0:01Welcome to Demystify Magic with Molly and Madison.I'm Molly, a former skeptic turned full time energy healer and teacher.And I'm Madison, a born and raised witch running my family's crystal shop.And we're here to explore all things woo through the lens of both science and spirituality, so that you can find the moments of magic in your everyday life and create an intentional spiritual practice.0:20So if that's what you're into, find a cozy spot, take a deep breath, and let's demystify some magic.Howdy Doody friends.Hello hello.We have a very special guest today.Y'all have been begging us since our low effort kitchen witchery episode to talk about tea and magic and tea rituals and bringing magic into tea and turning tea into magic.0:45And who better to talk to us about that than the one the only the founder, the master tea blender of the tea company Magic Hour, Madison and Ies favorite tea company.So we have we have Xena Musica.1:01I got that right.Yes, we have her in the house today and we're so excited to talk tea with you, spill the tea with each other.Yay, welcome.Thank you so much for having me.And I love, I feel like the tea mommy of all you young witches.1:19I love it.I'm the OG.I'm the OG tea Mama.And yeah.And it's, it's funny you guys, because my first company, Zena's Gypsy team, my family is Roma Gypsy from Ukraine.And my grandmother taught me magic, basically not calling it that.1:37And I had palm readings on my my packaging.And we were, we got distribution into all these grocery stores in the Midwest and stuff.And I got discontinued because when they saw the palm reading on the packaging at Kroger, they discontinued us.1:54And I had to go and I had to to sticker all the tins and cover it a lot.And it's so fun with this tea company 20 years later, where there's so much less fear around our witchy ways and being ourselves and talking about, you know, herbal medicine and talking about magic.2:12And thank God for you guys.Like you guys are a generation where you're going to make it normal again.And I'm just so glad that I was there in the beginning to sort of start chopping away at the angle of conservative thinking that's just limited.2:31And, you know, magic is our birthright.So I'm really excited to be here with with you guys, you little magicians.I love that complete transformation of like, going from being discontinued in the Kroger because of something on your tin to fully being like, well, you know what?2:47Now it's called Magic Hour and it's all magic.Goddammit, suck at Kroger.Yeah, exactly.Well, and what was amazing back then is I knew I was right, but I was so young.I was in my 20s and I was a single mom.3:03I had very little resources.But things kept happening like magic.Doors kept opening and we ended up in 20,000 grocery stores.I raised eight and a half, $1,000,000 in in venture capital.And I was a college dropout.3:18I'd studied herbal medicine in Peru.I was, you know, my grandmother Maria was an immigrant from Ukraine and had fought for her life to get to America.And here we were making, you know, herbal remedies and food that had, you know, plant magic in them in the kitchen and then, you know, delivering it to her church on Sundays.3:40And nothing seemed wrong or bad about any of it until I got into business.And then it was like, oh, you know, I was competing with Lipton and, and all these like big dogs in the grocery stores.3:56And they, I was this little kitchen witch who would come up with these blends and was sharing them with people because it was so exciting.And then all of a sudden, you know, the, the venture capitalists loved it in the beginning, but then they wanted to turn it into a women's diet tea.4:15And that's how I got fired.I was, I'm sorry.I'm a founder of Fair Trade.I'm not a founder of telling women they have to change their bodies.Like, like becoming a whole is cool.Becoming, you know, full of of vitality and and joy is cool, but telling them like their pitch they brought in ACEO from Nestle and the guy his pitch was lose 10 lbs in 10 days for 10 bucks and I was all I'm out.4:46Yeah.Yeah, got to go see you later.It's a no for me.There is.Absolutely nothing about this.I was like, what are they going to do?Cut off their arm?Like how do they move that way?Like, that's fine.That's not OK.So I ended up publishing my own imprint of books at Simon and Schuster in between tea companies.5:07And my boss there was my is my publisher, Judith Kerr.And she's super witchy.And she was on the 13th floor in Rockefeller Center.And I started showing up to work in New York and they and I brought my they wanted me to bring my tarot cards to every single meeting.5:26And so here I was with my little tea tray in Rockefeller Center publishing books about about spirituality and the CEO of a top five, and they all wanted me to do their cards in every meeting.5:41And I thought, oh, maybe I've arrived.And then when I started Magic Hours, they had tanked Xena's and it went out of business.And I thought, well, with this company, what I'm going to do is I have to make tea.I could not just be in books.5:57Like tea and books are my two favorite things, but they go together.And so with this company, what would it look like to just be myself every day?Well, I'd wake up.I would play in the tea lab.I would hang out like drink tea.I would gather women around tea.6:13I would teach women about tea.We would do other things like learn tarot.I would teach them about tarot.And then I was like, and then I would have incense, perfume, jewelry, sparkles, and women gathering all over the world.And so I started Magic Hour with that in mind.6:30What would I do if I got a chance to be myself every day?And now we're almost bigger than Xena's was in five years so.That is so incredible.That is the magic of knowing your own magic and saying, what if I get to express this every day?6:48How would this look in the world?And that's what I want every young woman and every, everyone to be able to embrace is what would it look like to get a chance to be myself every day?And Molly, I, I mean, your Instagram, I'm like, you crack me up and you're doing it like you're getting you are yourself every day.7:06And I'm sure Madison, you are too, because you're, you have these stores where you're curating things that you love so other people can fall in love with them.And you guys are, you're revolutionary.We need, we need everyone to be like you.7:22Thank you.That's so tender.That's so nice.I have a 14 year old daughter who is a lead singer in a boy band.She came out at age 8 and she's my little gem.She's like a a star of my heart because she gets to be herself and I got to help her do that.7:40And you know, this is this is what older women like me have to do for younger women like you.We have to show you how to be in the world, but you guys are actually showing us.You guys are actually, you just came in knowing who you are.7:55And so we just have to cherish you and and treasure you and give you all the tools.So, yeah, all right, Well, before we dive any further, we start the podcast with something we call our Magic Moment of the Week.And this is most often just like a small moment of gratitude, a point in time where you really saw your own spiritual practice pay off.8:17So we're going to start off by asking you, what was your magic moment this?Week I'm probably I have so.Which is the best answer?I so yesterday we were planning our, our holiday products with my, my team.8:36And there was this moment we were in the new tea salon and we had just had these beautiful new lights installed and A and a hand embroidered a woman in London who I'm partnering with on some products.8:52Wendy Morrison sent me a phoenix rising and, and you know, the phoenix rises from the ashes and reinvention and, and we had we had put this huge embroidery on the back wall with these new lights and it was lit up.And I had this group of women and we were coming up with product ideas for fourth quarter.9:12And I looked around and I thought, this is what I lost everything for was to gain everything.Like I gained so much more by losing my first company to those investors.And I just had this moment of like, and then I had this massive kind of energetic, you know, when you get the Deja Vu and it was like your future self was saying to your, you in a hard moment, guess it's going to be OK, we're going to get there.9:41And I've got you.And so I had this, this feeling that my, you know, because time's not linear and our souls are infinite and ageless.I, I, I had this moment of like, I was here at one point and when I was down and out crying by myself, thinking I'd lost everything, I was probably saying to this younger self, like, I got you, don't worry, you need to go through this to get there.10:04So that was my magic.I would say that would be one of the magical moments of the week.That specifically, like I love this is what I lost it all for.I think that's such an important perspective to have.You know, obviously hindsight is 2020, but that is so powerful to be able to look back with that love and honor for the things that in the moment felt awful.10:25Yeah, awful.I thought I was I thought I was destroyed.I was the day I got fired.Actually, if we're talking about magic, I will tell you what happened.And because I, there's no other group that I have, I mean, I, my friends know this because they were there, but I have always held women's circles since I was a little girl.10:46My, my godmom is the high priestess in a, in a circle up in Idaho where I was born.And I had this women's circle when things were going South with my first company, I gathered all my women and I said, you know what?We're going to do a new moon.I've always done new moon and full moon rituals.11:02I said, we're going to have a new moon mastermind.So I gathered 13 of us and I had a year on my property at the time and I would gather all the women together.Well, so, so I decide one one night or when one of the rituals that I was going to do a a ritual with Ganesha, the remover of obstacles in the Hindu pantheon.11:25I love Ganesha.He's the elephant headed God and he's, he's this magical.And so I said, I said, we're going to what we're going to do is we're going to remove the obstacles of our destiny.So I gathered the women and we did this.We, we wrote out our, what we felt were the obstacles to our destiny.11:43We did 108 chants of, of a Ganesha chant and and we burned the the papers and into these little jars.Then we took the jars to later everybody took it to their own house or wherever and we put it in water that was flowing away from us.12:03We opened up the jar and we took the So I put mine on the end of the pier in Ventura where the water could go away from me and the next day got fired.Wow.Next day, the next day I got fired.Like, and it was weird.12:20It was like an unusually massive, the chairman of my board called me from New York and I was like, Hey, did you get my note about those diet teas?I, I was like, I'm going to fix them.And we, we can't market them that way because that's really destructive.But you know, I used to have an eating disorder.12:35I don't really want to have my name on this and blah, blah, blah.And he freaking fired the shit out of me.Like he started screaming at me that I was a crazy fraudulent B word like went off like it was really weird.12:50And this guy was like Wall Street hardcore running for Congress at the time.Like not I mean he was gnarly, but he wasn't that gnarly.And my little daughter, my daughter Mia was I think 4 at the time.And I just started sobbing because I did not expect this.13:06It was like a massive thing.But I don't think anything would have torn me away from my first company unless it was that intense and and almost it was there was a violence to it that spun me out.13:22And so after that I did a lot of Archangel Michael ritual and magic and and did a lot of of, you know, healing from that because it was gnarly.But later he contacted me when they were going under to, he said, I want you to have your name back.13:41And because they own the trademark to my first name.And I said, I said, well, why?I guess they were going.My grandfather survived five years in Buchenwald and a year in Saxenhausen.They were, you know, labor camps in Germany.13:59And my grandfather was a freedom fighter and the Ukrainian nationalist.So what happened was they were he was going with his wife on to go see the labor camps and it and he said, you know, I'd like to look up your grandfather's name.14:14And that was, I felt suddenly that I had healed a whole lineage.And what ended up happening was he didn't end up selling me back my name because he said I gloated on social media that they had failed.Yeah, I think I might have kind of did that.14:34Yeah, I think I did a little, but the healing was already there.And then I did a ritual and I invited all my friends we had.I couldn't move on from Gypsy T, seen as Gypsy T And I know the word Gypsy a lot of people say is derogatory, but I'm allowed to say it because it's MyHeritage and I like to take it back.14:53So I just want to clarify that now before people get mad at me for saying it because I get yelled at a lot, but I'm like, listen, I, I, I am this and I have lived this and this is my family and I can say whatever I want.So just going to clarify that.But with I, I started that company to take the name back and to and to stop letting people use it as a slur and to take it as a, as a crown.15:19But what ended up happening was I couldn't move on from that company.I was having a hard time.I was stuck in it and the pain of it of losing it.So I decided to have a funeral for it.And that's what magic is.The subconscious does not understand words, it understands symbols and that's what magic is.15:40So I, I invited all my friends.We dressed in black, we had a procession.I have videos of this and, and, and pictures too.I had everybody bring their tins of Zena's tea.We, I dug a grave, I buried them.I read a eulogy.15:56And then we went into my yurt and had a big tea party and everything in the yurt was white and white roses.And we went from the dark to the light.And I was able to clear the loss in my unconscious that that trauma.And then magic hour popped in within a week and they dropped in.16:14I saw it.It was and so that was that's where, you know, if you're wanting to demystify magic, it's it's the ritual aspect of the shifts and the changes you want to see in your day-to-day life ritualized.16:31And it's calling in the ancestors, it's calling in the energy of the four corners.It's calling in the, the unseen thousand hands, the helpers of the spirit world.It's calling in the light.And for me, I call, I work a lot with Jesus.16:48I'm, I was raised very mystical Christian, my grandmother's Greek Orthodox.So I call in the energy of Yeshua and, and mother Mary and the archangels.And so all of that is, is what magic is for.17:03It's not to it's very personal and it's a form of I, I really think it's the original religion.It's how we we individualized the the cosmos into simplistic, energetic rituals that we could understand and take ownership on.17:23And then it turned into the church where it was the priest and the priest was the only way to God.And then you have to give them money and power and then all of a sudden you can't have it yourself.But magic is individualized for you.It's a personal connection to the spirit world in the divine.17:41It has nothing to do with anyone else.But then if you do it in a group of women or if you do it in a group, then power is, it's a lot of power.And so.I love that.I love that ritual of like, because I, I know I've been talking to quite a few people are going through like periods of grief, at least people in our community, whether it be relationships, you know, grief of loss of who they were or loss of a human life, pet life, whatever.18:11And I love this idea of like creating that ritual out of it.And I love all the symbology you described of like, you know, burying the tea and then going from dark to light and having like, almost like a celebration on the other side and like creating space.What other kind of ideas do you have for folks who maybe want to start incorporating tea into their spiritual practice?18:34Do you have other like rituals or ideas that people can can try?Oh, all day, every day, every every day, for the rest of my living life.Give us a list.Yeah, so.So I practice tea ceremony.18:49Tea ceremony was created for mindfulness, so tea was Camellia sinensis.The plant itself was discovered about 6000 years ago by a monk.And this is the mythology.We don't know what the real discovery was.19:05I'm sure it was a woman who discovered it did a monk.You know.But but anyway, you know, you know, but what Camellia sinensis is a plant that I mean, this is her.She is incredible.This is a moonlight white and this plant is very, very high in L theanine.19:23L theanine is an amino acid that is calming to the brain and the nervous system.It's also full of polyphenols.It's also full of antioxidants and catechins, the actual substances in plants that help fight disease and aging and cancer and all of the things.19:42So, so tea is and then it also has a little bit of caffeine in it.So the L theanine calms you, the the caffeine lifts you, the theobromine connects, connects it all together.It's it's rich in theobromine and Theo Favins also.19:59Then you've got all these antioxidants, polyphenols, catechins that are actually helping the body fight, fight free radicals and damage.So tea in itself is magical.But Einstein had a quote we were talking about yesterday.20:15There's only two ways to live your life.One in which everything is a miracle or nothing is a miracle.You can't see one thing is a miracle and not everything else.Like it's impossible that that duality doesn't it should not exist.And it and T helps the mind be non dual.20:31So I see T as if we can appreciate it.And I teach a ritual of of heart appreciation.I'll guide you through one.But the the if we can appreciate it for the miracle it is, then everything in that moment is a miracle.20:49So in the morning you can throw a tea bag in in a cup and throw some hot water on it and scroll on social media, or do whatever you do, or stress out about the day or be unconscious.Or you can allow the leaves to unfurl in full water, watching them and and realizing the miracle that is your life.21:11So I always, as the water is boiling, I will always name gratitude, say thank you God, for allowing me to wake up this morning.Like, if I can't think of anything, I'll be like, OK, like, thank you for another day.I see the sun.Yes, there's climate change with global warming, and it's scary as fuck.21:30But I am alive and the sun is shining.And the sun does bring life.And the sun does actually create photosynthesis.And the plants outside are actually turning.They're green because of the sun.And so carbon is not necessarily the enemy.Carbon also is our DNA.21:47We are made of carbon.So maybe, maybe we can.So it's just a shift.If you see if you can, if you can take that moment and center it around your cup of tea and you can name 3 gratitudes, you can.You can go into that state.22:04You have actually shifted reality.Your mind is projecting reality onto onto substance.The earth is a playground.You can either make it magical, or you can make it destructive and fighting and divisive and unmagical.22:27You can either make it about politics, or you can make it about connection.You can make it about love, or you can make it about fear.So, so that that morning you have a moment and the, the Buddhists say every morning we are born again.There is, there is a rebirth every morning.22:43So you could have screwed everything up and, and you know, destroyed your life yesterday, but today you were born again.And that is that is the key.When we say like born again Christians or we say born again, you have rebirthed and you do it.23:00You have a chance every day.Your cells are turning over every day.So you might ate a bag of chips and, and slam down a bottle of wine and, and ate a bar of chocolate and, and screwed everything up yesterday.Today your cells have another chance.You can drink some white wine or you can drink some white tea.23:17You can drink some, you know, black coffee or you can drink some black tea that is full of the flavins that will detoxify you.You can you can hurt yourself or you can love yourself.You can decide to stop the negative self talk and you can decide to speak kindly to yourself.23:34As I call words of honey.These are shifts that you are in charge of.If you want to shift your life, you consciously get to do it in the moment.It doesn't happen outside of you.There's no guru who's going to come save you.23:49Jesus isn't coming back.Sorry to sorry to tell everyone.Jesus is consciousness and you have to be conscious enough to meet Jesus at that consciousness, right?There is no savior coming to save you.You are within you.So, so this is the shift that we have to come to.24:07And that starts with a cup of tea.So 3 gratitudes.If you can come up with three gratitudes in the morning, you shift your whole life.And if you can take breath into your heart.So what I like to do is I will close my eyes.I will breathe 3 deep breaths into my heart, and I'll expand the green emerald energy first into the cup, and then with the second breath, I'll take the breath into the room.24:34And that's that beautiful emerald heart chakra energy.And I will.And that's the energy, the color of chlorophyll, the color of green tea, the color of plants, the color of renewal.Green is renewal.It's healing, it's soothing.Then the third breath, you try to try to reach it to the moon or the stars or the sun, whatever's in the, in the sky at the time.24:56And that's, that is something.And then you realize you are, you know, the heart is where all the transformation is created.It's the all the lower chakras meet there with the upper chakras to transmute energy so you can focus on your heart.25:12That's another simple ritual.There's so many.I mean, I'm writing a book about them all right now, so.Sign us up.Yeah, we want, we want a copy.Oh yeah.I'll I'll, I'll send you the transcript before so you can tell me how easy or hard.They are.25:30That's the thing.Magic is.Easy.Yeah, that's what we always say.You are the magic.You are the ritual comes after.I love hearing you talk about it like this.Really.Immense, deep, powerful transformation that can happen in 5 minutes over a cup of tea.25:47It really is that simple.Yeah, 1 cup at a.Time.It's the whole point of magic hour.It's like we call it magic hour but it's really magic minutes cuz not a not a lot of us have hours to spare.Yeah, yeah, it's like 1 sip at a time, right?26:03Like I always, I always tell my students like one breath at a time.Just for this breath.I'm not gonna worry about it just for the sip, right?Just for this next sip, just for this One Cup, you can start again.And I almost feel like every time you pour a cup is like that moment of rebirth, that moment of choosing.26:19Like, like you said, am I going to scroll on my phone or am I going to feel the warmth of the tea in my hands?Am I going to smell the aroma?Am I going to, you know, feel the feeling of it in my mouth?And yeah, it just, it's so interesting because I'm like, I'm over here.This is my fourth cup of tea.26:36I'm really, I'm slugging the Mercury retrograde tea today.I can't.Hear I have I I was like, it's Mercury retrograde.I I know and Mercury's had it out for me ever since I created these teas.I'm like all of a sudden Mercury retrograde is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did the I did around the clock protection because I always like to add humor.26:59Real tea, tea ceremony, there's like, so I have morning and night, one has caffeine, one doesn't, but the tea has OK, so let's just talk about Mercury for a second because we're in Mercury retrograde and this one's a doozy, OK?And it's a doozy because we are in sort of a lot of shifting energy right now in the world at large.27:22But so you talking about that, Molly, about like taking the cup of tea and being like, am I going to do this or am I going to do that?Like so I had this ritual shift and it's a quick question and my, my tea circle, we do tea circle every Monday night for free.27:40And so anybody can ever join.And it's we have women from all over the world and they they don't even listen to me anymore because you can see them scrolling while I'm trying to guide a meditation.Emma, it's cool.I need the meditation more.But you guys, this little simple shift, it was like a consciousness shift was is this mercury can happen to you or for you?28:01So shifting the like, is this happening to me or for me?It's always happening for you.Everything is happening for you.If you can shift that in your mind and then you go from victim mode to rad like in charge empowered mode.Oh my God, that is such a game changer.28:20So the other day my husband and I were working in our new tea salon is huge and we're we need like a million people to help us.And so it was Sunday.Normally we like to take Sundays off, do farmers market, make food, you know, sip flowers, like make flower arrangements.28:36And we haven't had a Sunday off in like a month.And we were so hangry.We turned out to be like, we were like 5 year olds and we were like, mad, right?And it was the day.It was the new moon and Mercury retrograde happening all at once.And I was like, I was such a little bit.28:52I was like, I was like, and I haven't eaten all day.And I decided I was stopping cooking and during COVID and he's taking the next 17 years of cooking.So how to cook?Yeah, I did 17 years, the next one so and I was this little like brat, 5 year old and and then I, I was like, I'm leaving and I packed up my bag and I came.29:18I have my own place I got during COVID and saved our marriage and it's my lab downstairs.And then I have a big suite upstairs.That's my place.It's where I meditate.It's here.I meditate, I write, I take long baths, I think about things I read.And so I realized in that moment, this was I had to pick a fight so that I could have a night by myself.29:40Was that happening to me or for me?And I thought, it's just consciousness.I just needed a night by myself.And so did he.And I ended up spending two nights by myself here at the at the townhouse.All my girlfriends call it the clubhouse.And they say I've cracked the code of marriage by getting my own place.But it works.29:56And so and then now we have so much to talk about.Two days later, we're having so much fun.But that was the thing.It was like, if you're conscious of yourself, right, It's like, oh, we got in a fight.I could have been like, oh, he was like he didn't make dinner in time, even though he was working by my side all day in the new tea salon.30:13Come on.But it was a is this happening to me or for me?I went from this happened to me.I I'm hungry and I've been working too a lot too much to Oh, this is happening for me.I can DoorDash Mexican food and and take a bath and like read women who run with the wolves for the 200th time, like, but that is your whole life, right?30:36Getting fired from the tea company.That happened to me, but it also happened for me, right?So you guys finding each other right?There probably were things that happened that looked like they were negative for you guys to find the right like partnership or or do you know what I mean?30:53Like all things are just adjustments and alignments and Mercury Retro is just an adjustment realigning you so when it goes direct you're more aligned with your destiny and your purpose.That's it.I love that perspective on Mercury, especially like it is to me it feels like a jar.31:12That word like mercury just comes and shakes the jar and it really like not much changes.It just brings my awareness to where things are were previously out of alignment.Mm hmm.I love, I love the tea I love.Like I've been incorporating a lot of tea into Mercury retrograde because it's really roughing me up this time.31:30But I saw this take on Instagram that I'm now obsessed with that I've been bringing into my tea ritual.And it's that this fear of Mercury retrograde is actually rooted in capitalism because that like productivity and go, go, go, go, go.Mercury disrupts that.31:46And so now all of a sudden our technology is slower, our communication is broken, our transportation is, is harder.And that impacts capitalism more than it impacts us.And so Mercury retrograde asks us to slow down and rest and take stock.And I feel like that's what I've been bringing into my tea lately.32:03That's why I love like that you have a Mercury retrograde tea, 'cause now when I make my cup, I'm like, OK, just for the sip, I'm gonna not throw my computer out out the window, right?Like yeah, this.Is driving, You're right.Yeah.32:19And all the herbs in that blend are ruled by Mercury.So Astro Herbology is how I formulate.So I'm dreaming.Oh yeah, I need to know everything about that.OK, yeah, take us down the rabbit hole.Yeah.So, so Astro Herbology it there was a time before capitalism and if we're we're going there, Molly, I love that you went there is because we have to be capitalist, but we have to be conscious capitalist, right?32:47Like like Madison, you have a store that is true and that has to be conscious.And then the merchants of old, it was a sacred.They were sacred because they were bringing treasures to people along the spice trails or along that, you know, then greed got in the way and created, you know, colonialism and a a form of capitalism that's no longer sacred.33:13It's about getting the most and destruction.And that's, that's the that's the part that has to be healed.But it can only be done by the feminine.But astrology and astronomy and astrology and and botany, all of it was one science.33:30So, so Culpepper back in the I think it was a fifteen, 116th, 16th century.I have the books here.But but astrology, all plants are ruled by certain planets, plants, planets.So you start looking.33:45So some plants are ruled by Venus and they help you.Let's like the the my blend, the Venus tea for beauty sleep.Those are all nervines that relax the nervous system.So there's an actual science and biodynamics, which magic our most of our base Tees are all certified biodynamic.34:06Biodynamic was created by Rudolf Steiner.It's a system that took in Astro Herbology and all the different systems and it grounded it into how to nourish soil, to increase the microbiome of the soil, the microorganism, so that the soil is so alive that the plant is in harmony with the soil.34:28And it's so alive that it vibrates at a higher level, raising the vibration of the garden, attracting the right bugs.And then the farmer is part of that.And then the planetary motion is part of that.So we say align your cup to the cosmos.34:43Because literally the garden where Gerard and I were married in a Lakshmi temple, the goddess of fortune, where all of these aprons come from, we built a sewing center there for the girls.They're all making these gorgeous aprons, all that stuff.But that garden where my staff has been, where my kids have grown up, like that garden was the first biodynamic garden.35:02That is, they have a whole office focused on planetary motion where they actually plant with Venus in mind.They they trim when Mercury's this and it's all moon based and and wow.So biodynamics are Astro herbology and then our bodies right.35:22If I'm Sagittarius Capricorn rising Aquarian moon, my body needs certain things because of the the time of year I was born and the chemical makeup of the influence of the planets.If we if we think we're on a planet that's spinning around the sun and and and there's no bearing with other planets, we are ridiculously ignorant.35:44The planets, I mean, you gemstones actually balance with the planets to create watches.Like that's normal.Like how come scientists can say that, but then they can't say astrology affects us or the plants or any of that.That's insane.36:00So if you guys want to get into true plant medicine, that and this is all I'm this, I'm going deep into this in my book, but Astro herbology used to be how how herbalists worked.And then yeah, this is normal.So all we're doing is you guys are remembering.36:18I, I'm remembering, we're remembering.That's it.That's all we're doing.We've actually been dismantled and we're remembering and putting ourselves back together after colonialism and all the bullshit of greed has has ruined our environment and made us disempowered.36:36And I mean, look at how I got fired from my first tea company because I didn't want to promote plants as a way to lose 10 lbs in 10 days for 10 bucks.What the fuck is that?That's the exact problem of everything.And that was a bunch of dudes in an office drinking Coca-Cola thinking that they're going to make a bunch of money and freaking for what?36:59Some big exit plan to do what to to golf.I mean, that is.Insane.What, like I would, I would do this, I'm going to do this until I die.Not because I'm going to have an exit, a big exit plan, but because it's what I would naturally do every day anyway.37:18I would make beautiful plant medicine to share with the world, to heal myself and others in a loving, kind way, ritualistically through magic and aligning with the cosmos and the soil.Like, what else are we doing on planet Earth?Right?37:34Like, I don't get it.So, oh, yeah.So we can have some big exit.Let's, let's.And then they then they invested $5,000,000 to get us into Rite Aid.Oh, yeah.And that's, that's going to do.Well, you want to know why?Because women aren't going to buy that shit.It's stupid.No one, no one wants to be told like they're not beautiful with that, that form of advertising and that form of capitalism.37:57You're so right, Molly.It's over.And that is your generation and my daughter at 14.Like, these kids know bullshit when they see it.Thank God.Yeah.We have to get back to our roots.And our roots are in the ritual of nourishing the soil so the soil can nourish us.38:15And so I have to note, like, how did this start for you?How did you get into Astro herbology?It seems like it's really tied to family for you.It seems like you were, like you say, raised mystical Christian.I love that terminology, like what kind of snowballed into what is now a magic hour.38:34It seems like it's really like tied to your core being and I love that.Magic hour is honestly when I started it, I said, dear God, please show me what you put me on planet on the planet to do.And I saw circles of women all over the world sipping tea.38:51And it was, they were light circles.And they were, you know, there was no, we don't have to take credit.We don't have to.It was just women loving, loving each other, loving themselves.And so for me, I'll show you where it started.39:06I'm going to show you.I'm going to grab my grandma off the ancestor altar.Hold on.So this is Grandma Maria.And she escapes.She escapes Stalin.And she walked from eastern Ukraine, Harkiv, where the bombing is happening so much, and her sister Zena was left behind.39:27She stayed, she chose to stay.So Zena's family is still in Harkeef and they have survived so far with all the bombings and this war.But my grandma Maria, when she got here, they basically, she taught me how to get my hands dirty in the dirt and to grow food and herbs.39:53And she's, she taught me all of that.So in my core, and it was funny because my dad a few months ago, I was formulating in my lab here in my little kitchen and my dad's this gruff firefighter dude, really, really, really conservative.40:09When I was on book tour and I was on Fox News all the time, he like was so proud of me.I was like if they only knew anyway so.That's how tea connects us.That really does.But my dad was saying.Oh Gee, this is how you.40:24Were when you were three, you know, it's just so so grandma would always just make everything right.We made everything.We had a like one time I had a cut and she put a piece of bread with honey on my cut and I was like, what's happening?And she's like, oh, the yeast and the bread will will coagulate the blood, you know, and the honey is, is, and it turns out honey is antibacterial.40:46And so you start to see like, and so my grandma, what started for me was watching her make our sustenance in dirt out in her garden.And she had a massive garden.41:02And I was just there for it.I mean, my nickname was Cave Baby because I was filthy all the time, bare head, like probably half naked like in the garden, like putting the hose on stuff and getting, getting into the mud.But that sort of grounded energy when I ended up building, I mean, Xena's just CTI built it into a massive business.41:24And it was when I got to the tea garden in Sri Lanka and I saw the soil and the vibration of those plants.I was like, what is the difference with this garden?Because it was like my grandma's garden.I was like, what is it?41:39And they're like, we feed the soil, other herbs.We feed the soil silica.They they use quartz crystals.We everything with the moon, we and Yana Sacrum, my mentor, he showed me, I mean, we have videos of all this.41:55We need to get it up on the site.But the, IT was, I was like, oh, Oh my God, we're aligned with the planets and the little tiny microorganisms in the soil.And we're the conduit boom.Like there's nothing like that is.42:12And that's all of our core.We are actually made of Stardust and we came from dirt and we'll return to it.You know what I mean?Like, what is the soul that was created this, this crown jewel of consciousness?42:31That's us.It came from the stars and the and the soil and we are and why do we have consciousness?It's not to throw it away, it's to relish it.It's to explore it.It's to experience it.That's divinity.We are, we are God experiencing creation like that's what consciousness is.42:52So, you know, thinking about where does it come from?It's where doesn't it come from?It's just an awareness that it's there and being like connected to that.That's it.I love that after such like, a big, like, bold question, I'm going to ask you possibly the hardest question of all time.43:16Are you ready?Yeah.If you were stranded on a deserted island and you could only bring one of your tea blends with you.Bohemian breakfast.I see this all the time.Oh wow.OK, I say this all the time.I say this is my desert island tea.43:33Wow.Yeah.You were quickly quick with that.Oh, it's it is, it's it's so it's got the biodynamic tea from adult Gesina, the garden I'm talking about.It's got four from Yunnan, which is a a double fermented probiotic rich, super high in L theanine.43:49Like amazing gut healing tea.Then it's got black currants which are four times the antioxidants of blueberries.People don't realize that.Then it's got vanilla bean, which is the like from Madagascar, which I air frayed from a biodynamic garden.44:05Unbelievable.Then it's got Rwandan sunshine tea from a program that is ending poverty all over.Like such a happiest people sunshine vibes.It's pure sunshine all in One Cup.44:21Like, what the hell?How do you, how do you get that much goodness from all these continents?And you get to drink it and put it in your body and commune with it.So first time in the history of the planet we have access to all these incredible healing botanicals.Oh, and then pomegranate extract for extra antioxidants.44:39It's like, yeah, that's just one of them, but yeah.I'm Salt.Amazing, I have that one in my cabinet so I know what I'll be drinking tomorrow morning.Yeah, I'm going to need to add that to our next order for the shop.I'm going to need it.Oh.It's our best shop, it's our number.I can see why.All right.44:55And we also asked some of our listeners for questions that they might have for you.And so this is both from them and from me.So what advice would you have for someone who feels overwhelmed by tea?So it's so good you're asking that because my other tea, I have a one of my best friends, Jagit Jodi Singh Khalsa, he's a spice trader and he was one of the heads of Yogi Tea when I started a million years ago.45:21I talk about him in my first book, Life by the Cup, and he calls me and he's like, so are you making the 400th and 50th blend today because you don't have enough blends?And I'm like, shut up.It's fun.I can't stop what I like.We have a quiz on our website and it it does help.45:38But what I here's how I'd go.Are you spicy?Do you want spicy or do you want floral or fruity?What flavor are you craving?Your body will tell you then what Wellness journey are you on?Are you needing more focus?45:54Are you needing more sleep?Are you needing more energy?Are you needing better digestion?So then you sort of you go from like your flavor to kind of like what journey you're on?Or do you just want a really good cup of tea?Like do you not care about that?Right.So that's also possible.46:11And then from there you look at what you're attracted to your intuition.And so I always tell my T circle like, OK, use your non, your non dominant hand and like, it's kind of like picking a tarot card, right?46:28Or like an Angel card, like use your non dominant hand and be like, feel where the warmth comes, feel what you're attracted to and then choose it in your cabinet or choose it on the website or choose it in the store and follow that.And then I like to teach them how to muscle test like, Hey, do I need more of this?46:45Like do I need 1 cup 2?Is this good for me?Will this help me right now?And then see if you're, if I always do a quick little muscle test with your middle finger and your thumb.And then I hold it up and I go, is this good for me?Is this a yes?47:01So that's sort of how I do it.I, I'm very much about the intuition and like, and I always say like we have these little samplers.I always say like choose a sampler and then find if you want to drink it regularly and then your body will shift too.47:18So sometimes I go from the Earl great.Like I'll do the Earl greater Gray instead of bohemian breakfast and bergamot's a natural antidepressant.And I, I tend to get a little over, I'm very sensitive to the world, so I get a little depressed over things sometimes.47:34So I will find myself reaching for the bergamot because that's a natural mood lifter.And I use real extracts.We call them natural flavors because the FDA tells us that's what we can call them.And but that includes also poison ship that other companies say natural flavors about.47:52But we use actual extracts and distillations that are alcohol based that are extracted by alcohol and then the alcohol burns off when we blend them.So I often will like the bergamot oil is I use a real essential oil and that's a natural antidepressant.48:08The Brighamot flavor wouldn't be right.So there's there's differences in in quality as well.So yeah, that's a long answer, sorry.No, that's OK.I love the call back to the intuition, especially when it's coming from someone who is like, so deeply knowledgeable in something to hear you say that it still comes down to intuition for you.48:29It's like, OK, that gives me full permission to just be like, whatever I feel called to.Xena told me it's allowed.And so I'm just gonna, I'm just going.For it.I think that's one of the things that attracted me to Magic Hour too.Like, in case anyone listening is unfamiliar, I am a crystal girly through and through.48:50And so I was introduced to your gemstone teas.And like, I don't know much about tea, but I know a lot about gemstones.So it's like, I remember being in Madison's store and being like, OK, I don't know what any of these flavor profiles are gonna taste like.I don't know the difference between an oolong and a white.49:06I, I couldn't tell you, but I know what amethyst is and that's what I need today.And I ended up loving it and that's still how I pick my teas today is I'm like, oh, I'm a Pisces.I got the Pisces tea or I feel like my Virgo moon really needs some support or it's Mercury retrograde.49:23And it's been fun because now I know like I love mint teas and like, I love floral teas, which I did not expect.And like it's been so fun to see like, OK, which other ones have mint?And now I'm into like the, the cosmic ice teas that have the mint in them too.49:39And I'm like, wow, I I actually like tea.Yeah, it's so good.Yeah, I try to make it.I, I align everything, like like the Gemstone Wellness teas.I'm going to reformulate a few of them and I'm reformulating some of the Astro teas for where we are now in the world and what we need most.49:59You know, with the the longer summers and the bigger like so I'm doing more for hydration and and kind of sneaking in the supplements inside the beautiful teas.But that is definitely I want to make tea fun and a lot of people get intimidated by it because, you know, like tea ceremony looks so fancy and why are they all wearing white and not talking?50:21And oh, I don't belong there.I belong with the witchy women like hooping it up and laughing at levity and joy and color and abundance and fun.And and so that's a great way to look at it too.Like, see what you're attracted to.Like I just, we just launched the sun Tarot card tea this week and this tea tastes like sunshine.50:41It is sun.It's got Yopan, which is a new ingredient for me to be working with.It's an adaptogen from North America.It's from Texas.There's a woman farmer growing it and it's, it's drought resistant.So it's good in the sun.Then moringa is drought resistant.It's a powerhouse herb, a miracle tree that's good in the sun.51:00And then turmeric looks like sun and that's really good for you.So I, I just, I just have fun with the stuff too.So I want you guys to have fun with it, yeah.The tarot Tees I am so excited for.I just love that we're a metaphysical store, so we carry your Zodiac Tees and the gemstone Tees.51:20And I was like, yes, another witchy thing that I can put on the.Shelves it's it's I want the.Whole deck.OK, here's what here's my perfect world.I have a giant cabinet of all of them.I've, I, I take a card of the day and that's my tea, right?51:38Do you need the whole?Deck yes, I need.Oh Molly, I think you just fixed my dilemma.OK the artist who makes these this art takes like 3 months to do each one so I'm going to be 400 by the time this deck is done.51:53I'm just going to.Promote it for you.We'll be here waiting.Once you go, we'll be the next generation.I think, well, if I keep drinking so much tea, I mean, I'm turning 50 this year, so I'm feeling, I'm feeling youthful at 50.But this deck maybe what I do is I create a deck of all the blend art.52:11Yes, yes, yes.We do a tea deck and not.Send me one, maybe?Please send me one, yeah.And please let me carry them in my store.I will, I will, all my little muses.I love you guys.52:27Good, Xena, this has been so fun.Before we let you go, can you tell our folks where they can find out more about you and Magic Hour?Yeah, I mean Club magichour.com is kind of the home base.We just, we have a massive new tea salon in Ojai that I'm running around in and that's going to have tons of classes.52:47We're installing an actual Japanese tea house that is getting put in like an actual one inside the classroom.And so they can find me in Ojai, California.I live in this magical little valley.They can find us on clubmagichour.com and if they Google, if they look up life by the cup, that's how I got my start NT.53:07It's a book and and that they can find me there or on social media.I'm not very good about posting on my personal page.It's usually just me talking, but my girls get recipes out and stuff on clubmagicr.com on Instagram.Molly, I see a road trip in our future.53:23I know I was like demystify magic meet up, you know?Hi.I'm I'm down if you are, it could.Be fun.Yes no, no please do we can we have a classroom.You guys can teach a magic class and I can make the tea and we can invite all of our local audience and yeah, it's it would be.53:41Me with it.Seriously.Seriously, that's what it's.For and we actually, you guys can stay in my town in our house too I guess.An invite to the clubhouse and everything.OK, cool.Well, thanks to you guys.It was such an honor to be with you.Thank.You so much thank.You so much.53:57Bye.Thanks for listening to Demystify Magic with Molly and Madison.If you want to learn more about us, you can find all our links in the show notes.We'd love to know what you think of today's episode, so drop us a review or give us a shout out on social media.And don't forget to let us know your magical moment of the week.OK?54:13Love you.Bye.
