what is a mystic? and can you have spiritual gifts without practicing any religion at all?

courtney, known as sisi in brasil, says yes, and she has the strangers' stories to back it up. recorded live from her patio in bahia, brazil, with the ocean breeze coming through the window, she describes what it actually feels like to live mystic. "my everyday reality feels like i'm moving in and out of different levels of different realms," she says, "and into people's energetic spheres and portals that are often unseen, sometimes felt."

she does not get there through ceremony or substance. she gets there through repetition. sanding wood. working in the yard. anything that lets her hands move while her mind goes somewhere else. master craftsmen talk about the same thing, she says, that quiet drop into another place.

then the part that is harder to explain away. multiple people, strangers to each other, in different cities, on separate occasions, have described seeing her during their own altered states, years before they ever met her in person. "i've never met in advance, i've met after the fact," she says. same description. same energy. every time.

she is not claiming to be rare. "we all are the tool," she says. not the crystal, not the card deck, not the substance. you.

this episode is for the woman who already feels something stirring that she has no religious language for. the one who has never done a ceremony but recognizes herself anyway. the one done waiting for a teacher's permission to believe her own experience counts.

sisi also asks a question she thinks more people should ask before handing over their trust: how is your spiritual teacher showing up in the flesh, healthy or not?

listen to all my shows at https://faafo.app/radio.

i taste like magic is available on your favorite podcast platform. find the written version and more at itastelikemagic.com, and the full ecosystem at faafo.app.

in this episode of i taste like magic, sisi in brasil explains why she created the respite, what it is, and what it is not. this is not the porch. it is not guided. it is not a place where she is holding conversation, facilitating energy, or carrying the room.

it is a quiet online space built for pause, grounding, privacy, and energetic reset.

recorded from bahia, brazil, this episode moves through the real reasons behind the space: privacy, nervous system overload, social media noise, energetic sensitivity, detachment, and the need for somewhere softer that still lets people feel connected without being swallowed by algorithms.

major talking points:

• the respite is not the porch, and there are no peer guides or guided conversations.
• sisi explains why privacy and security matter now, especially compared to how things felt when the porch began in 2017.
• she talks about living between two places in brazil, both with beautiful views she cannot fully share publicly.
• she describes feeling heavy, itchy, foggy, and energetically affected before connecting it to a larger energetic shift.
• she explains how social media, loud trending audio, and constant scrolling can affect the nervous system.
• the respite was created as an online space that feels offline.
• visitors can watch quiet videos, listen to natural sounds, sit with scenery, or use the private forum.
• the forum is hosted outside major social platforms, so people can speak without feeding an algorithm.
• sisi makes clear that she is not there to facilitate conversation or hold everyone’s energy.
• she talks about detachment, friendship, capacity, and why disappearing is not always personal.
• the space includes reminders from past homes and sacred places, including detroit, oklahoma, and florida.
• the point is not to make the respite the tool. the point is to remind people to regulate themselves.

the respite is a pause.

not a performance.

not a classroom.

not another place to be consumed.

https://respite.faafo.app

https://faafo.app

you can watch the YouTube video "doom scrolling" at https://www.youtube.com/live/jPRmfwlro_Y?si=G8HHIWp-mbhZBjza

Podcast Description

In this episode of I Taste Like Magic, Courtney, also known as Sisi in Brasil, talks about what it means when someone “makes you sick” literally, not as a figure of speech.

Using mirror touch synesthesia as the entry point, she explains how her body has long responded to other people’s pain, hidden pressure, emotional misalignment, and dishonesty. She reflects on her years as haveAwonderful... and THOTReader, her work with intuitive women, and why she has never believed spiritual gifts need to fit a polished aesthetic. The episode moves from intuitive body-reading to the power of words, especially casual phrases like “I’m dead,” “you make me sick,” and “wait till you get old.”

Courtney makes clear that she is not speaking as a doctor or therapist. This is a personal reflection on intuition, embodiment, language, spiritual integrity, and the way repeated untruths or careless words can create real energetic and physical consequences. She also connects the conversation to a Lingua by Sisi https://lingua.faafo.app/ bilingual song about exhaustion and rest.

Takeaways

• Your body may know when something is out of alignment before your mind admits it.
• Words are not harmless just because they are common.
• Spirituality does not require a costume, crystal, aesthetic, or external tool.
• Dishonesty becomes heavier when someone claims they want healing, growth, or alignment.
• Not every phrase passed down by elders needs to be accepted or repeated.
• “I’m exhausted” is different from casually speaking death (Tô Morta) over yourself.
• Pay attention to who makes you sick, and whether you are making yourself or others sick through words, behavior, or avoidance.

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she didn't end the friendship in anger. she ended it in clarity.

this episode is about a betrayal that happened here in brazil --- someone sisi trusted, introduced to people, vouched for, and helped get settled. someone who started lying by omission, claiming experiences they'd only seen through sisi's pictures, and ignoring the one clear boundary she'd set before any of it started.

there was no blowup. no dramatic exit. just observation, patience, a calm voicemail, and then silence.

but the episode goes somewhere deeper than the fallout. it goes into what sisi realized after --- that she has never, not once, been close to a friend or lover who didn't carry childhood trauma. and she started thinking hard about what that means. not as a judgment. as a question.

and then she found her answer in an unlikely place: a conversation with someone she'd just met, who had grown up clean from all of it --- a golden child, a rare thing in this world. sitting with him reminded her what that energy actually feels like. and she wasn't willing to settle for less anymore.

"those of us who know how rare we are are fiercely protective of our energy --- and our boundaries are like fort knox."

if you've ever been told your standards are too high, your limits too strict, your self-protection too much --- this one's for you.

find more at itastelikemagic.com. subscribe wherever you listen.

"i'm past the evidence phase at this point as i sit here in brazil. pulling all the things together and just really reflecting."

start here

this is the first episode. and sisi comes in with something to say.

not about crystals. not about sage. not about protection rituals or destiny swapping or any of the other trending terminology people throw around without knowing what it actually means to do the work.

this episode is about what transmuting energy really looks like --- and why most people who claim to practice it have never actually tested it. sisi draws a sharp line between performance and evidence. between knowing the word and knowing the thing.

she talks about why she thrives when challenged. why opposition has always been her most reliable catalyst. why the people who try to sabotage her end up becoming the raw material she builds from. and why she sets her boundaries at the door --- not as a list of rules, but as a single clear line. cross it and you will know.

she also goes somewhere unexpected: into the role of shadow, into what it means to integrate all the elements --- the magic, the strength, the energy, the chaos --- not as separate tools but as one recipe. one way of moving through the world that you either have or you don't.

"when you learn to play with and maneuver around certain energies and you integrate it all --- that is when the magic starts to happen. it's not just one isolated thing."

this is what it looks like to live it instead of teach it.

listen at itastelikemagic.com or find the episode directly: rss.com/podcasts/itastelikemagic/2740666

subscribe wherever you listen.

everyone has a role to play. and some of us were built to thrive exactly where others would break.

in this episode, sisi opens the podcast with a foundational truth: she is a catalyst. not a conduit, not a guide --- a catalyst. she talks about why she doesn't argue with people she wouldn't trade places with, how her cutoff game has been strong since childhood, and what it actually means to transmute energy instead of just surviving it. she connects the idea of the nemesis to the making of revolutionaries --- and makes the case that friction isn't a flaw in the plan, it is the plan.

"i will not argue with someone i wouldn't trade places with. it's not worth my time nor my energy."

find sisi at itastelikemagic.com and subscribe wherever you listen. new episodes drop when the feeling moves her.