Amanda Yates Garcia, Oracle of Los Angeles
I was raised by a Unitarian witch in the West Coast tradition of Reclaiming. My mother had a moon coven and taught classes in earth centered spirituality. She taught me to read tarot cards when I was 12. “What do you know that you’ve forgotten you know?” she’d ask me as we gazed at the cryptic images spread out before us. It’s a question born of Hekate, the ancient one, queen of witches and keeper of the mysteries.
Divination isn’t just about knowing the future, it’s about reconnecting to your intuition, listening to the part of yourself that already knows the answer. It’s about trusting your own inner authority.
That is what I aim to help my clients do, to listen to the voice of their intuition, so that even after they leave my magical studio, they feel like they have the tools to move in the direction that is right for them.
I use many of the same tools my mother taught me to use as a child: bells, candles, incense, pentacles, sheaves of wheat, chalices of spring water. I receive visitations from ancient poets, animal spirits and mythological figures. They arrive as guides to help my clients on their path.
I do not do this work alone. I am guided by the voices of the spirits, gods and goddesses who bless me with their presence.
And too, you, my clients, join me. You participate. If you’re looking for someone to tell you where to go and what to do, if you’re looking for someone to whom to give your power away, please do not come to me.
I am here to help you remember how powerful you are. How beautiful. How radiant and necessary.
My work is not about predicting your future. I am here to help support you as you create the future you want for yourself. A future where you are a bold adventurer. A future where you are an empowered steward of the earth and her mysteries. A future you blaze into brandishing the banners of Love.
We do not live in isolation. Your healing process is not just about you. We live in a political world. We have responsibilities to other beings with whom we share this planet. And often our suffering, and theirs, is due less to our failures as individuals than structural crises within our political systems.
Your trauma is not just yours, it is a product of the system you live in. It is a product of history, and it is not your fault. But it is still your responsibility. As individuals have a responsibility to figure out how to empower ourselves within this reality — as unfair as that might seem — and to bring more love and justice into being. That is the way of magic. I am here to remind you that you are empowered to make a more beautiful world, in the name of Love.
When we work together, the spirit of the work we do is real. Like love itself, the work we do together is messy and beautiful and it requires something of you.
By whose authority do I come to this work?
I come through practice. I come through the traditions of my mother and my family lineage. The spirit of witchcraft has skipped like polished stone across the generations of my female line.
I come having attained Breathwork Level 4 with David Elliot, and Reiki Mastership from Tibetan monk Tenzin Lama Sherpa. I come having studied core shamanism with Amanda Foulger.
I come offering my podcast, Strange Magic, which I co-created with Sarah Faith Gottesdiener and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
I come having taught classes on witchcraft as guest lecturer at UCLA, Cal State Pomona, UC Irvine and many other places.
I come having performed public rituals at MOCA, LACMA, the Getty, the Hammer Museum, MOCA Tucson, and more.
I come with what the Spirits themselves have taught me: use this herb, call this god, use these words to bless the ones that cross your threshold. They speak to me in my meditations and in my dreams.
I come to resurrect the sacred from the earth. I come in the spirit of gratitude, humility, and the knowledge that work we do, we do together.
My lineage is immanent. It comes through the body and through movement. I graduated with a BFA with Honors from the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London, England.
My lineage transmits itself through art, writing, cinema and poetry, through those sages who’ve kept the fires of enchantment burning across the ages, even while the sacred bled out on the pavement of our dominant culture. I have a double MFA in Writing/Critical Theory and Film/Video from the California Institute of the Arts.
Most importantly, my initiations have come through my life experiences – life itself initiated me to this work. (I write about my own initiations in my book INITIATED – Grand Central / Hachette, 2019 – if you want to find out more about my process, you can read about it there).
Our lives initiate each one of us according to our ability and our aptitude. It us up to us to heed those initiations and do what is required of us. Book a session with me, and we can discuss in person what your own initiations are calling you to do, and help you find the will to do it.
Victory to the Goddess!
