Chats with Aunt Jacki

What if the thing you keep calling self-sabotage isn’t actually trying to ruin your life? What if it thinks it’s protecting you? In this episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki , I’m joined by my friend Amy Blackthorn, author of Blackthorn’s Botanical Shadow Work , to dig into the strange ways our old fears, beliefs, habits, and coping mechanisms can keep doing the jobs we gave them years ago—even when t...

What if the real problem isn’t time management? What if it’s energy management? In this solo episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki, I’m talking about a concept that changed the way I look at work, life, and overwhelm: ROH, return on heartbeats. We spend so much time measuring return on investment, productivity, and whether we’re getting enough done. But you can make more money. You can rebuild. You can...

Manifesting has gotten weird. Somewhere along the way, it became less about intention, action, self-awareness, and magic—and more about perfect thoughts, high vibes, expensive coaching, and making a vision board pretty enough for the universe to approve. In this episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki , I’m talking with author, tarot creator, professional witch, and speaker Jen Sankey about moon magic, m...

What if you don’t need a stronger energetic boundary? What if you need a better song? In this episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki, I sit down with musician, songwriter, magical practitioner, and longtime friend Sharon Knight to explore how music can shift our energy, support protection work, and become part of a magical practice. We talk about singing as an embodied form of magic, rhythm and trance,...

What does it mean to carry your ancestors with you—even when you no longer live on the land they came from? In this episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki , I’m joined by my longtime friend Emily Bolander for a conversation about ancestry, place, memory, and the everyday ways we stay connected to the people who came before us. Emily shares how growing up in Central New York shaped her spiritual life, wh...

This is a special extended episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki. What happens when magic stops being something you do on the side and becomes part of how you make decisions, build opportunities, and earn a living? In this episode, Jacki talks with author and Strategic Sorcery founder Jason Miller about the real intersection of magic and entrepreneurship. They get into money, pricing, opportunity, pros...

Life gets lifey—even when you are deeply spiritual, doing your healing work, and trying to stay connected to your magic. In this episode, I sit down with Wendy Mata, author of Bruja Curandera: Spells and Rituals from a Mexican Healer and Witch , to talk about ancestor work, limpias, spiritual bypassing, and what it really means to become a magical person. We talk about building a reciprocal relati...

What if confidence is not something you either have or don’t have, but something you practice one honest choice at a time? In this episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki , Jacki sits down with Shavonne Readus, also known as V of Red Light Readings, author of Tarot for the Flawed and Fearless: 22 Keys to Master Self-Confidence . Together, they talk about tarot as a mirror for self-trust, not a crutch for...

The hardest family pattern to recognize may be the one where we realize we are part of someone else’s story. In this episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki , Jacki Smith explores family patterns, shadow work, ancestral healing, and the uncomfortable moment when we stop being only the child trying to understand our parents — and become the parent our adult child may be trying to understand. After teachin...

Most people imagine the Akashic Records as a giant cosmic filing cabinet — distant, mysterious, and only accessible to the extra-special spiritually attuned. That is not how I experience them. In this episode, I’m talking about the Akashic Records from lived experience: what they are, what they are not, and how they can help us understand the patterns, fears, blocks, and old stories shaping our li...

You were never meant to be calm, perfect, and high-vibe before your magic was allowed to work. What if your pain isn’t blocking your magic, but trying to tell you where the spell begins? In this episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki , I’m joined by Laura Tempest Zakroff for the final conversation in the Protection Magic for Women series. Together, we unpack the energetic purity trap, the damaging idea...

Protection magic is not just about what you put on your altar, hang over your door, or carry in your pocket. Sometimes protection begins much earlier than the spell. It begins in the moment something feels off and you decide not to talk yourself out of it. In this episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki , I sit down with beloved author, folklorist, and magical teacher Judika Illes for a conversation abou...

Where do you go for protection when life gets hard? In this episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki , I sit down with Cairelle Perilloux, author of The Magic in Your Genes and the upcoming Motherline Grimoire , to talk about ancestor magic, the maternal line, inherited survival patterns, and the deep protection carried through generations of women. This conversation is about power, lineage, boundaries, a...

When the system breaks, we don’t wait to be saved. We build circles. Every week, another story breaks that confirms what many of us have always known—this world was not built with women’s safety in mind. In this episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki , I sit down with Byron Ballard—folklorist, author, and longtime voice in the magical community—for a real conversation about what’s happening right now. N...

This is the first conversation in a new series on protection magic for women. Not just spells. Not just mindset. We’re talking about what protection actually looks like in real life—awareness, boundaries, physical safety, and the ways women move through the world every day. In this episode, I’m talking with Amy Blackthorn about protection on every level: mental, physical, and magical. This isn’t a...

You don’t get out of life undamaged. And if you’re honest… you’ve done damage too. In this episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki , I sit down with Amy Blackthorn to talk about the part of growth most people avoid—the truth about shadow work. Not the aesthetic version. Not the “I journaled and feel better” version. The real version. We get into what it actually means to carry wounds, defensiveness, and...

We didn’t build the modern witchcraft movement so it could stay in the shadows or look good on an Instagram feed. We built it so magic could become a lifeline. In this episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki , Jacki Smith strips away the "aesthetic" of modern witchcraft to reveal the gritty, grassroots reality of the 1990s. Before information was free and shops were on every corner, magic was practiced i...

"What if I told you that you didn't have to change anything in your life to be magical?" In the debut episode of Chats with Aunt Jacki , Jacki Smith strips away the "guru-speak" to reveal the nuts and bolts of practical magic. From stirring your morning coffee to moving traffic with your mind, Jacki explains why magic is a lived-in tool, not a performance. She dives deep into the "Glass Ceiling of...

After 33 years of defining her life through the wax and wicks of Coventry Creations, Jacki Smith is stepping away from the factory floor to open the books. By transitioning manufacturing to the trusted hands at Type 40 Vending, Jacki has cleared the space to do the one thing the warehouse wouldn't allow: dedicate 100% of her time to the Akashic Records. Chats with Aunt Jacki is a seat at the kitch...