BONUS EP: Remembering Rachel Pollack (Rerelease of #55 - Rachel Pollack, Tarot Titan and Radical Writer [Ad-Free])

The Witch Wave

Pam Grossman

Arts, Visual Arts, Spirituality, Other, Religion & Spirituality

4.9 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2023

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

BONUS EPISODE: In honor of the brilliant Rachel Pollack who passed away on April 7th, we're rereleasing our episode with her. May you rest in peace and power, Rachel, our eternal High Priestess of Heresy. <3

***

Rachel Pollack was a legend who is perhaps best known as one of the world’s foremost tarot experts, having written such classics as Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom and The New Tarot Handbook. She’s also the creator of The Shining Tribe Tarot and co-creator with Robert Place of The Burning Serpent Oracle and the Raziel Deck.

But tarot is just of tip of the iceberg, as she was the author of 43 books of fiction and non-fiction, many of them in the speculative or sci-fi genres, including Unquenchable Fire which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and Godmother Night, which won the World Fantasy Award. She was also an accomplished comic book writer and pioneer, and during her run for DC Comics’ Doom Patrol in the 1990s, she introduced one of the world’s first transgender superheroes - and is now considered by many to be a transgender superhero herself.

Rachel’s work has been translated into 16 languages, and she has taught and lectured on tarot, creative writing, gender, and innumerable other topics in the U.S. Canada, Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and China. And until her retirement, she was a senior faculty member of Goddard College’s MFA in Writing program.

Rachel’s most recent book is The Beatrix Gates, a volume which collects several of her most visionary stories as well as a brand new essay on magic and transgender living. In 2020, it was nominated for a Lambda Award.

One can see why poet Cat Fitzpatrick called Rachel “a living national treasure.”

On this episode, Rachel discusses the relationship between tarot and comic books, the importance of visionary transgender storytelling, and why her religion is Heresy.

Pam also speaks about following magical clues long term, and answers a listener question about practicing fire magic in the home.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to a bonus episode of The Witch Wave. I'm popping in at a bit of an unusual time
0:09.3	in our schedule because as some of you may have heard by now, Rachel Pollock passed away last week
0:18.3	on April 7th of 2023 at the age of 77. Rachel was so many things, a tarot, expert and teacher and
0:31.2	author, a sci-fi and speculative fiction writer, the creator of the first transgender superhero,
0:40.5	and a transgender goddess herself. I was very blessed to have gotten to meet her and speak with her
0:48.5	over the years and to interview her here on The Witch Wave in June of 2020 for my season three
0:57.3	season finale. And I thought that the best way to honor her now and to honor her memory is to revisit
1:07.9	that conversation during which she was every bit as brilliant and funny and kind and magical as
1:15.9	one would hope. She was the kind of woman that I aspire to be because she was so completely
1:24.0	and unapologetically herself and lived a life devoted to adventure and curiosity and unbridled
1:33.9	creativity and liberatory spirituality. I will miss her as will so many many many others around
1:43.5	the world whose lives she's touched through her writing, her teaching, and her deep love
1:50.4	of visionary divinity and transformational living. May all who knew her and her work find comfort
1:59.3	and peace in the days ahead and may her words continue to make the world a better,
2:06.9	freer and more marvelous place. Rest in power and blessed be to the high priestess herself,
2:17.2	Rachel Pollock. Thank you for your majesty and your magic, Rachel. And now here is the
2:26.0	ad-free version of my episode with Rachel Pollock.
2:35.7	The world is filled with bewitching people and you might be one too. Welcome to the podcast
2:41.6	where art is magic, magic is real, and reality is stranger than dreams. I'm Pam Grossman
2:48.8	and this is The Witch Wave.
3:18.8	Hello and welcome to The Witch Wave. Yes, my friends, it's the season finale. Season three.
3:34.7	Who are we? Have we been through a lot since autumn? I want to firstly thank you all for continuing
	...

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