AGECRAFT After Dark
AGECRAFT After Dark is what happens when the 3 a.m. thoughts stop being ignored and start being followed.
Formerly Circling the Drain, this next iteration expands the conversation beyond menopause and midlife into something wider, weirder, and more alive—aging, identity, and reinvention for women, queer, and gender-expansive people who know there’s no neat box to fit into and no final version waiting on the other side.
The “ghosts” here aren’t paranormal (usually). They’re inherited patterns, past selves, and memories that still have opinions. Instead of exorcising them, we get curious.
Expect thoughtful conversations, sharp humor, and stories that are personal, cultural, and occasionally a little strange.
If you’re listening at night, that tracks.
Welcome to the circle.
AGECRAFT After Dark
Spiritual Work Is WORK With Aly Kravetz (Bronx Witch)
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What happens when you stop treating spiritual work like a calling you’re supposed to suffer for—and start treating it like actual work?
This week on AGECRAFT After Dark, I’m talking with Aly Kravetz, AKA Bronx Witch, founder of Witch Work and Better Witch Coaching. Aly has built her work around a message I can very much get behind: spiritual work is WORK, and you should be getting PAID.
We talk about why spiritual and wellness practitioners—especially women—struggle to charge for their labor, and Aly offers one of my favorite reframes: instead of trying to figure out what you’re “worth,” figure out what it costs you to show up and do the work.
But this conversation goes well beyond business. Aly is approaching 40 in the middle of a major life reinvention, having recently left New York for the U.S. Virgin Islands. We talk about rebirth, leaving a marriage, asking yourself whether you’re actually happy, ancestral practices, herbalism, magic and manifestation, and why neither of us feels particularly obligated to convince skeptics that witchcraft is real.
We also dig into why Aly chose the name BetterWitch—because “best” implies you’ve arrived, while better leaves room to keep learning, changing, and becoming.
It’s a conversation about money, magic, identity, agency, and building a life—and a livelihood—that actually reflects who you’re becoming.
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Before we begin this episode, a quick confession. Agecraft After Dark is produced entirely by me. I book the guests, write the questions, record the interviews, edit the audio, write the show notes, upload the episodes, because you know, apparently I looked at a perfectly unreasonable amount of work and thought, what if I did it all myself? So if you enjoy what you're hearing, please subscribe, leave a review, and share the show with a friend. It helps more people find the podcast, keeps this little labor of love growing, and reassures me that I'm not spending my evenings talking into the digital equivalent of an abandoned lighthouse. Oh, thank you for listening. Now let's get into it. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, they's and thems. Welcome to the show. There are certain ideas we absorb so early and so completely that we rarely stop to ask where they come from. And one of them is this if the work you do is spiritual, healing, creative, or rooted in service, somehow wanting to be paid for it makes the work less pure, which is convenient, if you ask me, for anyone who wants you to keep doing this work for free. Now, my guest today, Allie Kravitz, better known as the Bronx Witch, has absolutely no patience for that idea. Her philosophy is pretty simple. Spiritual work is work, and you should be getting paid for it. But this conversation ended up being about much more than money. Allie is approaching 40, in the middle of a major reinvention, leaving New York, moving to the U.S. Virgin Islands, and thinking about what it means to build a new life without pretending you're starting from scratch. Because reinvention in midlife isn't about becoming an entirely different person. It's about taking everything you've learned, everything you've survived, and everything you've finally figured out about yourself and deciding what comes next. We talk about magic and manifestation, ancestral practices, herbalism, why neither of us feels particularly compelled to convince skeptics that witchcraft is real, and why becoming better might be a much more interesting goal than trying to become the best. Allie is the founder of Witch Work, the only co-working office space in New York City dedicated to spiritual and wellness practitioners, and the founder of Better Witch Coaching, a class and coaching platform providing education, guidance, and resources on magic, spirituality, and entrepreneurship. Allie believes that spiritual work is work and you should be getting paid, and is inspired in everything she does by the motto Witches Helping Witches. She is a native of the Bronx and a passionate member of her community. So welcome to the circle. Let's talk to the Bronx Witch. Hi, Allie. Hello. So great to be here. Happy to have you here. So glad that you said yes and so excited to speak to you today. So we're gonna just dive right in and I'm gonna ask you to start by stating your name, your pronouns, your age, and what's keeping you up at night. And I'll repeat that as many times as you need because no one remembers. It's a stacked question, as we like to call it. So yeah.
AlyIt is, it is, it is okay. Well, I am Alicia Kravitz. My friends call me Allie, so you can too. I'm also known online as the Bronx Witch. My pronouns are she, her, hers, and I am turning 40 this year. In just a few weeks, Leo babies in the house. Yes, I'm so excited.
JuliaYou're Leo too. I'm a Scorpio, and we uh we are the best. We just we are the best together. My my best friend is a Scorpio.
AlyI love Scorpios.
JuliaYeah, my dad is a Leo, my old boss who I was with for like 15 years is Leo. My brother, my one of my my guests, my best boyfriends. I mean, they're everywhere, everywhere. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
AlyWe we just we really gel, we get each other. So this just makes so much sense anyway. Totally that we would be connecting here today. And what keeps me up at night, you know, every night it's a little bit different these days. There's always something going on in the world, unfortunately, to kind of, you know, bring the alarms. But I will say, generally speaking, and forming the work that I do is I'm very concerned about the fact that spiritual and wellness practitioners are fighting for survival instead of being able to serve their communities, mostly because they can't figure out how to make the funds for the work that they do. And so I often speak with folks who maybe have gone to traditional doctors for a problem or to lawyers for an issue and have not been able to find help. And it has been with a wellness practitioner, spiritual guide, that they've been able to find the solutions they truly need. And then when I look at, you know, where that doctor, that professional is in their lives in terms of being able to take care of themselves versus where that spiritual or wellness practitioner is, the disparity is really unfortunate. And so I think about that a lot. I think about all of the healers in this world that are not able to help because they're just struggling to survive themselves. And pretty much everything that I do is geared towards trying to change that. So that keeps me up a lot.
JuliaI love that topic, Ali. It is one of my favorite talk topics to speak about. And on our the previous podcast that I used to have, it used to come up a lot. And we are gonna get into that, but I am gonna also, I'm just gonna say, because we're gonna talk about it later, but you deserve to get paid. We all deserve to get paid. You have to pay your bills, you have to charge people for a service. I don't wanna I don't want to get into it now because we're gonna get into it later. I'm just gonna like go on forever.
AlyYou should be getting paid.
JuliaThank you very much. Yes. So before we go on that tangent, I'm gonna dial it back in and ask you one more thing because you were turning 40. I mean, that's a big milestone. My my 40th was total midlife crisis meltdown. My 50th was joy, happiness, and just like pure insanity in the best possible way. So I wish that for you. And I have faith. I believe in you. I think your 40th is going to be incredible. But to that, to that point, where do you feel you are right now in the liminal space of aging and identity?
AlyWow, that is a beautiful question and a deep question. Well, physically, literally, right now, I am in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I have been here for the last three weeks. I've just moved. Sounds terrible. I know. Oh my goodness. What a what a struggle. But you know, actually, it is a very different experience when you move somewhere versus when you vacation there. And so to speak to struggle, I've had several power outages and losses of internet. And I am very aware of what could possibly happen here if there's a hurricane. So I'm in the process of preparing myself with water and non-perishable foods and things like that. So it is a very different life than what I had in New York, New York City, which is where I'm from and where I've spent the last 39 years of my life for the most part, aside from school and things like that. And I feel like I'm in a rebirth stage of my life right now. And I'm not entirely surprised that it's happening now. The astrologers and all of us, you know, woo-woo folks, we talk about the power of turning 40 and the power of the number 39 and how many things in our lives sort of seem to fall away and kind of crumble at that time. And it's a tower moment. If you're familiar with tarot cards at all, it's very much a tower moment. And so what happens after the tower moment is the Phoenix rising from the ashes. It's it's a rebirth, but it is not like starting over because you get to bring with you this time all the wisdom and all the lessons and all the knowledge that you've gained over your adult life so far. So I'm being reborn, but not as my baby self, as a much more capable and wise self. But I feel like I'm getting the opportunity to almost do over certain parts of my life, especially in terms of relationships, because I was married for most of my adult life. I met my husband when I was 19. We were married by the time I was 24, I think, and then together up until fairly recently, the last couple of years that ended. And so I'm like, I was never just a woman in the world in her 20s and 30s, you know, and it's very different to be a wife in the world. Yes. Um, so I'm getting to be a woman in the world. So I don't know that I could put one word on it, but rebirth would be the closest thing I think I have to where I am in that liminal space.
JuliaI I love that for you. And I also, you know, thinking about that and kind of and knowing your history, you know, knowing that you were on track to become a lawyer, right? So there were this seems like another big change. And it all kind of started, I think, with your mother asking you, are you happy? Right. You know, do you feel like that has kind of been this ongoing theme that it continues to kind of come back up? And tell me more about that and if that has anything to do with you moving from New York.
AlyYes, it definitely does. And yeah, that question, moms, right? Yeah, they seem to often know just what to say. Um, and my mom is a very sort of emotionally kind of like distant person, and she has a very, if you like it, I like it kind of approach. No, you know, no judgment, or at least not like super obvious judgment. She's also a southern woman, so southern women have a way of judging you without doing it to your face, right? It's very bless your heart kind of. Bless your heart. Right, right. So, so she's very like that. And so when I called her to say, I don't think I'm gonna go back and finish my third year of law school, I was sort of expecting her to just sort of be like, Yeah, sure, you know, whatever works for you, right? And I she wasn't paying for it or anything, so so why not? And she surprised me by actually really asking me if I was happy or not, and asking me to ask myself that question. And what that did for me was it allowed me to, and that was the only question she asked. And it was the only thing she wanted to know, and it was the only thing she needed to hear in order to say, like, yay or nay, or you know, what she felt about it. And so from that moment on, I've been asking myself that question more frequently and letting that be the only question. And so when I was making the painful decision to step away from my marriage, for example, I had all of these questions. Am I doing the right thing? Is this the right thing to do the other person? Is this gonna, you know, be a poor choice in the long run? Do I really want to be a single woman in this world? That's not an easy thing to do, you know. Do do I want to potentially grow old alone or never have children? Like, you know, all of these questions. And I came back to that moment and I just said, Are you happy?
JuliaYeah.
AlyYou know, and the answer was no. And so I had to reconcile with that and say, okay, that is, I think, the most important thing, regardless of what the answer is to everything else. So I've been asking myself that more frequently and letting myself just stop there and then going from there. Yeah.
JuliaI mean, it kind of is the most important question to ask in many ways. You know, I I think that I want to say that I read, and I could be wrong about this, that Bronx, which was sort of born during COVID, am I incorrect in that?
AlyYeah, yeah. Our physical location was.
JuliaYeah. And similar to your kind of your experience in I had a a reckoning during COVID as well. But in your case, tell me a little bit more how all of this came to pass with COVID.
AlyYeah. So I think I see COVID as, and you know, it's so sad how many people were lost and how many people were affected and continue to be affected. So, in in no way am I, you know, trying to paint like a positive on something that was so negative for so many. But I do think that what COVID afforded us was a global reset. You know, we were so caught up in hustle culture, so caught up in the work grind that I think a lot of us just could not see a way out of it, even if our heart felt like it was pulling us into different arenas or different paths for our lives. And I think that COVID allowed us to literally stop and ask those questions. And for those of us who were, you know, privileged enough to be able to explore things, you know, I don't take for granted at all that I was married at the time. And so there was, you know, dual income and things like that that allowed me to be able to say, like, maybe I don't have to return to hospitality, or maybe I don't have to return to law school, and maybe I could just do what I feel like I truly enjoy and what I've been called to do. And that journey had started in 2019 when I began professionally tarot reading. I picked up my first tarot deck when I was 15, but I didn't ever think of it as a profession until an event that I attended where an elder essentially blessed me with this like cosmic permission to do this thing. And it was just like a light went off, and I was like, wait, tarot readers like I could do this for a living. Like, what do you mean? You know? And so that carried me through up until 2021, where that began to kind of snowball through YouTube and my product line. Um, and eventually I was just kind of busting out of the scenes of my apartment and uh I moved into a physical space. And yeah, the the fact that COVID was happening actually was a catalyst for us rather than a hindrance. Because one of the reasons I wanted to have the space was because as a Reiki healer, I no longer could really entertain the idea of going to people's homes for letting them into mine.
JuliaYeah, yeah.
AlyEveryone was distancing, you know. My husband was like, what are we gonna do? Take IDs and like wrap everyone in plastic if they come here. Like, how is this going to work? And I was like, I don't know. So a physical space allowed us that safety. I could limit how many people were in the space. We had all the PPP stuff at the front, you know, checking temperatures and face masks and all of that. And so I realized that I was not the only healer that was probably also in the same situation, trying to figure out how to continue with their spiritual and wellness businesses, but needing to now eliminate house calls and things of that nature. So the space was for me, but also for the community. So the space eventually became named Witch Work. So we're like we work for witches. That's right. I love it. And yeah, and it's it's been amazing to be able to do that, especially in my neighborhood, the South Bronx. It's one of the lowest income counties in all the country, actually. There are really high levels of illness and and other issues, and we're not necessarily a neighborhood that is wrought with resources. So it felt really special to be able to bring a space like that to my hometown, my home neighborhood, and provide something for you know the people who look like me and had some of the similar, you know, challenges growing up.
JuliaAnd working in similar modalities, because I was looking at the website, you know, really uh created a nice team. There's a good group of people and the opportunity, again, to provide space like a we work, you know, for people working with these uh modalities to come together and to be able to find them all in one place, I think is really, really special. And I don't know of anything else like it.
AlyRight. Yeah. I didn't I'm very much that person where I'm like, I'm gonna look to find the thing, and then when I can't find it, I'm probably going to create the thing.
JuliaYeah. I I can tell you're one of those people. Also, you're a Leo. So this all tracks. This all tracks, yeah. I you you had mentioned something, and I forget where I saw this because I think that you and I feel very similarly about sort of spell work and ritual work and what is kind of at the real core of it. And that is that it is work. There is inner work. It's not just throwing caution to the wind and hoping something happens. There's there's the actual spell work that is done. But then there's a lot of practical things that people are doing in the wellness world that's got nothing to do with rituals or spell work per se. So it's more than just like a $12 candle that you buy and light, but it's that inner work. So, what do folks consistently misunderstand about magic and manifestation? What do you think they misunderstand the most about that?
AlyYeah, I think I you kind you kind of nailed it because I think the one of the biggest misconceptions of that it really is just sort of like light a candle and hope for the best. Yeah. Right. And it's it's very much not that because in order to be proficient in spell work, there's a pathway of communication between you and the divine that needs to be open and clear. And that's not something, at least in like modern society, especially here in the West, that we are taught to do from a young age. In fact, the opposite. We are taught that to connect with the divine, you need someone else, usually a man, you need someone who's been ordained by some institution, you need to go to a building, you need to, you know, jump through all of these hoops and dress a certain way, or carry yourself a certain way, or get married at a certain age, or whatever the case may be. And so we're very disconnected from the start from our own agency and from our own connection with divinity. And so that right there is going to limit your ability to do anything in the spell casting world because you have to first realize that you are a fractal of the divine, and that while we are not necessarily God, but that there are many things that we think of as God's realm that we are given access to, that we have a little touch of, right? And so while we may not necessarily be able to go and create universes and galaxies and planets, but we are able to create our own existence. So we kind of are able to do that, but just the micro within our own world. And because our worlds interact with each other and our energy overlaps with everyone else's, the ability to do that then means you can do it in a way that impacts others or maybe even on behalf of others. And that's the first step to being able to cast an effective spell. It's not having the right book or the right recipe or the right candle or the, you know, the ingredient, or saying the right words, even it's about understanding that you actually have that power in the first place and that you're tapping into something that isn't anti-the divine, but is a part of the way he created us.
JuliaYeah, I would add it's just it's in harmony with, right? And um also to the extent of connection with your ancestors, whomever that may be. I think for me, the that was the most enlightening part of that work was being able to connect with my ancestors and never thinking of it in that context and realizing that I have the power of all of these people behind me looking out for me, whatever that looks like. I think of it in many ways kind of like the force because I'm a nerd, but like tapping into that, you know, and it does, it gives you a sense of more agency that you can, you can you can't always control your circumstances per se, but you can control the way that you behave, what you do, and you can put things in motion to get the things that you need or you want. And that's all very practical.
AlyIt is, it is, and I think I love that you had your own journey of connecting with your ancestors because I do think that that can be a challenging and scary thing for a lot of people. You know, when we think about our ancestors, some of us don't have the best thoughts. You know, what we know of them may not be good, whether, you know, they had substance abuse issues or perhaps they were of a generation or an era where we no longer vibe with those values that they held or the behaviors they engaged in. And so that can be really scary. And I'm always encouraging people, especially if that's the case, to overcome that fear and dive into that connection. Because one of the tenets of being a witch is know thyself. And the more you know yourself, the more you're going to untap and unlock in terms of your ability to create the life that you have. Because we often are limited in our points of reference. We're not able to create things that we've never seen before, or do things that we feel we've never done before. So if you tap into your ancestors, now the world of things you've seen and things you've done explodes. And it's like, well, I didn't exactly overcome this, but my ancestor did, and I carry them within me. So maybe I can channel their strength or their guidance and get through this. And I thought about that quite a bit during COVID.
JuliaYeah.
AlyRealizing that our ancestors have been through plagues and famines and all kinds of pandemics, and they had survived. And overcome in order for us to be here. And so it seemed really new for us, like, oh my gosh, we've never seen this before. But when you tap into your ancestry, you realize actually I have. There's a part of me that has, and there's a part of me that I can connect with for guidance on how to navigate this. And that's actually what led me into learning more about herbalism because I realized that in all of these previous instances of history where there have been pandemics, et cetera, it would have been plant medicine that my ancestors would have relied on because they would not have had access to modern medicine for a whole host of reasons. So yeah, your ancestors, they've seen it all. They've been through so much more than what just one of us has. And you can tap into all of that.
JuliaYeah, I'm glad you brought up the herbalism because I wanted to ask you kind of how you hold your lineage in your work. And it sounds like that is a piece of it. So say more about all of that.
AlyYeah. So my granddaddy was a farmer and a fisherman and a businessman and several other things. But uh farming was really important. He was born to sharecroppers down in Charleston, South Carolina. We, you know, live on the very same land that he worked, that his ancestors worked as enslaved peoples. We live right down the road from the Boone Hall plantation, where my ancestor Clarissa Spann was the cook for the family. She was really well known, like well known enough to be in family photos and documentaries about the plantation. And so what I know about the people that preceded me is that they were obviously very deeply connected to the land. And that is where they sourced everything. It's it's how they fed themselves, it is how they housed themselves. Land was very important. Connecting to the land and understanding it was very important. You know, whether it was my grandmother going out into the woods to pick a certain type of leaf when the kids were sick or giving them something to chew on to prevent worms and parasites, medicine, community, so much. We have a tradition of sweetgrass basket making in that area. And so the grass growing right under your feet, being used to make baskets and containers, both to use and to sell for money for the family. So being close to the land is something that was very much a part of me. I think growing up in New York City, I had a rebellion against that where I was like, I'm a city girl, I don't know anything about that ew, budsters. I hear you, blah blah blah. But as I got older, I started to really appreciate how incredible it is that my family still owns land and that, you know, my mom, she's in her 80s now, so she can't do it quite as much, but for a while had her own little garden, and that I would wake up at six in the morning hearing my grandfather on his tractor, you know, tending to the corn and the okra and the watermelon and the different things he was growing. And so when I started exploring herbalism, it felt very much like a return to something, but a leveling up of it because a lot of the knowledge that my ancestors had has been lost in later generations. You know, I've only been able to gather a few things here and there from folks that have remembered little recipes or little tips and tricks for the outdoors. So it was it was really wonderful to get some formal training and something that my ancestors engaged in so intuitively.
JuliaThat's incredible. And I I always I've talked to other witches about this, but I think when you make these discoveries, it's like putting on a familiar pair of like shoes or gloves. Do you know, like the fit is right, it feels really right and comfortable. And I also think that's how you know the difference between, you know, appropriation of someone else's magic that is not appropriate for you and like culturally versus what your ancestors' ancestors have done through the ages. And that usually is what feels right. And that's usually what works because the intention is correct. I I like that you're you're talking about this feeling drawn to things that are also your heritage because it feels it really is the most comfortable thing, the most powerful thing, and the easiest way, in my opinion, to draw on your magic.
AlyYeah, for sure. And I I always encourage people to start there when folks are like, where do I start? I'm like, every single one of us, all of our cultures have magic. Every single one of us, if you just go just a couple steps before organized religion, you know, really permeated the way we connect spiritually with anything, we were connecting on a cosmic type of level, a very nature-based type of level. And that's the truth all over the world. We see that absolutely everywhere. So I think sometimes certain cultures are looked at as particularly magical. You know, you think about like voodoo, you think about Haitian people and Afro, West African people, and you're like, oh my God, powerful magic. And so it feels like, well, I've got to go in that direction if I want to learn something authentic and really powerful. And it's like, no, actually, if you go back into your own history, you will find that your ancestors were also engaging in the woo-woo and that it was just as powerful and just as potent and amazing. And it's gonna resonate with you so much deeper.
JuliaYeah, and I'm and I'm glad you brought up religion or let's say Christianity and magic before Christianity, because it's always fascinating to me that the two mix together at a certain point. And certain, like you mentioned, voodoo very much mixes in Christianity. It's just what happened. Same thing, you know, with a lot of Ukrainian Polish magic, it's the same. There's a lot of Catholicism mixed in, which is not my bag. It's not my vibe. I'm not, I like, I just separate the two. But what I always like to say, and what I've heard a lot of other witches talk about, you know, is that you can have both. You don't have to be one or the other. You can have the both the two of them together. They mix really well. There's a lot of, oh my gosh, there's so much like being from the South, there's a lot of appalaci that has a lot of Christian Christianity in it.
AlySo voodoo is very Christian and from I just taught the last two years at the Christian witches convention. So there is a whole community of people that call themselves Christian witches. They practice the craft and they very much align themselves with Christ as their savior and try to follow Christian principles as well. So yeah, it's totally it can be both.
JuliaIt can be both. Yeah. Now, every witch eventually gets, you know, the eye roll. I think we've all we've all experienced this. Oh, trust. So every someone out there, you know, listening is thinking this all sounds completely ridiculous. What is your typical response? You know, what do you say to the skeptics?
AlyOh, that's my favorite question. So glad I asked. Because I think my yeah, I think my answer is unexpected. What I say to the skeptics is absolutely nothing.
JuliaYeah.
AlyYeah. I say nothing to them. Only because, and it's it's not that they shouldn't be addressed, it's just that they are not to be addressed by me because that's not what I have been tasked with as my assignment on this earth at this time. My job is to speak to the witches and to help them figure out how to live in that authentically, and particularly if they feel called to use what they've learned of the craft or any other modalities to help others, for me to help them to build a foundation around that so that they can actually afford to do that. If I do have the opportunity to speak with someone who is skeptical about witches, about the craft, about spirituality, even my one hope is that by interacting with me, if their belief was anything rooted in negativity, that that will at least have changed a little and that they will be open to the idea that there are good and loving people who practice the craft and crawl themselves witches.
JuliaYeah, 100%. I I love your answer. I love that you said that because similarly I feel the same way, same reaction, but I thought it was just, you know, being 50. So I didn't am I just like to hell with everybody, or am I like in the overall? Yeah, pretty much, because there is there is definitely some of that. I'm a little bit like, I'm gonna do me over here, you do you. Like, I don't really care. Like, you can think of whatever you want. I also came to this practice very late in life. I haven't been doing it for that long. I'm new to it. And so, you know, at the same time, if you had told me 10 years ago, 15 years ago that this would be the thing I was doing, I'd be like, no way. I'd I would I would eye roll. You know what I mean? I'd be like, so I'm like, you when you're called to it, you're called you're called to it. If you come to it, you do. If if you're not, like that's okay. You're gonna have a fine life. You'll have a fine life without it. I'm not here to convert you. That's not my deal. Yeah.
AlyWe're not gonna do that. Yeah, I'm really big on that. And I think sometimes people's negative reaction is because they assume that that's what's about to happen, that I'm going to try to change their mind about something. I'm gonna try to lead them away from their faith, from their values, from their spiritual home, their communities, their churches, what have you. Um, I joke a lot with uh speaking of Christian witches, Reverend Valerie Love is the shepherd of that community. She's written 25 books. It just has this beautiful community that she has grown. And I always joke with her that the church should start paying her because she is doing more positive PR for them than anything else going on in the church. Like if you're not in the church, and maybe if even if you are, you're seeing a lot of things that are making you go, Whoa, I don't want to be over there, right? And the church, I don't know who they need a PRT because they're there with every day that passes, I think more and more people are saying, Wait a minute, I don't gel with what's going on over here. Like I get it, my ancestors were in church every day. Like, this was what like this is not this is not aligning with what I want for the world, for myself. Something is disconnecting, and a lot of people are leaving the church. And Reverend Love, kind of by accident, is helping so many people return to it because she's helping people to see where the overlap between the values and the principles that underlie the Christian religion and the values and principles that underline spirituality and the craft are completely in alignment with each other. Yeah, there's a huge intersection there. A huge intersection. It's only when you get into like the dogma and the doctrine and like the rules that certain people feel you must follow in order to call yourself a Christian, a Muslim, whatever, that you start to have conflict. But if you just look at the teachings and the principles underneath that, they pretty much lay right over each other, which is why there are, you know, 27 instances of crystals in the Bible and why the wise men were using astrology to find the Christ child and all of this overlap with, you know, the quote unquote woo-woo. But then you have all this other stuff that comes out of people wanting to control people and wanting to use those values and principles as a scare tactic to get people to conform to essentially giving up their power to groups of people that want it.
JuliaYou know, the callback to the beginning of this interview. I love that you're very unapologetic about telling spiritual practitioners to charge real money. You know, why do you think folks, and I have my own, you know, ideas, especially women, okay, are so uncomfortable with charging for their services.
AlyWe're on the same page. I can already imagine that you know the answer is once again, the church. The church. And you know, this is not to be anti-church, but we have to call it the reality of the impact that these ideologies have had in our world, especially as it relates to women. And so, yes, I want people to understand even if you are of the impression that spiritual work is supposed to be a martyrdom situation, a piety thing, what have you, that's fine. I just want you to understand why you feel that and who first told that to you. And I want you to take a critical look at that, the source of that voice. Because at the same time that the church has tried to convince us that spiritual work should be done for free, they have amassed more land and wealth than any other entity in this world. The church owns the most property, tax-free, by the way, than anyone else. They're the largest landholder on earth. They retain billions of dollars every year in unpaid taxes and they make billions of dollars every year from tithes, contributions, donations, unpaid labor that they ask for from their congregation members, etc. So you might be cool with that, but I just want you to understand that the same people that are telling you that you should not be making any money and that you'll be a better person if you get rid of everything material in your life are, you know, the Vatican is made out of marble and gold. They're making all the money. They're making all the money while telling you that in order to be a good Christian or to be religious or to be connected to God, that you must have none of it and you must be okay with that, and that that will make you a better person. Nope. Do what you will with that information, but that incongruity for me was enough to make me say, wait a minute, yeah. I have to look at who's telling me that I'm not supposed to make money off of my labor. Yeah. And then as a Black American, knowing that layered into the conversation of just people and then women, then we have Black people being told that your labor is free, that you should toil and you should strive to be the best that you can and expect nothing in return for it, and be ready to suffer terrible consequences and punishment if you don't, you know, perform as if you were being paid and compensated appropriately. And so everything in me, the woman in me, the black person in me, the witch in me, everyone in me was just like, no, we no, we will not subscribe to this. This will be the generation where we refuse to allow people to benefit off of our labor while we suffer and struggle to just survive. Like, I just won't do it. And I don't want to see other people do it either, especially women, especially, which is especially people of color. And you deserve to be paid.
JuliaYes.
AlyFor your work. And I tell people all the time that money is not the problem. Whether you're looking at it from the biblical perspective, the Bible is very clear that it's the love of money that's the issue. That is what gets everyone, all the main characters in the Bible. It was the love of money that was the problem. And all of the characters that ended up with lots of wealth, the way that they got there was by not loving money, but loving the work that ended up bringing the money in. And so money is not the issue from sort of a religious perspective, and or at least a Christian perspective. And then money is not the issue when we look at the fact that it is just pieces of paper and hunks of earth called coins. Everything that it's capable of doing, we have assigned that value and that power to it. And the problem is that the bad guys have more of it than the good guys. The money is not the problem. The per the persons and entities that have more of it is the problem. And so to me, the solution is not let's not make money. The solution is let's make sure more money goes into the hands of people that are going to do good things with it, that do have charitable hearts, that do tend to automatically ask themselves, how can I make the world a better place with this dollar that I just made? How can I give it to someone else? That is where we need money to go. And as long as those people continue to subscribe to the idea that they don't deserve it, or that their work is not the type of work that should be receiving it in exchange, or that they should be, you know, at the mercy of like donations and charity as opposed to pricing and policies like any other business or any other service provider, they will continue to not have it.
JuliaSee, I it the the whole thing about like take it and smile also just makes me so incredibly angry.
AlyYeah, uh, because women especially have had that messaging so so so so much. Your role is to care for everyone else. You're not supposed to ask for anything in exchange, and then on top of it, you're supposed to be happy about it. Um like smile and pretty and like put your makeup on today, you know what I mean? And then it's just like, no, it's enough. It's 2026.
JuliaWe yeah, we're already giving enough free labor. You need to get paid for your your services out there in the world. Yeah. Your whole platform, yeah, it's called Better Witch. Yes. I actually don't think this is about witchcraft. I think it's about becoming. I think, you know, at 50, I don't want to become someone else. I don't, I think there was a time in my life when I thought I was trying to be, I don't know, be something I wasn't. Again, I'm 50. I'm like, this is who I am. I'm very settled with who I am, and I feel more like myself now than I ever have in my whole life. Is what I always tell people. So, what does better actually mean to you?
AlyYeah, thank you for asking that. I don't think anyone's ever asked me that. Uh, because I really, yeah, when I when I thought about like what I wanted to call my coaching platform, that really the word better really resonated with me because the other alternative was something like best, and best is final. Like I've reached the limit, I'm the greatest I'm going to be. And whenever we think that way, we immediately shut down to learning and growth and development. End of the story. End of the story. I'm the best. I'm the best. And now it's up to everybody else to try to catch up to me, but I'm that's just where I'm at.
JuliaBut also, let's not quote Melania Trump with be best because you know we would just want to keep that out of the equation.
AlyNo, no best, no best, no best, but better to me is a progressive, it's an ing work, it's a it's a promise to always be improving, to always be learning, to always be growing. And so I didn't want to start a community where I was claiming, you know, these are the most powerful witches and we're the best at everything, and we're the ones that don't need no. I want to be surrounded by practitioners that wake up every day and ask themselves, how can I help another person? How can I get better at my craft? What can I learn? What can I do? These are people who tend to be willing to invest in themselves, whether it's financially or otherwise. These are the types of people that are doing the work on themselves as much as they are offering that to other people. Um, if you think you're the best and you kind of stop doing that inner work and you focus more on selling your wares or whatever to others. But if you're in a state of better, you're gonna always be doing both. And I think that's where you wanna be. If you actually really want to make a positive impact in the world, is to always be working on yourself as much as you are offering to help others.
JuliaI like that so much. And the thing that I really love about it too is that better is very multi-dimensional. It means it does not always mean bigger, faster, hard, work harder, prettier, skinnier. You know, better can mean slower, better can mean finding rest. Better can be so many different things, whereas best has a connotation of uh it sounds exhausting. Best sounds exhausting to me.
AlyYes, yes, it's very capitalist, very masculine, and better is a lot more feminine, a lot more receptive, a lot more reciprocal. As I get better, you get better. The more I learn, the more I'm able to serve you. And so I I tell you know, my better witches all the time like it is okay for you to be learning and for the people that you are helping to be paying for you to learn more. Yes. Yes, because you're already steps ahead of them, and so you're able to help them in one capacity. But if you take another step forward, now you're gonna be able to help them in the next level. And in that way, we keep moving forward and we keep pulling people up with us. And so, in every little nugget, in every little community, whether it's three people or three million people, you have someone that has said, I can be the shepherd for this space. And so if you guys pour a little into me, I'll be able to take that next step and be able to lift more of you along with me. I'll be able to teach you what I just learned. I'll be able to tell you how I got into this room, or I'll be able to give you an opportunity to get in here yourself and have these experiences. And so let your let the people that you're here to guide you like actually finance and provide the resources for you to keep getting better because then you do the same for them and it just kind of kind of snowball up and we all just get better together. When I'm helping my clients with their pricing, you know, I like to remind them that like because we have a whole rubric and stuff, it's not we're not just picking random big numbers because it sounds great, oh, ten thousand dollar container. We look at your expenses for the month in your life. We look at how many hours you reasonably could dedicate to this because many people are working, at least to start. We look at what you already know right now and can offer, not. What could you be able to offer after another certification or another license or another class? And then we say, okay, what is it then going to cost for you to show up and do this work? Spiritual wellness practitioners tend to underprice themselves because they're afraid to regard what they actually are worth. And so that question of worth is such a deep and difficult question for people to answer. I think, especially for women and minorities that have been led to believe that they are worth less or worth less than others for all of their lifetime. So when I say price yourself according to your worth, there's a lot of like visual reaction to that. And so I reframe that for them and I say, okay, we're not talking about your worth, we're talking about what it costs you to show up today. So like how much do you make it your day job? How much would you make if you were going to work overtime? You know, what bills need to be paid by this job? Maybe it's not all of them because you do have a nine to five. Maybe this spiritual business is to help put your kid through college or help to fix, you know, repairs in your home, etc. What are those real life costs? And then if people understand that that's what it costs for you to show up, then that's what we should be charging. Yeah, I think that's a really good thing. What it costs to show up. Yeah, what it costs to show up versus charging what you're worth, I think makes sense to people who are dealing with trauma around their self-worth a lot better.
JuliaYeah, because it's a very logical place. And those numbers are are you can you can write those numbers down in a very real way and add them up rather than trying to think of your own value, which is I think hard for I think hard for everybody. I mean, I don't know a single practitioner who hasn't struggled with it in some way, in some way, right? I'm so glad they have you to guide them. I'm so glad. I'm honored. I could talk to you for another hour, but we can't do that. You have things to do. I think so. We have reached this part of the podcast where I am going to ask you to tell everyone a spooky story. And it could be a literal haunting or it could be something like Kismet, you know, interesting, something along those lines. So tell us, tell us your story.
AlyYes. Well, I haven't had too many paranormal experiences in my life, which trust me, I'm very bummed out about. Okay. I don't know if you've seen Erica Badu's interview. She is hilarious because they're like, oh, like, would you want to be abducted by aliens or whatever? And she's like, I literally am doing everything I can to get the I play the music, I'm doo-doo doo doo. I'm weird, I'm outside with my aluminum hats on, like I'm doing all the things and they never show themselves. And take me away. So devastated. And I feel that way about paranormal activity because I work with a lot of people who are clairvoyant or who are mediums. And so they can see spirit activity, they can see the dead, and I'm always like, oh, that's so cool. I just get the chills and like weird feelings. Like, I wish I could see them, but I think I I think my ancestors know I'd freak out. I say that, I talk a big game, but I would actually probably freak out so they would say that me. Um but I have had a couple of experiences that really made me feel like, oh wow, maybe yeah, maybe I don't want to see things. And in particular, there was one night where I was in bed, it's midnight, maybe. My now ex-husband, but then husband was sleeping on his side of the bed, and he is a very heavy sleeper, right? The type of heavy lucky, lucky, right? The type of person that falls asleep and might not move the entire night, like will wake up in the same position. I wish. I know, and then have the nerve to snore and keep me up. That's all right. Not my problem anymore. Someone else's problem now. Um, but so he slept really, really, really deeply. And so I tell you that just because if it just happened to me and there was nothing else going on with him or anything like that, then I'd be like, maybe I imagined all of this, but so I'm laying in bed and I had been doing some work with trying to contact a particular saint that I felt really connected to. And I had done a little ritual earlier in the night before I'd gone to bed. My husband had gone to bed earlier. I had stayed up to do my little woo, and then I was like, okay, bedtime. I go and I lay down in bed, and I hear footsteps in my hallway, and then the doorway of my bedroom kind of darkens over like there's someone standing there, but I can't see anything. There's not even a silhouette, but it just like shadows over. And of course, immediately in your mind, you start saying, Okay, it's it's traffic outside of the windows doing something weird, or a tree's blown over a street light, or something. You know, you start trying to explain it. The shadow moves closer. And as the shadow moves over the bed from my ex-husband's side to mine, he starts throwing his arm, his left arm. He's still dead asleep. For some reason, this is not waking him at all. He's not the type to flinch, he doesn't talk in his sleep, he doesn't even have those weird like jumpy spasm thingies. He just snores and and lays there until he gets up. And he's throwing something like off of him with his arm while asleep. And I'm like, Like he sensed it was there. Right. But but not enough to wake him, which is strange. Weird because he he he was he would get up at anything, right? Yeah, so I'm like, oh my goodness, what's happening? And then all of a sudden, that shadow comes to my side of the bed and the bed depresses right by my leg.
JuliaNope.
AlyAnd it just sits next to me, and I feel a light pressure like on my leg. And then in my mind's eye, it's a little hard to describe if you've never had like a ghostly or paranormal type of experience, but I knew I wasn't seeing it with my eyeballs. But in my mind's eye, I could now see a dark-skinned woman wearing all white with her head wrapped in white, and she just sat there and with her hand on my leg. And I, of course, at first was just like, and then was like, okay, okay, okay. I think this is literally who I was asking for. Yeah. And then we just sat there. And I felt like we were having a conversation, even though I wasn't talking, and it and it wasn't like present thoughts in my mind. It was just sort of like something's being exchanged right now, some information is being exchanged between the two of us. My subconscious is having a conversation, and I felt like I was in and out of sleep and all of these things. And I don't know if this went on for 10 minutes or if it was several hours because I was in this sort of awake sleep state all of a sudden. And however long it lasted, eventually it dissipated, and I fell asleep for real. And then when I woke up, I was like, What was that? Of course, I couldn't tell my ex because he was super freaked out. And one of the first things he ever said when we started dating 15 years before this was if you ever see anything, if you ever make contact with anything in this apartment, do not tell me because I will be lost to you. He had his own ghost encounters as a kid. He lived in a very haunted house in Massachusetts. Oh my goodness. And he was just like, do not tell me because I will have to move out. We will have to move. Fair, fair. And I was like, okay, all right, cool. I will not tell you about that. And I kept that to myself. But it was one of the spookier experiences I ever had.
JuliaWell, on that note, we have reached the other spooky part of this, and that is my between the lines segment where I do a little bibliomancy. And I'm always really nervous doing this with like really good readers and stuff. So I'm always like, oh my god, I like it being good. Okay. So the way that this works, I have two books that I use, and you get to choose. So the first one is floreography, which is just books of flowers, the Victorian era, which I'm obsessed with. So it's like explanations of flowers, how they get put together, what they mean. And then my other obsession: birds, ornithography. So Victorian era pictures of birds and their meaning. So you get birds or you get flowers. Those are the choices.
AlyOh, that is such a hard one because I love both. But lately I've been connecting with the birds here on the island. So I'm gonna say birds. Let's do the birds.
JuliaOkay. So you are going to hold a question in your mind. And I always tell people we're gonna talk, you're gonna tell me the question afterwards. So, you know, don't let it be something super personal that you're embarrassed to talk about, right? We always want it to be something that you can you're you're okay with talking about before we get into it. So you're gonna hold that question. I'm gonna take a moment, I'll pick a page, and we'll see where this goes. Sound good? All right, sounds good. Excellent. All right, let me know when you're ready.
AlyOkay, I'm ready. Okay.
JuliaYou got the loon. Now let's see what that means. First of all, that's an ocean bird, so you know I'm really into that. All right. Meaning a helping hand. Excellent swimmers with unique black and white markings and haunting red eyes. Loon trace their meaning to a, I don't even know what this means. It's it's a sh Shishian T-S-I-M-S-H-I-A-N. Someone look that up and let me know on the Instagram. It's a legend from the Pacific Northwest coast of North America. An old man who had recently gone blind went to the lake to sing about his misery. Without his sight, he could no longer gather food for his family. When the loon heard his song, it told the man to mount its back and bury its face in its feathers. The loon dove beneath the water's surface twice. And when the pear emerged, the man had regained his sight. In thanks, he gave the loon his precious shell necklace, which the bird has worn ever since, a band of white against the dark plumage of its neck. It's very sweet. So a helping hand. What does that mean to you? Tell us your question, and then let's talk about what that means. That's so crazy.
AlyBecause my question was where should I move next? I'm here in the Virgin Islands now. I'm not leaving the Virgin Islands, but I'm staying in a condo that is up for sale and it just sold. So I have to find a new place. Oh my God. I know I just got here and I was like, oh, that sucks. Um I knew it was a possibility. And I've I'm so, so, so grateful because there have been several people that have basically let me know, like, girl, like I've got a I've got a one-bedroom apartment attached to my house. Like, you know, several people have been like, I can help you, like I can figure that out. So as soon as you said a helping hand, I thought, wow, that's so amazing. Because I have several people that have offered to help. But one of those people in particular is the person who tattooed this on my neck. Ah, say more. So that's making me think of the the shell around the neck. Yeah. And so that person there, my tattoo artist, but they've quickly become a friend. Um, and they were like, oh, just so you know, I have a whole guest bedroom, my place is like centrally located near transportation, like, you know, we can easily use my car, blah, blah, blah. And so that's making me think of all the people who have offered a helping hand that might be the person to take up on their offer. Mm-hmm.
JuliaFor next time. And it sounds to me like this move and everything's been a really big step. And I always feel like when we find that courage and we are brave and we take these big steps, people are there to catch you. People are there to help. When it's the right move, things come together. Yeah. And the people are there.
AlySo there's the outpouring of support and offers of help have been great.
JuliaFantastic. Well, Ali, thank you so much for being here. Before we wrap it up, I want you to tell everyone how to find you, where to find you, how to book you, all of the things.
AlyYes, yes, yes, yes. It's been so wonderful to be here. I've been an honor to share myself with your audience. If anyone is looking to connect with me, I am Bronxwitch all over the place. The easiest way to find me is probably on Instagram at Bronxwitch. And from there you can navigate to learn more about me on all the other platforms. And I would say if you feel called to want to work with me, the best way to do that is just to book a consultation, which you can do from any of the platforms where you find me.
JuliaThat is correct. Yes. Instagram especially. Check it out. Enjoy that one. I enjoy it very, very much. Ali, thank you so much for being here. And uh yeah, hopefully I will talk to you soon.
AlyI'm sure we will. Let's keep in touch for it. Sure. Thank you so much again for having me.
JuliaThank you. Agecraft after dark is written, produced, and edited by me, Julia Brunaki, the music Bernard Bernard Brunette by Ivy Virus. Have a question or a spooky story? I want to hear it. Leave me a message at speakpipe.com forward slash agecraft. And you might just hear yourself on the show. For more agecraft content, join me on Substack at agecraft.substack.com. If you'd like to work with me and learn more about all of the things, head to Julia J Wellness.com. Thanks for listening. Remember, visibility is activism. And until next time, stay curious, stay a little haunted, and I'll see you in the dark.
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