Some call it baneful magic, some call it of the devil, but we disagree. In this episode, Sarai and Meredith talk about their own experience with stigmatized spellwork: banishments, cord cuttings, hexes, and curses. They share personal experiences with retrieving their own energy and releasing other people's energy, including national and international hexes. To access the patriarchy and white supremacy hexes, visit the Fourth Cup Astrology Substack here.

Work with Meredith: fourthcupastrology.com

Work with Sarai: saraijohnson.com

In this Pride Month episode of Cauldron Her Daddy, Sarai Johnson and Meredith Holley discuss how purity culture and rape culture function as control systems rooted in shame, bodily control, and compulsory heteronormativity/monogamy, and frame Pride as an antidote built on self-ownership. They share personal stories of deconstructing anti-queer religious conditioning, including Meredith’s journey to identifying as pansexual while married, questions around coming out, and the costs of self-erasure. Sarai outlines the “seven deadly sins of purity culture” (stripping autonomy, pleasure, agency, instilling self-loathing, stifling self-expression, stripping insight, and cutting off spiritual connection) through a chakra lens, connecting these dynamics to larger cultural and political forces, grief, and suicidal ideation. They close with resources and ways to work with Sarai (chakra/Reiki offerings) and Meredith (natal chart readings).

How to Understand Your Gender

How to Understand Your Sexuality

On Our Best Behavior

00:00 Welcome and Pride

00:40 Purity Culture Exposed

02:44 Pride as Antidote

06:53 Witchcraft and Liminality

08:18 Meredith Coming Out Story

18:08 Labels and Identity Integration

38:49 Community Boundaries and Bots

42:26 Seven Deadly Sins Intro

45:47 Autonomy and Root Chakra

48:13 Pleasure and Sacral Chakra

50:29 Suffering as a Virtue

53:12 Work as Servitude

54:29 Stripping Your Agency

56:26 Learned Helplessness Trap

58:55 Instilling Self Loathing

01:06:12 Radical Self Acceptance

01:10:49 Stifling Self Expression

01:16:43 Stripping Your Insight

01:19:39 Cutting Spiritual Connection

01:31:04 Sovereignty Over Suffering

01:34:32 Resources and Closing

Work with Meredith: fourthcupastrology.com

Work with Sarai: saraijohnson.com

This month-ahead forecast starts with a tarot reading for June 2026, and then looks at the astrological energies.

The R&R Tarot Spread is from Interobang Tarot and is available here. Sarai used the Fifth Spirit Tarot Deck here. In this tarot reading has the Sun card in the center and then these are the other cards:

• Recover & Renew: 8 of Wands
• Rumpus & Romp: Heirophant
• Release & Re-block: 8 of Cups Reversed
• Rest & Relax: Hanged One

These are the major transits happening in June:

June 1: Mercury to Cancer at 4:55am

June 2: Sun sextile saturn 3:48pm

June 3: Mercury square neptune 5:18pm

June 9: Venus conjunct Jupiter at 12:59pm

Mercury square saturn at 10:38pm

June 12: Mercury goes to pre shadow 5:53pm

Venus square chiron 10:23pm

June 13: venus into leo 3:46am

June 14: GEMINI NEW MOON at 7:54pm

June 15: Venus sextile Uranus at 3:52pm

June 16: Venus trine neptune at 8:40pm

June 17: Venus opposite pluto at 1:38pm

June 19: chiron into Taurus

June 21: SUMMER SOLSTICE/Litha

Sun into Cancer at 1:24am

Sun sextile chiron at 2:47am

June 25: Venus trine saturn at 5:01am

Sun square neptune at 3:38pm

June 27: Mars sextile Jupiter at 9:50pm

June 28: Mars into Gemini at 12:29pm

June 29: Mercury retrograde at 10:35am

FULL MOON Capricorn at 4:56pm

Jupiter into leo at 10:52pm

Work with Meredith: fourthcupastrology.com

Work with Sarai: saraijohnson.com

CW: Death and Grief

In this episode, Mazarine Treyz joins Sarai and Meredith to talk about her new book (and workbook), Healing From The Nonprofit Sector. Mazarine and Sarai both have extensive history working in nonprofits, and recovering from them. In this episode, Mazarine talks about the dynamics of scapegoating, which might be something you've experienced if you've ever considered yourself a witch. The episode covers the anger that is normal from that experience, as well as the systemic and institutional dynamics that underpin it such as white supremacy and cultures of silence.

If you have experienced unhealthy dynamics in the nonprofit sector or if you have found yourself over-giving, be sure to check out Mazarine's book!

Also mentioned in this episode:

Sarai's work with Leave in Love and Holy Ghosting

Meredith's books Career Defense 101 and The Inclusive Leader's Guide to Healthy Workplace Culture

WhiteSupremacyCulture.info

GriefHouse.org

Feelings Wheel

Needs Wheel

Wheel of Power/Privilege

Julie Ann Wambach's book The Battle Between Somebodies and Nobodies

Gabor Mate's book The Myth of Normal

Sara Ahmed's book Complaint!

Modern Witch Tarot

Work with Meredith: fourthcupastrology.com

Work with Sarai: saraijohnson.com

In this episode, Sarai and Meredith unpack the concept of Twin Flames. That concept was originally coined by Elizabeth Clare Prophet in the 1970s, but it reaches back to Greek and Christian myth in the way we think of it today. The concept refers to a fated relationship that feels like it has a karmic component to it, and is somewhat different than the concept of soulmates, although there is overlap between the two concepts.

In this episode, Sarai describes the Twin Flame Universe (watch Escaping Twin Flames on Netflix), and the cohosts discuss the draw of the concept of twin flames and some of the pitfalls in how that concept plays out as a practical matter, from stalking to obsessive relationships to enmeshment.

If you might be in a twin flame relationship, the cohosts have been there and hopefully this episode does not judge that experience. Instead, they talk about some steps you can take to relieve the suffering component of a twin flame relationship if necessary and move toward healthy sovereignty and community. We all need each other, we all need growth, and also twin flame relationships can stifle personal power and create annihilation in a way that can become unhealthy.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Lucy Maude Montgomery's books, Anne of Green Gables, Emily of New Moon, and The Blue Castle

Zora Neale Hurston's book Their Eyes Were Watching God

CNN's article exposing an online rape academy

Work with Meredith: fourthcupastrology.com

Work with Sarai: saraijohnson.com

In this episode, Sarai and Meredith dive into one of the most misunderstood — and most human — forms of magic: sex magic. Not the dramatic, velvet-robed version you've seen online. The real kind. The kind that lives in your body, in your breath, in the quiet space between who you've been told to be and who you actually are.

They start with the basics. What sex magic actually is, why so much of the information out there feels either inaccessible or performative, and why that matters — especially if you grew up being taught that your body was something to manage rather than inhabit.

From there, the conversation gets honest. They talk about the way purity culture, capitalism, and spiritual frameworks that trade on shame have separated so many of us from our own pleasure and power. About the idea that sex is simultaneously more sacred and more ordinary than we make it — a doorway into transformation, yes, but also just a deeply human thing that most of us are already doing.

Sarai shares real stories of using sex magic for manifestation — solo practice, partnered practice, the unexpected downloads that arrive in liminal moments — and both hosts get into what consent, sovereignty, and genuine healing actually look like in this space.

Plus: what your astrology chart and human design can reveal about your relationship with sexuality, and the gentlest possible places to start if your body still feels like unfamiliar territory.

This one is for anyone who was taught that their desire was a problem — and is ready to find out it was always a gift.

Work with Meredith: fourthcupastrology.com

Work with Sarai: saraijohnson.com

In this episode Meredith and Sarai talk about the astrology of May 2026 and the cycles of time related to the astrological weather. Your hosts at Cauldron also dedicate this episdode to Chidi Anagonye from the show The Good Place. If you don't know who Chidi Anagonye is, here's a little taste of his vibe.

These are the aspects Meredith and Sarai talk about for May 2026 (all times are Pacific):

May 1: Full Moon Scorpio at 10:23am

11:45am Venus sextile saturn

1:07pm Mercury conjunct Chiron

May 2: Mercury into Taurus 7:56pm

May 4: Mars Aries square Jupiter Cancer 7:08pm

May 5: Mercury in taurus square Pluto Aquarius 3:08pm

May 6: Pluto goes retrograde 8:34pm

May 10: Sun Taurus sextile Jupiter Cancer 7:13pm

May 12: Mercury sextile Jupiter 9:43pm

May 14: Mercury conjunct sun (cazimi) 7:24am

May 16: NEW MOON in Taurus 1:00pm

Mars conjunct Chiron in Aries

May 17: Mercury to Gemini 3:26pm

Venus in Gemini sextile Chiron in Aries 11:03am

Mercury conjunct Uranus in Gemini at 5:10pm

May 18: Mars to Taurus 3:25pm

Venus to Cancer 6:05pm

Moon into cancer right after at 6:46

Mercury in Gemini sextile Neptune in Aries 9:04pm

Venus in Cancer sextile Mars in Taurus 10:37pm

May 19: Mercury in Gemini trine Pluto in Aquarius

May 20: Sun goes into Gemini at 6:36pm

May 21: Venus in Cancer square Neptune in Aries at 11:31pm

May 22: Sun conjunct Uranus 7:26am

May 24: Sun Gemini sextile Neptune in Aries 7:22pm

May 25: Mars in Taurus square Pluto in Aquarius 9:01pm

May 26: Sun in Gemini trine Pluto in Aquarius 8:52am

May 28 Venus in Cancer square Saturn in Aries

May 31 Full Moon in Sagittarius at 1:45am  

Mercury in Gemini sextile Chiron in Aries at 5:32pm

Work with Meredith: fourthcupastrology.com

Work with Sarai: saraijohnson.com

In this episode, Sarai and Meredith turn to the third and final cauldron from the ancient Irish poem, the Cauldrons of Poesy — the Cauldron of Wisdom. It sits at the top of the body, the seat of mind, imagination, and spirit. And yet, as they quickly discover, you can't talk about wisdom without talking about everything else first.

They open with the story of Ceridwen — the sorceress who brewed transformation in a cauldron for a year and a day — and use it to explore what wisdom actually is: not intellect alone, but the capacity to imagine something different than what already exists. To dream a new world into being.

From there, the conversation gets honest and a little uncomfortable in the best way. They talk about what happens when the mind becomes a runaway animal — spinning in closed circuits, debating itself into exhaustion, attending to everything we don't want and calling it awareness. About the difference between overthinking and undirected thinking. About dissociation as a brilliant childhood survival strategy that quietly overstays its welcome into adulthood.

Meredith brings in thought work — the unglamorous, surprisingly effective daily practice of giving your mind conscious direction — and walks through four of the most common thinking patterns that keep us stuck: the narcissism spiral, the race to innocence, the safety wound, and the endless reach for power and control over other people. None of it is a moral failing. All of it makes complete sense given where it came from.

They also get into what gaslighting yourself actually looks like in spiritual spaces — the performance of a conversion experience, the veneer of progressive values pasted over unchanged behavior — and why one quiet degree of real change moves you further than any dramatic about-face.

Plus: the Four of Cups, confirmation bias, and why "no fascism" is neurologically identical to "fascism" — and what to say instead.

This one is for anyone whose mind has ever felt more like a maze than a compass — and is ready to finally point it somewhere worth going.

Work with Meredith: fourthcupastrology.com

Work with Sarai: saraijohnson.com

They cover what emotions actually are (spoiler: a 90-second chemical process that we stretch into years by tensing against them), why "high vibe only" culture is just another form of emotional control, how codependency is basically pooping back and forth forever, and why your rage and grief right now are not only valid but genuinely necessary.

This one gets real. Bring your feelings.

What We Cover

• A quick recap of the three Cauldrons of Poesy and how the Cauldron of Motion connects to the heart, throat, and emotional solar plexus
• How the Cauldron of Motion maps onto human design energy centers: the Self/G center, the Will center, and the emotional solar plexus
• What emotions actually are — the science of the 90-second chemical process and why we make it so much longer
• Why "high vibe only" spiritual culture is emotional hierarchy in disguise, and how it's used to enforce compliance
• The difference between feelings, sensations, and therapy speak ("I feel like a piece of toilet paper on your shoe" is not a feeling)
• Codependency explained: the double helix vs. the two vines, and why pooping back and forth forever doesn't work
• Defined vs. undefined emotional solar plexus in human design — what that means for how you experience and process emotions
• Covert narcissism, low empathy dynamics, and how to navigate those relationships without abandoning yourself
• Nonviolent communication as an antidote — and one important caveat when you're dealing with someone who isn't safe to be vulnerable with
• Shadow work and the unintegrated parts of ourselves that show up as defensiveness when certain emotions are named
• Why living aligned with your emotions is actually a radical act of resistance right now
• Moon tracking as a practical entry point for connecting with your emotional body

Key Concepts & References

The Cauldrons of Poesy — An ancient Irish/Celtic poem describing three energetic centers within the human body. The Cauldron of Motion sits in the chest and throat area and is associated with emotion, identity, will, and vocation.

Human Design — An energetic system that Meredith uses in her practice. Relevant centers for this episode: the Self/G center (identity), the Will center (drive), and the Emotional Solar Plexus (mood and emotion). Defined vs. undefined centers are discussed in depth.

The 90-Second Emotion — The physiological reality that an emotional chemical response takes about 15 seconds to release and 90 seconds to process through the body. Everything beyond that is us holding on.

Codependency — Meredith and Sarai trace the origin of the term back to addiction dynamics and expand it to describe any relationship where one person processes emotions for another instead of themselves. Their phrase: "pooping back and forth forever."

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) — A communication framework developed by Marshall Rosenberg. Sarai recommends it as a tool for getting back to actual feelings and needs. The book is worth reading.

Shadow Work — Jungian concept of the parts of ourselves we've deemed unacceptable and stuffed in a metaphorical duffel bag. A tell that you've got shadow material: you feel defensive when someone talks about a particular emotion.

Cauldron of Motion Tilted Inward — Sarai shares a visual she finds compelling: the cauldron of motion tilted not outward toward others but inward toward oneself, as a metaphor for the narcissistic pattern of seeking self-reflection from others rather than doing the inner work.

Astrology & Human Design Recommendations

For the Cauldron of Motion, Meredith recommends paying attention to:

• The Moon in your natal chart — your emotional body, how you process feelings, and what you need to feel safe
• Moon transits — the moon moves quickly and tracking it day to day can help you understand your emotional rhythms
• Moon-Pluto aspects — particularly potent for emotional intensity and transformation
• Your emotional solar plexus — defined or undefined, and what that means for how you relate to your own and others' emotions

To get a moon calendar synced to your Google Calendar, a simple search will surface free options you can subscribe to directly.

Work With Us

Meredith Holley — Astrologer, Human Design Consultant, and reluctant lawyer. Meredith offers natal chart readings that include both astrology and human design, plus ongoing remediation and coaching. She also publishes weekly horoscopes on Substack. 🌙 fourthcupastrology.com 📖 Substack: Fourth Cup

Sarai Johnson — Witch, sexologist, and coach specializing in embodiment, burnout, and sovereignty. Book a discovery call or download her free mini podcast Your Own Divinity to start getting back in touch with your body and your source. 🌿 saraijohnson.com

If This Episode Hit You

The Cauldron of Warming episode is a good companion listen if you haven't heard it yet — it covers the body, ancestry, burnout, and why your instincts are the most radical thing you own.

And if you're sitting with some feelings right now — which, same — that's actually the point. Let them move through.

Cauldron Her Daddy is a podcast about sex, magic, astrology, and whatever else Sarai and Meredith want to talk about. New episodes available wherever you listen.

Work with Meredith: fourthcupastrology.com

Work with Sarai: saraijohnson.com

In this episode, Sarai and Meredith dive into the namesake of the podcast itself — the Cauldrons of Poesy, an ancient Irish text describing three energetic centers within the human body. They start with the foundational one: the Cauldron of Warming, the seat of our animal nature, our ancestry, our hunger, and our physical experience.

From there, the conversation gets real. Why are so many of us so deeply disconnected from our bodies? Meredith and Sarai trace that disconnection back through capitalism, high-control religion, colonialism, and the cultural messaging that tells us our bodies exist for productivity, compliance, or someone else's benefit — not for us.

They talk about what burnout actually is (hint: it's an embodiment crisis), how overthinking is often your body screaming without a direction, and why the path through pain is not bracing against it but learning to allow.

They also get into the myth of Inanna, the underworld journey no wellness influencer is going to sell you, and why spiritual bypassing — whether it's "just think positive thoughts" or "Jesus already did it for you" — keeps us stuck.

Plus: what your astrology chart can tell you about where and how you disconnect and some genuinely sweet practices for learning to love the body you're already living in.

This one is for anyone who has ever felt like a stranger in their own skin — and is ready to come back.

Work with Meredith: fourthcupastrology.com

Work with Sarai: saraijohnson.com

For the uninitiated: Lindy West cut her teeth as film editor at The Stranger under Dan Savage, became the internet's favorite punching bag for daring to exist in a fat body in public, wrote the beloved Shrill (yes, that This American Life episode is as good as you heard), and is married to Aham — sibling of Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race. It's a lot of feminist crossover. It's genuinely delightful.

Sarai and Meredith get into: why concern trolling Lindy West's marriage is just fat phobia, TERF-dom, and - dare we coin a phrase "polyphobia?" with a new outfit, what compulsory monogamy has in common with compulsory heteronormativity, the very unhinged email Aham sent to Slate, and the parallel universe where Glennon Doyle spent another decade trying to want to want to have sex with a man. (She didn't. Thank Goddess. Abby Wambach entered the chat.)

Also discussed: relationship anarchy (not what you think), anti-polyamory think pieces, the Moral Majority (not caused by throuples, as it turns out), and Scamfluencers by way of Saachi Koul's profile on Lindy West and her new book (about which, the aforementioned unhinged email was sent).

As the great Tobias Fünke once said about opening one's marriage: "Oh. It never works...but it might work for us."

Lindy West, if you're reading this: saraijohnson.com. She's a somatic sexologist. She pre-ordered your book. She's rooting for you. Call her.

For your astrology and human design needs: fourthcupastrology.com.

Work with Meredith: fourthcupastrology.com

Work with Sarai: saraijohnson.com

Work with Meredith: fourthcupastrology.com

Work with Sarai: saraijohnson.com

This podcast is fun, uplifting, and talks about spiritual and esoteric ideas you can use in real life. Mer and Sarai are eclectic, practical witches and they both work with mythology, philosophy, and social justice.

Work with Meredith: fourthcupastrology.com

Work with Sarai: saraijohnson.com