscles. Because I’m, realize, “Oh, yes, my whole self is on this spiritual, and physical, and emotional, journey.” Right? And so becoming whole, becoming integrated, for me is the key to practice.

Thorn Coyle
And that begins with recognizing all my parts. Disintegration, I feel, it causes a whole cascade of all the ills we’re dealing with right now, you know, including climate disaster, war, rampant greed, income inequality, police shootings, you know, all—you know, sexism, misogyny, trans misogyny, and the anti-queer stuff that’s happening right now. Right? All of that is disintegration. And it doesn’t recognize that we ourselves are an ecosystem. That we live in an ecosystem, not only in our communities, and our families, and in this beautiful planet, but the whole cosmos. Right? Star stuff is in our blood. Right? So those connections, and that interdependence, ripples out into every layer of being. So my spiritual practice, I want to reflect even just a tiny piece of that.

April Terreau
I love what you’re saying. And I’m like, thinking to myself, in my own practice, and it’s like, I have parts that I definitely don’t want to bring to the magic, in the day. Like, there’s parts of myself that I don’t want that part of myself come showing up for my spiritual practice. So can you give us like practical tools on, on how to bring your whole self, like all of those parts of yourself, and not ignoring the parts that you don’t want? Like, how do, how do you do this?

Sabrina Marie Chase
Beautiful!!

Thorn Coyle
Well, I started by sitting my butt down. I resisted sitting practice for decades, until finally my Gurdjieff teacher was like, “Sorry, you just have to sit.” And it wasn’t, they didn’t call it meditation, which actually was helpful to me, because we have here in the West, some misconceptions about what meditation is, we think, “Oh, I have to be perfectly still and clear my mind and be light as a feather.” And none of that is true. And so we just say, “Well, I can’t do it.” Sitting practice for me, is sitting with all my parts. “Oh, my back aches now. Okay, I’m going to notice that. Oh, I’m concerned about this thing, okay, I’m going to notice that. I’m having this emotional state, I’ll notice that.” And I just sit, and breathe, and keep recentering. And then throughout the day, I see “Oh, oh, random thought or emotion. I know you. I sat with you this morning.” Right?

Thorn Coyle
So it helps me recognize these are just almost automatic functions of my being. I don’t have to give them such weight, and control all the time. And if I do give them weight and control, I can then later say, “I want to decide what I want to do about that. Do I need to apologize to my partner for acting this way? Because it was just this automatic response? Or do I need to say, ‘Wow, part of self, you need a little extra love right now? Or maybe we should go for a walk?'” You know?

Thorn Coyle
I’m not sure if that’s, fully answering your question. But those are just a couple strategies that I have used to help me, because the other thing I’ve realized over the years is that some of those parts of self I dislike have actually been the driving forces of my life’s work. I am very impatient. And that impatience is sometimes a problem. And it has been a problem in the past. And I struggled with it, and I wished I could will it away. But really, my impatience means I want us all to evolve into more compassionate, kinder, creative, beings. Right? I want to do this work, I want to do the work of social justice in the world, because dammit, something has to change. If I wasn’t impatient, I’d go, “Uh, well, the world is as it is. I can’t really do anything about it. So I’ll just tend my garden.” And that’s fine for some people. It’s not who I am. Who I am, is driven by this impatience. So this thing I always thought was a character flaw is actually one of my greatest allies.

April Terreau
You have just transformed my whole inner world. Because really, impatience is one of my, one of the things that I’m like, “I want it now!” And it when I’m—wow, thank you for seeing that in a whole new light. And it’s because I’m, I’m impatient with you. I want the whole world to transform. I want people to level up, I want people to get their heads out of their butts. And to like, hello, we all love each other. And we just want to connect with each other. And we’re doing all of the disconnecting. So wow, wow. And, and I took on a year of surrender, like just learning to surrender, surrender, surrender, and it was beautiful, and it was exactly what I needed. And it helped me a little bit with that impatience, knowing things come in their time when they’re ready. But I love that whole, that whole reframe about your impatience. Thank you. What a gift.

Thorn Coyle
There’s a practice both in some magical traditions, and in some Tibetan Buddhist traditions, that is “feeding your demons.” Again, rather than trying to shove them away, kill them, whatever, excise them, feeding your demons, feeding those parts of self that we struggle and fight with, is a way of acknowledging they have wants and needs too. So what is my impatient want, impatience want and need, and can I feed it some of that? And so then, all of a sudden, this thing I’ve been naming a demon becomes an ally. And that is a powerful magical act. But we can only do that consciously. And it definitely takes self-examination. And that’s not always an easy task.

Sabrina Marie Chase
So for me, this brings up another issue, another barrier, another thing that needs to be turned from poison into medicine, and that is resistance. So I have eleven practices that I track. I don’t do them all every day, not even close. But the days I try to do more than the not. And resistance is a big deal. I laughed when I found the place in your course where you said “Make a picture of your resistance,” because I did that!

Thorn Coyle
That’s great.

Sabrina Marie Chase
But my resistance looks like one of those snakey things from Beetlejuice and hangs out here, and looks at me, and I’m looking at that going, “Not today.” But there are plenty of days where I say, “Today,” you know? And I love what you said about resistance. You pointed out that maybe some of that resistance comes because we know that if we do the practice, we’re going to change.

Thorn Coyle
That’s correct. That is correct

Sabrina Marie Chase
And that’s scary. Can you talk more about that?

Thorn Coyle
Yeah. So one of my teachers, Victor Anderson, said, “Anything worthwhile is dangerous.” I always add the caveat, “Not everything dangerous is worthwhile.” But, it’s dangerous *because* of change. It’s dangerous, because we are risking the status quo. We are risking our internal comfort level, our equilibrium, all the things we’re used to. You know, think of a seed under the earth, it has to crack the shell, the sprout has to crack the shell, and then push its way up through the earth to find sun and rain. And to become the flower, or the zucchini, or whatever it’s meant to be. And we have to do the same thing. We have to crack that shell in order to grow. So the res…but the resistance, the beauty about that resistance—and we know this really clearly from butterflies coming out of the chrysalis—they struggle, and the struggle actually, the struggle to break through is what strengthens them enough to fly. Right? It uses all their muscles, and we have to use all of our muscles too, on a mental, emotional, heart, body, soul level, right? And the other thing I like to point out about resistance is Paolo Soleri’s great arcology experiment, Arcosanti, in the desert. They built huge biodomes to grow their plants, and they planted trees. And the trees eventually all fell over. Because the trees never had to root because there was no wind resistance. They never had to resist anything. And so they fell. Right? So…

Sabrina Marie Chase
Wow.

Thorn Coyle
So we don’t want conditions that are so harsh, you know, it makes life impossible for us. That’s not what I’m talking about. But there are good challenges. And resistance is one of those good challenges. Right? Resistance can help us grow. Resistance teaches us. Resistance helps us grow stronger and more complete, and better able to center ourselves. The other thing resistance can do is point to something we’ve been avoiding. Right? “Why do I feel this resistance right now? Yes, it’s not only because I fear change, or upsetting my status quo. But maybe there’s something else that I haven’t been looking at. So can I pause a moment? Can I take a breath and sit with my resistance, before pushing through?” And say, “What do you have to teach me today?”

Thorn Coyle
You know, I do that sometimes when I’m sitting down to write. There are days when I’m just antsy to get to the page, I can’t wait, the story’s flowing. There are other days where I do feel resistance, and I just sit for a moment, take a breath, and say “What’s here? Oh, maybe I want to approach it from this angle. Right?” I don’t do this for long, because I don’t want to get trapped in avoidance techniques, right? We’re very clever. We can always find ways to skirt around things. So I don’t give it too much time. But I do give it a little bit of time. I give it a few breaths. And then I do the task. I move through.

Sabrina Marie Chase
Thank you for that extremely pragmatic lesson. And actually, it helps me deal with my worst issue today. Thank you.

Thorn Coyle
Excellent.

Sabrina Marie Chase
So, I also want to return this to something that you pointed out privately here, and that’s the importance of starting simplis, simply in your daily practice, and I would love it if you could address that.

Thorn Coyle
People, whenever they start any practice, physical, emotional, spiritual, we often think we need to do all the things. We need to, “Okay now I need to set aside an hour of time every morning.” No. Do what we can, where we can, when we can. That’s true in my justice work, that’s true of every practice for me. That said, there is value in commitment and discipline. Right? So I don’t want to be willy-nilly with my practices. But I do want to be gentle, especially when I’m starting. I want to say, “Okay, starting out, I’m starting by sitting for five minutes. I’m going to light a candle, and I’m just going to sit and breathe, and look at the candle. Right? And that’s all I do. And then I blow out the candle I go about my day.”

Thorn Coyle
So I build up my capacity for practice, just like I build up my capacity for anything else. In starting simply, we always have something to return to. If we start grandiose, we have no foundation. Right? So it’s the simple building blocks that give us the proper support, so that our life does not wash away, like a building built on sand. Right? So start with sitting for five minutes. Then add in some stretching practice. Then add in some prayer. Then add in, maybe you need to sit for twenty minutes. Practice that for a month. Right? See what happens. Approach it with curiosity—you don’t know. Right? So keep making simple commitments. But always allow yourself—if today, is really, truly an overwhelming day, you go back to five minutes. And if that feels like too much…you know, I talked to medical professionals who work in busy emergency rooms, and then have children at home. And one of them said, “What I do is, I just, instead of scrolling on my phone, when I have one minute, I breathe. I center myself, right?”

Thorn Coyle
Another practice I say to people is “Go wash your hands. Be fully present while you’re washing your hands, or be fully present, while you’re drinking your water.” Right? So we can add in several, very simple building blocks, to scatter throughout our day, to keep returning us to the heartbeat of practice and center. And then it builds up over time, we strengthen our muscles, and we have more support in our lives. The basic thing is take a breath, drop down, find your center, that place between your navel and your pelvic bowl, and just breathe. Even if it’s three breaths. So simplicity becomes the thing we can return to. Without simplicity, we have nothing to return to. Right? Doing the, doing the elaborate stuff is great, don’t get me wrong, and I have done it. And I love it. And I still do it. But the simple stuff is my backbone.

April Terreau
It’s so good. Because, you know, I think about “Oh, I’m gonna get to the gym, and I’m going to do an hour, at like five times a week,” and it like, it never happens! And then it actually stops me from doing any exercise because, well, I’m not going to the gym, until I you know, sit and beat myself up for not going to the gym and doing an hour five times a week. Whereas, it could be like I could do one pushup. I could do one sit up and see how that feels. And then breathe into my body. Great. So simple for today. And then tomorrow, add something else. You know, like, it’s so good. It’s such a great lesson in just starting small, keeping it simple. And you always have that place to return to

Thorn Coyle
One of my favorite things is doing counter pushups while waiting for my tea water to boil. I’m waiting for the water to boil. I may as well get some exercise. Or I can stand and breathe, you know. Yeah, you know, the saying you’re going to the gym for five hours a week is another way in which perfectionism trips us up. It becomes a stumbling block and it means—it actually lets us off the hook. Because if we can’t do it perfectly, then we don’t have to do it at all.

April Terreau
I’m always saying this to Miss Sabrina, “Done is better than perfect. Done is better than perfect. Done is better than perfect.”

Sabrina Marie Chase
Guilty. Guilty as charged.

Thorn Coyle
Yeah. And another thing I say is “Practice makes possible.”

Sabrina Marie Chase
Mmmmm. I love that, “Practice makes possible.”

Thorn Coyle
Yeah. That is one, that’s one of my key phrases that I return to.

Sabrina Marie Chase
Wow.

Thorn Coyle
Love that! Can you talk to us a bit about alignment? Something we talk about a lot is alignment, and returning to alignment, returning—like, we call it realignment, realignment, realignment. And aligning with soul, higher self, Gods, whatever it is. But what’s your, how do you feel about alignment?

Thorn Coyle
Alignment is another key practice of mine. And it goes back to the earlier conversation where, we were having about bringing all of our parts to our practice, bringing all of our parts to the table. If I am keeping some of my parts out in the cold, I’m never going to be in a state of alignment. We, we think we have to excise all those terrible, awful parts, in order to align. But the reality is, is we can’t align without them. So alignment is a state of inner truth. If you think of being true, you know, the forks of a bicycle have to be true, they’re in alignment for the bicycle to steer properly, and function properly. And it’s the same for us. Right? We want to be in a state of alignment.

Thorn Coyle
So I want to align my animal nature, my instincts, with my human rational self and my emotions, with my deep wisdom, or my God soul, or whatever you want to call it. Right? I want all those parts to be working in concert. And that starts with self-awareness. But there’s also a very simple breathing technique that I was taught by my teachers, Victor and Cora Anderson, but I’ve also adapted for myself. And the simplest way to do it is I take in a breath from my physical body. I take in a breath from my animal, self, my instincts, my childlike nature. And I honor that, those parts. And I take in a breath from my human, rational self, my ego, my ambitions, my thoughts, my hopes, my dreams. And I take in a breath from my deep wisdom, my connection with the whole cosmos, my divine nature. And on that fourth exhalation, I tilt my head back, and I breathe up as a prayer for alignment. So why don’t we just all do that together really briefly?

April Terreau
Please, let’s.

Sabrina Marie Chase
Let’s do it.

April Terreau
Unless you’re driving, keep your eyes open. If you’re driving. But breathe. Just, yes.

Thorn Coyle
So just feel your body, your emotions, all your parts, and invite all of your parts to be present right now. The parts you love, the parts you dislike, the parts you ignore, the parts you embrace, invite them all to be present. The parts that feel healthy, or wounded, creative, or ambitious, invite them all to be present. And just start with one full deep breath.

Thorn Coyle
And now taking one full deep breath, for your animal nature, your instincts, your childlike self. And honor all those parts of yourself as you exhale. And when you’re ready, take in another breath for your human, rational soul, for who you are in the world: your shining self, your ambitions, your hopes, your dreams. And as you exhale, honor all those human parts of yourself. And now take in a deep breath for your deep wisdom, your divine nature, your connection to everything in the cosmos. And as you exhale, tilt your head back and breathe up as a prayer for alignment. And any extra energy, feel it cascading around you and back to earth as a blessing. And say, “I would know myself in all my parts. Blessed be.”

April Terreau
Blessed be.

Sabrina Marie Chase
Blessed be. Blessed be. Thank you.

April Terreau
That is beautiful. Thank you for that gift. What a great way to just get into alignment really quickly. Ah! Feelin’ good!

Thorn Coyle
Excellence. And the beauty of that is if I do that in the morning, then I can remember to do it throughout the day. And so if I set up that template in the morning, throughout the day, if I just have extra energy, if I feel excited, or if I have anxiety, or anger, I can tilt my head back, breathe some of that extra energy up, and say a prayer for alignment.

April Terreau
Wow, Thorn, you are so full of such amazing wisdom. We could talk for hours, and hours, and hours. But clearly we can’t. So one thing I’d like to wrap up our episode with is we like to, one of my sayings is that “Transformation only happens in action.” And it’s the action, like actually doing things that actually has you transform. It’s great to have insights, you know, but it could just be a lot of navel gazing, unless you’re actually, taking action and seeing that transformation become alive and real. So one thing we ask at the end of an episode is “What are you taking from this conversation that you’re going to put into action?” So Sabrina, what are you going to take into action?

Sabrina Marie Chase
Well, actually, Thorn, like I said, you addressed one of the knottier problems I face today, which has to do with facing resistance, and doing that which is worth doing, which means it’s dangerous. So I’m going to take that set of insights into a conversation with my partner directly after this recording session, with courage.

Thorn Coyle
Fantastic.

April Terreau
Awesome. And for me, there’s so much, I was writing so many notes as you were talking. But one of the ones is asking the parts of myself what they need, and feeding them something that they need, as opposed to just, “Go away, get away, I don’t want to be part of me anymore.” That’s just, it’s such a beautiful thing. Actually, I did a lot of transformational work from a part of myself and actually repurposed that part, for to do, have another job. And it was life-transforming, like life-transforming. And I, “Oh, I could do that with all the other parts, too.” So, I’m going to talk to those parts, and ask them, ask them what it is they need, and have conversations with them as opposed to avoiding them. So thank you.

Thorn Coyle
I love that. And the thing I’m going to take into action, and I love this question, because as I started, you know, will is intention in action, right? The action I’m going to take is to remember, no matter…I work for myself, and I do a variety of jobs throughout the day. And the thing I’m going to take into action is remembering to recenter every time I switch tasks. Right? So I’m going to center before writing fiction. I’ll center before writing nonfiction. I’ll center before writing an email. I’ll center before doing publishing work. Right? And I think that is going to become a new heartbeat over the next quarter, that I, that’s my intention, is to practice with that for the next three months. So thank you.

April Terreau
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for sharing so generously with us. You are an absolute treat to have on the podcast. I’m hoping that maybe we can have you back on again at another time because, I feel like we’ve just like scratched the surface of

Thorn Coyle
for sure.

Thorn Coyle
I would love that. Thanks so much again for inviting me, and I wish you blessings on all of your work.

Sabrina Marie Chase
Thank you so much.

April Terreau
Thank you

April Terreau
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Sabrina Marie Chase
The Grounded Magic Podcast is powered by IndigoFires Productions. Sound engineered by Eric Terreau of Terreau Studios. Music composed and performed by Eric Terreau. Online business management and website by Natalie Gallagher. Founded by April Terreau and Sabrina Marie Chase.