In
conversation with…
Mandi
See
Welcome back to my interview series where I delve
into the path and magickal minds of my favourite witches for your reading
pleasure. This time around I am having a chat with Mandi See – author, artist,
singer, tarot reader and fount of witchy wisdom on YouTube. I am proud to call
her a friend and this series of conversations/interviews was actually inspired
by her Pagan Podcast, which I took part in several months ago… now as much as I
completely love her, that will not stop me from quizzing her on her practices.
So here we go…
I will be nice
and start with your brand new album ‘The Mist Rolls In’; which is out now,
available on iTunes and Amazon. Now until you started publicising this album, I
did not know you could sing but I would like to say I have just purchased it
and am listening to it as I write these questions out… it’s amazing! Now, my
question is how your immersion into the world of music has influenced you as a
witch and how much has that influence affected your practice?
I think that
on the surface it probably looks like I am new in the world of music, and I
am in terms of creating an album and selling music but I actually started
singing when I was very young. I started doing ballet when I was two and I was
on the stage, acting, singing and dancing from probably the age of five with
different academies and companies all over the UK. So, really, for me, singing
actually started before the discovery of spirituality. I suppose, the two
things have only connected as I’ve got older because I feel now that I’m less
limited in expressing myself through my vocabulary.
That makes
sense and the shift from a singing, dancing child into a singing (dancing in
the rain and under the moon) witch, is a natural transition. And, shifting
isn’t a strange concept to you at all…as I’ve called you a chameleon before,
you won’t be surprised that I bring it up again but that has always referred to
your very frequent change in appearance and the fluidity of your spirit; there
is, however, more to your chameleon nature than I first realised as not only
have you become an album artist this year but also… a published author!!!
‘Eclectic Wicca’ has been out for several months now and I’m so proud of how
much you’ve accomplished this year… so, I have to ask… what’s coming up next…?
Yeah… there
is a lot of stuff, isn’t there? Well, last year – 2016 was the documentary and
was the release of the book. This year is the release of the album and the new
website and all of the different courses and workshops I’m doing.
I do have
some things in the works that I haven’t told anyone about yet… that you’re just
going to have to wait and see. I’m one of those people that doesn’t like to
announce things before I’m doing them in case I jinx them.
And there I
was hoping for an exclusive… I’m sure we will all stay tuned. Staying with your
chameleon tendencies then, I am very curious about how your practice changes
with the ever turning colours of your hair. Is it something based on your
spirituality… do you ‘go red’ when you’re feeling particularly fiery, etc.? Or
are the changes based on something else entirely? If so, what?
I am someone
who has always loved to dress how I feel and express how I feel. For example,
when I was working with the Red Goddess, I could not get enough red clothing,
red hair; you know, everything I wanted red, everything had to be red. When I’m
feeling a much darker energy, I suppose I look a little more Gothic and there
are times when I have a much softer energy flowing around me. So, it’s not
really a case of my practice changing when my outward appearance changes; it’s
more so that my outward appearance changes, I would say, to reflect how I’m
feeling at that particular time. Yes, that is connected to my spirituality but
not necessarily just within witchcraft but with all other aspects of my life as
well.
So, one
doesn’t directly change the other but there is a symbiotic nature between your
appearance and your spirituality… that’s so interesting. Now, one question
which I am making a staple of these interviews is something I asked you a few
weeks ago when you were live streaming with Maggie Elram but I did put you on
the spot then so I’ll ask again, now you’ve had time to think about it. If you
could have a conversation with yourself at the time when you were first
discovering witchcraft, what would be your most important piece of advice to
witchling Mandi?
I remember
you asking the question and I think what I said then…; I’ve said it in an
interview recently… was “expect nothing and expect everything” and I really
like that because I feel it sums it up. I probably wouldn’t have liked it back
then, if I did talk to previous self/Mandi but I guess, one of the things I’d
like to tell myself also is not to take things too seriously, not to take other
people’s opinions too seriously in terms of authors and creators and all this
stuff; it is an opinion, there is no fact-based information that you ever have
to take on to be your own truth and I think I’d like to go back and tell myself
that.
I spent a
long time getting to know your practice through your YouTube channel and more
time since we became friends learning about the woman behind that practice and awing
at the diversity of your talent. With art, music and writing in your arsenal,
plus an astral realm of countless inspirations and possibilities to turn to,
where do you go/what do you do to escape? How about release, with the amount of
energy you must manifest through these various mediums, how do you release it?
I find it,
actually, really, really hard to release it and relax and it is something I’ve
struggled with over the years. And it is something that when I’m creating I feel
in control; when I have a project and I’m very organised I feel good and that’s
why I’m such an organised person. When things, not necessarily don’t go my way,
but when products and projects are coming to an end, the time I should perhaps
be celebrating, that is a time for me that can be anxiety-filled because I
don’t really know what to do with that. So, the best thing I find is sitting in
the garden, either with my boyfriend or with friends; sitting in the garden,
having a glass of wine and actually…
It sounds
funny, I was having this conversation the other day… how would my life be if,
when I was at the traffic lights, I didn’t try to work out what shade of green
‘go’ was and in what way is it ‘go’ that can actually mean something to me.
I’m such a
deep thinker and sometimes it’s nice to shut that off and not to move away from
it because it’s part of who I am but it’s nice to shut it off and not
necessarily have to understand everything in the moment.
I’ve never
considered the shade of green of a traffic light… I think I’d call it a cross
between lime and new grass. I’ll stop fawning now about all your wonderful
accomplishments but I do want to talk to you about the relationship you have
with your Goddess. Deity comes to each of us its own way and I know we share
the belief of divine masculine and divine feminine as two halves of the whole
universal energy and that those divine archetypes are seen through the facets
of the many deities that populate the religions of the world. What I’d like to
know is how you experienced your Goddess for the first time and what it felt
like to be approached by deity on that occasion?
Well, I have
worked with several Gods and Goddesses over the years but now, the Goddess I
feel the closest to is Freyja and I feel a very strong connection to Freyja.
The first Goddess I ever worked with was Diana and for me, that connection was,
I suppose you could say, a motherly connection because I started on my
spiritual path when I was very young.
I rarely work
with specific deities… for some reason I feel more comfortable working with
source energy and the abstract of divine masculine and feminine. What would you
say are the benefits of being aligned to a specific deity, as you are with
Freyja?
In terms of
benefits of being aligned with specific deities, I don’t think you have to be;
I don’t think it’s particularly crucial in terms of your path. I guess the
benefits are that you are able to tap into certain aspects of yourself and you’re
able to work with certain strengths that you have at certain times… and because
you can give that a name and a face, even though it will always be a face that
you create, it won’t be a universal face, it will be your idea of a God or
Goddess, I feel that being able to actually picture that can really help you to
identify different things on your journey; identify different parts of
yourself. At the same time, I don’t think that’s necessarily any better than
just working, as you said, with source energy and the abstract view of
divinity/
Do you feel
more empowered and enlightened by your relationship with your Goddess or is the
connection a more familial connection as it was with Diana?
I think
enlightenment and being empowered comes from all sorts of places. I do feel
enlightened and empowered by working with different aspects of the Goddess and
the God but mainly through the different aspects of myself
that I discover as I do so. So, it’s not really about whether that is better
than my connection with Diana, if that makes sense. It’s more so that it allows
me the freedom to discover different aspects of myself.
So, to come
full circle then, back to your album and book; you seem to be having a very
fruitful year… to what would you attribute your success? I suppose in that, I
am asking, what’s your secret?
‘My secret to
my success…’; well, it’s actually been over two years now so I haven’t done it
all in one year. The documentary and the book were in 2016 and the album and
some other stuff this year too.
‘To what
would I attribute my success?’ Really, I’ll be honest, it is opportunities;
I’ve been given some fantastic opportunities but at the same time I think when
people are looking to give someone an opportunity they tend to look for
something in particular and so I suppose that one thing that I’m good at that
makes me kind of different to other people would probably be organisation. I’m
a very hard worker and I’m very organised so I think that does allow me to
accept opportunities when they do come in because I’m so organised I’m able to
do things ‘now’ as they happen.
Time for my
quick fire (and sometimes silly) questions… on your marks, get set, fly:
·
What three qualities do you
naturally project?
Integrity, Rawness & Nosiness
·
Name a magickal tool you
couldn’t live without? My Journal
·
What affirmation/quote do
you live by? If you always do you’ve
always done, you will always be where you’ve always been. Insanity is doing the
same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
·
Name what is at the top of
your summer (bucket to everyone else) list? Visiting
Denmark and Finland are top of my list so I want to get that checked off.
·
Give yourself a super
power… what is it? The Gift of giving
knowledge; not necessarily my own knowledge but the ability to give education
to people who need it.
·
What crystal do you most
resonate with? Citrine is a favourite, also
Tigers Eye, Lapis Lazuli in small doses, Selenite is a new love and Celestite
but ultimately Black Obsidian.
·
What is your Hogwarts
house? Slytherin, through and through.
·
Name three things in your
handbag right now? Blue lipstick (because
that’s how I roll), 3 torches (for some reason) and eyeliner.
·
Would you prefer to be fae,
vampire or an animal? Not vampire because I’d
miss chewing too much; not fae because you don’t really know what you’re
becoming; so, animal. I think I’d quite like to be a cat if I was going to be
any type of animal. I like that, at least with domesticated cats that they’re
on that borderline of still having a certain freedom and still being quite wild
but also having that warm home to return to at the end of the day. I guess, for
me, that’s the closest thing I can compare to my own life. I still have a wild
streak and the element of freedom but at the same time, I do have a home to
come to and I do have a place to call my own.
·
Nominate someone I should
interview next…? Oooo, Laura Daligan, Maggie
Elram, Pagyptian, Sami Valens… all the good people!
Please list any links you would like me to include
and any upcoming appearances or events in your schedule you would like advertised.
Mandi is visiting Scandinavia this year and
is planning meetups in Denmark and Finland so check her website regularly for
dates.
Thank you so much to the lovely Mandi for taking time
from your crazy schedule to give me a little insight into your world…; look
forward to more interviews soon. x
