Wendee does a shockingly accurate single card tarot pull for Erin and Lauren.

This and more at this year's very first Windy City Witch Fest on October 9 & 10, 2026 at the Irish American Heritage Center in Chicago, Illinois.
Friday: 12–7 PM
Saturday: 11 AM–6 PM

Tickets are $10

Expect readers, magical practitioners, handmade goods, witchy shops, broom makers, jewelry, candles, cleansings, past-life readings, cocktails, mocktails, and yes… fortune telling with cheese.

Find Wendee and Black Moon Tarot and Sorcery
https://www.instagram.com/black_moon_tarot... https://www.facebook.com/BlackMoonTarotSor...,

Windy City Witch Fest for festival updates:
https://www.instagram.com/windy_city_witch...
https://windycitywitchfest.com/

And if this conversation sparks something, join us around the fire: like, comment, subscribe, and tell us what you think. What signs have you received from your departed? When did you first realize your intuition might be something more? And what happens when witches stop competing and start building community together?

🐉 New episodes of Dragon Fireside Chats drop Wednesdays.

What happens when tarot, mediumship, spirit communication, a little David Bowie, and a whole lot of Midwest witchcraft end up around the same fire?

This week, Madame Creatrix and Erin Ryan are joined by Wendee Molano of Black Moon Tarot and Sorcery, psychic medium, tarotist, teacher, and creator of the first Windy City Witch Fest.

Wendee takes us through her decades-long relationship with tarot, discovering and developing her mediumship, learning to trust the signs our departed loved ones leave behind, and the philosophy at the heart of her work: love is eternal.

From there, the conversation wanders exactly where a good fireside chat should. We talk about intuitive gifts coming online, using spiritual tools without becoming dependent on them, house spirits and the consciousness of our spaces, coloring outside the lines of traditional spiritual modalities, and why being surrounded by “your people” can be so damn powerful.

Then we get into the creation of Windy City Witch Fest, Wendee’s vision for an inclusive magical marketplace bringing witches, readers, practitioners, artists, makers, shops, and magical weirdos from across the Midwest under one roof.

🔥 Windy City Witch Fest
October 9–10, 2026
Irish American Heritage Center • Chicago, Illinois
Friday: 12–7 PM
Saturday: 11 AM–6 PM

https://windycitywitchfest.com/

Expect readers, magical practitioners, handmade goods, witchy shops, broom makers, jewelry, candles, cleansings, past-life readings, cocktails, mocktails, and yes… fortune telling with cheese.

Find Wendee and Black Moon Tarot and Sorcery on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and Bluesky, and follow Windy City Witch Fest on Instagram for festival updates.

And if this conversation sparks something, join us around the fire: like, comment, subscribe, and tell us what you think. What signs have you received from your departed? When did you first realize your intuition might be something more? And what happens when witches stop competing and start building community together?

🐉 New episodes of Dragon Fireside Chats drop Wednesdays.

What actually makes someone a safe person?

Spoiler: it isn’t someone who agrees with you all the time, never triggers you, or never fucks up.

In this episode of Dragon Fireside Chats, Madame Creatrix and Erin Ryan dive into reciprocity, accountability, boundaries, and what it means to build relationships where rupture doesn’t automatically mean destruction.

We talk about trusting someone’s heart while still naming impact, learning how to repair after misunderstandings, navigating neurodivergent communication, knowing when accommodation becomes avoidance, and recognizing the difference between relationships that are genuinely reciprocal and ones that are quietly extractive.

We also wander directly into the Wild West of the spiritual community: blurred professional and personal boundaries, performative values, collaboration versus competition, discernment when choosing mentors and practitioners, and why having strong boundaries doesn’t make you hateful, divisive, or unspiritual.

Because being a safe human doesn’t mean becoming endlessly palatable.

It means being willing to reflect. To communicate. To repair. To take accountability. To respect someone else’s no. And sometimes, to lovingly embody the sacred philosophy of:

Do no harm. Take no shit.

And beneath all of it is one relationship we can’t escape: the relationship we have with ourselves.

As within, so without.

In this 4-minute bonus from Dragon Fireside Chats, Joe Diamond puts the conversation into practice and absolutely blows our minds with a telepathy demonstration.

No long explanation. No neat little box to put it in. Just four minutes of us trying to process what the hell just happened.

Watch it, then tell us: telepathy, intuition, psychology… or something else entirely?

What happens when a magician, two witches, and a healthy amount of skepticism gather around the fire?

In this episode of Dragon Fireside Chats, Madame Creatrix and Erin Ryan welcome their very first guest: Joe Diamond, the Midwest Mystic, mentalist, mind reader, magician, and lifelong student of the strange and mysterious.

Together, they wander into the wonderfully murky territory between performance magic and magick, intuition and psychology, skepticism and belief, theater and ritual. Joe shares how card tricks and cardomancy were intertwined from the very beginning of his life, why he thinks magicians have historically been afraid of actual magic, and how even the most familiar stage illusions carry deeper cultural and symbolic meaning.

The conversation explores the ritual of live theater, the ethics of mentalism and hypnosis, consent, psychometry, intuitive hits that don’t always land perfectly, and why connection can matter more than being “right.” They also dig into Houdini’s complicated relationship with Spiritualism, the mystery of his final séances, the strange significance of coincidence, and what it means to create a space where skeptics and believers can both experience mystery without being told what they have to believe.

Because maybe the question isn’t always, “Was it real?”

Maybe the better question is: “What did it make possible?”

Come sit by the fire. Things are about to get weird.

Visit Joe Diamond @Joediamondlive on all social media platforms.

What does it actually mean to hold sacred space?

Because it’s a hell of a lot more than lighting a candle, calling in your guides, and hoping everybody has a transformative experience.

After facilitating an Earth Dragon activation for a packed Witchy Wednesday circle, Madame Creatrix and Erin Ryan sit down to unpack what was really happening beneath the ritual: energetic regulation, co-regulation, consent, grounding, neurodivergence, group dynamics, power, accountability, and the responsibility that comes with being the person at the front of the room.

They talk about what happens when a circle takes on a life of its own, why laughter and movement belong in sacred spaces, how facilitators can create structure without becoming rigid, and why participants should always be allowed to question, disagree, step away, or say, “This doesn’t feel right for me.”

They also get into one of the messier truths of spiritual leadership: sometimes you get it wrong.

Holding sacred space isn’t about being infallible. It’s about being present enough to recognize what the room needs, grounded enough to respond, and accountable enough to repair when something could have been done better.

Sacred space should not demand obedience.

It should create enough safety for people to remain sovereign inside it.

Pull up a chair. The dragons are talking boundaries, bodies, community, consent, and what spiritual leadership looks like when we stop pretending the person holding the microphone is above the humans listening.

What the fuck does embodiment actually mean?

It’s one of those words floating around spiritual spaces constantly, alongside healing, alignment, ascension, intuition, and approximately seventeen other buzzwords. But what happens when we actually bring it back into the body?

In Episode 03 of Dragon Fireside Chats, Madame Creatrix and Erin Ryan explore the difference between learning something and actually living it.

We talk about collecting certifications like Pokémon cards, the difference between knowledge and wisdom, why spiritual practices need time to become your own, and when formal education really does matter.

And because nothing stays tidy around this fireside, the conversation wanders into discernment, intuition, spiritual gossip, practitioner ethics, accountability, shadow work, and one particularly important distinction:

Your body saying “no” to someone does not automatically mean that person is bad.

Sometimes their medicine simply isn’t your medicine.

Embodiment asks us to slow down. To build relationship. To practice. To make mistakes. To evolve. To recognize when we need more training and when we may actually be ready to stop preparing and finally do the damn thing.

🔥 Knowledge can be acquired.

🐉 Wisdom has to be lived.

What happens when a space built around healing, connection, and “community” becomes tangled in ego, competition, control, spiritual bypassing, and straight-up snake oil?

In Episode 02 of Dragon Fireside Chats, Erin Ryan and Madame Creatrix are chatting about the shadow side of the spiritual world. From toxic mentors and cult dynamics to unsolicited psychic readings, $500 “curse removals,” scope of practice, consent, neurodivergence, and the danger of trying to heal what was never broken in the first place, we’re talking about the things spiritual practitioners desperately need to be talking about.

But this isn’t just a roast around the dragon fire. We’re also asking what real community care looks like. Referring clients to someone better equipped. Knowing when someone needs a therapist instead of a spell. Creating neuro-inclusive practices. Continuing your education.
Holding clear boundaries. Supporting other practitioners instead of treating them as competition. And caring about the wellbeing of your community whether or not they ever pay you.

Because community isn’t a customer list. It’s an ecosystem. And if the kind of spiritual community you wish existed isn’t here yet?

Be the spark.

🔥 Hosted by Erin Ryan & Madame Creatrix

What better way to begin than with the end?

In the inaugural episode of Dragon Fireside Chats, Madame Creatrix and Erin Ryan pull up their chairs beside the metaphorical fire and dive straight into grief, death, loss, and the strange sacredness of loving people who are no longer physically here.

Through personal stories of friends, parents, mentors, teachers, and spiritual influences, we talk about what grief actually looks like when you’re also a healer, witch, medium, Reiki practitioner, or deeply spiritual person.

Because believing in the other side doesn’t make loss hurt less.

We explore mediumship, dreams and visitations, deathbed experiences, suicide loss, the stigma surrounding grief, the physical need to hold onto objects and memories, and the complicated emotions that can come with mourning, including relief, anger, confusion, laughter, and love.

And underneath it all is one big question:

What does it mean to believe death is a transformation while still being incredibly fucking human about losing someone?

This is not a polished conversation about “moving on.” It’s a conversation about what remains. Pull up a comfy chair. The fire is lit.

Content note: This episode includes candid discussion of death, grief, suicide and death by suicide, suicidal behavior, addiction, cancer and terminal illness, childhood sexual abuse, traumatic loss, deathbed experiences, funerals, and bereavement.

Be sure to like, comment, follow and subscribe to stay up to date on live schedules and episode releases.