yes, i'm a witch -- yoko ono
i think i always was a witch, but now i am learning how to be a witch, why to be a witch. i'm thinking like a witch now, and living like a witch. in being a witch i have found amazing positive life changes. yet even though i have found rapid growth, major shifts and major healing through being a witch and being in a community of healer witches, even though i definitely don't try to hide that i am a witch -- i mean, if you know what i look like, you know what i am talking about--the truth is that the process of becoming a witch is so personal and tender that it strikes fear in my heart to talk about it…outside the safe circle of witches i am learning and growing and working with.
as being a practicing witch has brought more (than i ever thought anything could) ambition, creativity, health & healing, strength of will and self awareness (among many many other transformational changes to my life), as my spirit fuses with this ancient, earth based tradition, the sceptic voices in my head silence my voice and have successfully talked me out of, thus far, speaking my truth about the ways my life has changed in the last 12 months since i became a practicing witch.
lately i have been asking myself, why it is still so hard to tell people this fundamental truth about who i am. maybe its because people don't really know who witches are or what they do. so they tend to roll their eyes, think you worship satan, think you're crazy, think you are uppity, think you are deluding yourself. recently i started thinking about my own silence around this big change. why have i been afraid to "come out" as a witch to my friends who aren't witches? what deep part of my subconscious is shaming my consciousness? why do i really believe the thoughts that tell me they won't understand, they will judge me, they will hate me, think i'm crazy, unfriend me, talk shit about me, or kill me.
recently i started thinking a lot about witchcraft and feminism, and comparing a lot of my negative thought/behavior patterns around becoming a strong, assertive woman and becoming a louder, more visible witch. have you ever hesitated to assert yourself as a woman, or to make a boundary? have you ever worried that someone will think you are a bitch if you tell them no? as an life long approval seeking, conflict avoiding people pleaser i have always been somewhat uncomfortable saying no -- if i think it will make someone mad, or setting a boundary if it means an uncomfortable conversation may arise. that doesn't mean i don't SAY no, but i might make up an excuse, or even tell an untruth to avoid just saying, NO.
here are some ways where i connect witchcraft with feminism, and identify my fears of being a louder and more visible witch as my own internalized witchphobia, which descends from centuries of violent oppression/witch hunts/eradication/ridicule.
1. witchcraft, at least in the style i am studying, like feminism, is about empowerment-claiming your personal power-and self worth. that we must have personal integrity and strong self worth in order to practice witchcraft, much like in order to be feminists we must build up the same qualities.
2. historically, witchcraft inherently empowered women as healers. medicine women. midwives. herbalists. priestesses. all of these practices were deemed evil. and eradicated, in the same systematic way the dominant power seekers wipe out the indigenous populations. through religious justified violence and terror, genocide, and colonization. we know how genocide and colonialism and racism and sexism and homophobia and all other insidious forms of oppression have, over centuries, infected us systemically at the institutionalized level. we also know that all of these isms exist within all of us on some internalized level, because we have grown up in a culture that denies that these isms exist-while perpetuating and reinforcing their oppressive legacies through institutions and power structures. witchphobia fears and denies personal power. witchphobia is just a form of sexism.
3. witchcraft is feminism in action. witch consciousness is feminist consciousness.
witchcraft (at least in the style i am studying) focuses on internal change first--healing, knowing yourself on the deepest level, facing your fears and facing what you've repressed. illuminating something that you didn't see before. that internal change must come first before we take our healer work into the world. to me, it is like taking the philosophy of feminism further, growing your personal power and self worth and taking that into your being, creating feminist consciousness, making space for transformation, and releasing what no longer serves you. old thought and behavior patterns. addiction. relationships. all things that are not of good influence. all bad things that, when taken out of the equation, allow you to grow stronger, healthier and more powerful.
so while all of this resonates with me on an emotional and spiritual level, i remain in fear of speaking my voice around the subject of living a witches life, what that is and what it means. i am shy and not confident when it comes to sharing my witchy heart, but i challenge myself to, through the awkwardness and self doubt to speak my truth and use my voice and break my silence. this is my first attempt to articulate some of the things rattling around in my expanding witch consciousness.
