OILBHE PEPPER

BIO

Olivia Pepper is a star poet and hereditary Tarot reader, a practicing mystic and ritualist, and a community organizer. Also sometimes called Oilbhe Ephraim or Quail Dawning or "Old Man" because this sort of person is always adopting new names and changing their hair and throwing a wrench in gendered expectations, and this is simultaneously just as interesting and creative as it is an annoying hindrance. Mostly, though, Olivia is a collection of exhausted cells, weary bones, good stories, bad jokes and oddly sentimental pieces of pop culture trivia, mostly about Star Trek or queer poets of the 1920s. Oilbhe is also a writer, a theorist, a friend and a performance artist -- but, you know, who isn't a performance artist these days.

WORKSHOP

Crip Cafe Witches Confluence Edition: offering participants resting space and an exploration of chronic illness as a potentiating state of mystic grace

Crip Cafe is an ongoing & intermittent online space for crippled creatives to engage with one another, share our critical and theological work around disability, open space for deconstructing our internalized ableism, and delve deep into the psychospiritual terrain of deep sickness through a variety of ritual actions and contemplations. There can sometimes be a deep and potent magic all its own to be found in engaging with our own physical frailty, and Crip Cafe seeks to honor these experiences. In the tradition of mad, queer and crippled witches throughout history, we carry forward the oral traditions and coping maps of our sick and tired ancestors. For Witches Confluence, Oilbhe is bringing Crip Cafe into the circle of offerings as a resting space and portal of contemplation around our own fragility. We will engage in some open conversation and group writing prompts, and Oilbhe will share a few herbal and astrological allies for navigating mysterious illness and an intersection of mysticism and disability. All participation is optional; folks are encouraged to simply take rest in a ritual container if this is what is needed.