Meet Jamie Della

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jamie Della. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jamie below.

Jamie, we’ve been so fortunate to work with so many incredible folks and one common thread we have seen is that those who have built amazing lives for themselves are also often the folks who are most generous. Where do you think your generosity comes from?

Having a generous spirit is something that I have always cultivated. It began with my sister and I treating each other as “Queen for the Day” on our birthdays: we did each other’s chores, brushed each other’s hair, and generally spoiled each other in whatever creative ways we could devise. Our birthdays are only one month apart so it felt good to give it forward, then receive my sister’s love within a few weeks. I learned to appreciate empowering my beloved younger sister and what it means to make someone else’s day. I knew I was in charge of flow of that positive feeling, so I have kept the tap on.

I came of age during the second and most powerful wave of Feminism. My Democratic Mexican Mama raised me on Helen Reddy, strikes for teachers and protest marches for women’s rights. In our family, we take care of each other witha fierce loyalty that extends to our neighbors, both near and far.

For the last few decades I have studied various forms of spirituality and personal development including transcendental meditation, Wicca, Reiki, SoulCollage®, yoga, astrology, sustainability, herbalism, depth psychology, tarot, Sacred Feminine mythology, numerology, and more. I studied various practices to transform the pain of sexual assualt, emotional abuse, and abandonment. It never occured to me to keep the knowledge to myself. As soon as I incorporated the lessons, I wanted to share this information so that the world would be healed.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

It’s always been difficult to name my focus because I specialize in spinning plates and I adore everyone of them.

I offer a one-on-one magickal mentorship designed to fit the individual’s desires to lean more about Magick, Nature’s Wisdom, Wicca, or Witchcraft as a path of self-discovery and personal development. This program is based on my latest book, A BOX OF MAGICK, and the Hero’s Journey. It offers a private hour conversation, a magickal lesson, topic and mythical steps for each month, plus practical advice, rituals, reading suggestions, and more.

I have written ten books of empowerment: whether that is through visualizing your intention as an ingredient with cooking, such as my first book, The Wicca Cookbook, now in it’s 25th consecutive year in print, or Latinos Writers & Journalists, an award-winning book of 150 biographical essays, which infuses pride into our Latino youth, or my latest book, The Last Daughters of the Don, a historical fiction magickal realism novel from the imagined reponse of my third great grandmother to the American invasion of California and the strength and magick of our matriarchal lineage in a land under seige.

I write a weekly article on my online publication, Writing the Magick, on Substack. Subscribers receive a bi-weekly serving of Magick of the Hearth, insights for bringing the Magick home and magickal insights on the astrology of the New and Full moons. Paid subscribers receive all rituals, videos for craft ideas, eight Sabbat ceremonies, and seasonal recipes from my books.

I lead workshops and retreats on earth-centric holidays, full and new moons, SoulCollage® methods, writing, and magickal perspective on mythology, herbalism, cosmology, numerology, and more.

!!!!I’m not sure how to say that I want to push the Substack because that’s passive income!!!!!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Determination, self-love, and forgiveness/acceptance.

I am the determined double Capricorn born in the year of the Ram. I don’ t know how to give up. I am determined, resolute and will complete my task as long as it serves my highest good and is of benefit to all sentient beings. Within my determination lives patience to work on manifesting my dreams for all of my days.

I was raised to believe that the Father Mother God loved me and gave me the love that I love with. Yet, I was raised by a yeller, whose constant pressure stripped away at my confidence. I have always believed that the Divine loves me and that has pushed me to find the self-love to stop carrying sad stories and turn my compost into roses.

I have an active imagination and a role for every character in my life. When I was young I thought I was unlovable if people didn’t respond in the ways that I envisioned. In time, I learned to strive to accept people for who they are and forgive myself for being so hard on myself and others.

Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?

I attribute my ability to overcome challenges and pursue my writing dreams to two women: my sixth grade teacher and first literary agent. Sometimes it helps to have a bulldog in your corner. My sixth grade teacher, Miss Kneece, championed me and my writing with a tenacious, sometimes, well actually oftentimes, blunt manner. At a time when all I wanted to do was hide my vulnerbility and pre-teen angst, Miss K would look right through my guise and remind me that I was stronger than I was playing. “I see you and I believe in you,” her bright blue eyes seemed to say.

She gave me courage to be a writer by drawing out my ideas and feelings and guiding me to artfully, persuasively translate them into words on paper. She instilled in me a love of books. Every day, after lunch recess, when we were all sweating from the heat of midday, she read us classic books like The Cay and Island of the Blue Dolphins. Who would have thought that exactly forty years after being in her classroom that I would be sharing a bottle of wine with Miss Kneece at the Women’s Literary Festival of Authors? With the hope of inspiring my writing, Miss Kneece invited me to this one-of-a-kind event. She is the kind of teacher that everyone needs and artists often credit when receiving an award.

Miss Kneece epitomizes the Shakespearean phrase “Though, she be little, she is fierce.” She taught me what it was like to be a fierce and powerful woman. She might be five foot and still refused to accept the Teacher of the Year award from Walmart because they wouldn’t sell morning after pills. She told the representative from Nestle that she was hesitant to accept their Teacher of the Year award because at the time, they were trying to convince women in Third World countries to stop breast feeding and buy their baby formula.

I learned the publishing industry under her tutelage from Julie Castiglia as her literary assistant in an office that was sandwiched between the Del Mar Racetrack, the fire department and a wild bird sanctuary. Whenever I think of the ad that I answered to be her assistant, I see a halo pulsating around a tiny rectangle notice in the Wanted Section of the North County Diego Times. I could not have missed that door of opportunity. I had been praying to enter the writer’s world and here was my desire answered.

One day in 1998, an editor asked Julie if she knew someone who could write The Wicca Cookbook and she decided right there that would be my first published book. “I always knew she could do it.” Julie told the Orange County Register reporter who wrote a two-page article about me and my fifth book in October 2006. Julie believed in me and paved the way for me to become an author.

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Image Credits

Susan Tuttle, JoAnna Forsythe

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