Seven Minutes In Heaven With The Voluptuous Witch

Welcome to Seven Minutes in Heaven, GO Magazine’s interview series that profiles a different queer babe each day, by asking them seven unique (and sometimes random) questions. Get to know the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of the groundbreaking, fierce forces-of-nature in the queer community.

I started following Emily Heather on Instagram a few months ago but I am already obsessed with her content. She posts amazing lesbian memes, heartfelt messages about astrology, and incredible life advice. Heather does tarot card readings, horoscopes (for HER Social App), and healing through her platform The Voluptuous Witch. Her work seeks to uplift the voices of those in the margins of society through a lens of restorative justice.

The Voluptuous Witch is so aligned with GO Magazine and our mission to uplift lesbian, queer, trans and bisexual women — we couldn’t resist spending Seven Minutes in Heaven with her.

GO Magazine: Who are you and what do you do?

Emily Heather: I’m a writer, seer, and astrologer. My platform is called The Voluptuous Witch.

GO: What is the driving force behind your career/activism?

EH: Ferocity, I think. Claiming space and sovereignty. My work is a protection spell for outcasts, unusuals, people with unpopular opinions, people in the margins. I have always been in the margins and I find that astrology and writing help me share that experience in a way that encourages others who are or have been outcasted to feel their inherent beauty, power, and worth. Especially women, femmes, dykes, queers, artists, sex workers, witches, sluts, and whores. My work is also for all people who have been abused by misogyny, patriarchy, sex-shaming and femininity-shaming. I use astrology as narrative medicine that creates meaning, context, self-understanding, and to reflect my community’s power and uniqueness back to them.

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A post shared by 💟The Voluptuous Witch™ 💟 (@thevoluptuouswitch) on Oct 28, 2017 at 6:36am PDT

GO: Where do you go for inspiration when you’re feeling discouraged or depleted?

EH: Nature! The stillness of the desert, ocean swimming, and visiting rivers to make offerings are my favorites. Ritual, generally, is a huge refuge for me, both simple and elaborate. I do a lot of ritual at home. I love working with my tarot and oracle decks too, so I can talk to the spirits and get some answers when I need them. The words, example, and support of other fierce women restore me too! It really re-lights my fire to witness women tearing shit down, educating, challenging.

GO: How would you describe yourself in three words?

EH: Fierce, Wild, Sweet.

GO: How do you hope to create more dialogue around healing practices in the LGBTQ community?

EH: A lot of us in queer and trans community are living with a significant amount of trauma and shame, the exact shape and texture of which are dependent upon on our experiences, identifiers, and ways in which we are marginalized. I want people to know that healing can look a lot of different ways and that’s okay to be messy and imperfect in pursuit of our healing. I am as invested in healing codependency, cycles of abuse, and self-harm as I am in abolishing prisons and advocating for mass redistribution of wealth to marginalized women — all are necessary healings. Right now, my main focus is on women releasing sexual shame and gaining financial empowerment. I want to be part of reframing access to money and resources as the first priority of justice and healing for all marginalized people, especially women.

GO: What does femme mean to you?

EH: For me, femme is finding power in everything people told me was threatening and shameful about my existence. It’s shredding my shame about embodying the dark feminine and warrior goddess energies. I have both a powerful feminine and a powerful masculine, and fully embodying both is what feels like femme to me. It’s owning my femininity, my woman-ness, my beauty, my sexuality, and my desire as mine, as very fucking queer, as something I define, no matter how it’s interpreted by anyone else from the outside. I feel myself to be a descendent of the femme lesbians who carried this word into the present for us at great risk, and who embodied many forms of the radical, revolutionary identity that is queer femininity.

In light of recent conversation, I’d like to mention a really great article that I was lucky enough to be a part of a few months ago by @gabyherstik called ✨ Is Magick Just for Women ✨in which I explicitly say that it is not, and that gender exists on a dynamic spectrum. I am quoted as saying “The full spectrum of gender expression is much closer to a true representation of the divine feminine and divine masculine than the binary! The more we break that down on a material level, the closer we can get to it metaphysically and spiritually.” I personally believe gender will still exist in the future. I just think it won’t exist as an oppressive, binary force. Settler colonialism and capitalism are the context that makes gender oppressive. I don’t think it has to be inherently. And I also feel very called to center, love, honor, and repair women in the present, materially and otherwise. Which is why I assert women will still exist in the future. If we have survived this long being abused by patriarchy at least let us get to the utopia and decide what we want! And again, I center the eradication of transmisogyny and misogyny in all my work. I don’t believe in a misogynist future. I am here to hold space as woman, as femme, as feminine. I trust myself more than enough to know I am sacred as I am, and that my being a feminine cis woman does not inherently “police” anyone’s gender or femininity. Not unless you are policing me and then projecting that back. ❤️

A post shared by 💟The Voluptuous Witch™ 💟 (@thevoluptuouswitch) on Oct 26, 2017 at 2:12pm PDT

GO: Where can people find you?

EH: The best place to follow me is on Instagram @thevoluptuouswitch. That’s where I post most of my astrological writing and other missives. If you want to explore your personal astro more deeply, you can learn about my sessions and classes at www.thevoluptuouswitch.com. I’m on twitter a lot too, @voluptuouswitch.