In My Bones, I Am a Witch

Maybe it won't be helpful at all, but on the off chance that someone who has to talk to the press ever needs to actually explain "what Witchcraft is," here's (a bit of) what it is, to me.

It's a religion that honors that part of women that is also divine, that helped me to finally heal the wound caused by Catholicism's solitary emphasis on male images and versions of divinity and priesthood. Finally, in one blinding moment, I too, was (really) created in the image and likeness of the divine. I, too, was a priest(ess). And, as the poet said, that has made all the difference. Catholicism denied me the word: Priestess. That was the word that I needed all of my life to explain to myself who I am. Witchcraft gave that word to me. It has touched me; I have grown. That one word was the most important key to unlocking for myself who I really am.

Witchcraft is a history that explained to me why female power was always shown as evil and problematic, why all that the nuns could offer me was sacrifice, why the men in the church/medical profession/government were so terrified of my raw power.

Witchcraft centers me within the Wheel of the Year, teaches me how to live in deep connection with the cycles of the Earth, Moon, constellations. It gifts me with a relationship with Hecate, Columbia, Baba Yaga, Quan Yin. It grants my own life a place at the harvest, the winter freeze, the Imbolc shift, the warming of the Spring. It centers me within a history of old women stretching all the way back to a frozen old crone in a cave in Sweden, holding off the wolves from the scent of warm afterbirth near the fire, inside the cave, between her body and her power.

It's a theology and a philosophy that honors all of life, that honors the connection between the light and the dark, between my bloody, messy, life-giving, milk-spurting, orgasming, food-tasting, flower-smelling, cancer-getting, strong, out-of-control, fantastic female body and my quick mind, my ability to produce prose, my ability to think in thea-ology, my urge to win, and my deep longing for the poetic.

It's a way of living that allows me to exist in the natural world, that provides me with lessons in how to exercise my power, that respects the deep intuition that has guided and undergirded (when I ignored the guidance) most of what I have done for most of my life.

Witchcraft has made me whole, taught me who I am, gotten me through some insurmountable odds.

Witchcraft is how I wake up in the morning, connect my dreams to the "real" world, travel to work, and connect to the plants, animals, waterways, and humans that I meet on that journey. Witchcraft is how I move myself into the Druidic dancer of the law, the Priestess who uses power with skill, the woman who can play the glass bead game to help her clients and friends.

Witchcraft is how I cast a web of protection across a street that Obama's motorcade is about to cross, how I light incense for a friend's beloved dead, how I pluck strands of the web to influence an election, to protect an activist, and to bless Elizabeth Warren or revolutionaries across the globe.

Witchcraft is how I garden on THIS bit of Earth, how I drive every morning along the Potomac River, how I knit warm sweaters for G/Son, or cowls for all the men in my family, or caps for DiL and her mom. Witchcraft is how I buy vegetables at the farmers' market, pick and dry herbs in my garden, pull the levers when I vote at my local community arts center, and deal with the guy behind the counter at the place that services my hybrid car or the guy behind the counter at the place where I buy my morning coffee.

Witchcraft is me, living and growing within a circle of women, bumping up against them, adoring them, living my own life within a circle that includes them. Witchcraft is a blue new Moon painted on my forehead, me calling a direction surrounded by my Sisters, the cone of power we raise to protect activists, the magic we do to turn retrograde Mercury against those who would harm us, the delightful ability to help a Sister achieve her own magical goals as we stand, skyclad, inside a circle of power.

Witchcraft is how I teach G/Son who the Goddess is, allow him to use my athame, do Reiki on his bones that grow so fast that he has growing pains. It was how I did the same for Son's growing pains, drew pentagrams on the door to my DiL's labor room, circled protection around their home, and how I cast Tarot to see the best solution to a legal knot.

What Witchcraft Is, is a pretty big topic. It's way too big to waste time explaining that it's not about [insert noxious practice here].

What is it about for you?

An Amazing Resource

Reuters reports that:

A 350-year-old notebook which documents the trials of women convicted of witchcraft in England during the 17th century has been published online. Skip related content

The notebook written by Nehemiah Wallington, an English Puritan, recounts the fate of women accused of having relationships with the devil at a time when England was embroiled in a bitter civil war.

The document reveals the details of a witchcraft trial held in Chelmsford in July 1645, when more than a hundred suspected witches were serving time in Essex and Suffolk according to his account.

"Divers (many) of them voluntarily and without any forcing or compulsion freely declare that they have made a covenant with the Devill," he wrote.

"Som Christians have been killed by their meanes," he added.

Of the 30 women on trial in Chelmsford, 14 were hanged.

Wallington also recounts the experiences of Rebecca West, a suspected witch who confessed to sleeping with the devil when she was tortured because "she found her selfe in such extremity of torture and amazement that she would not enure (endure) it againe for the world." Her confession spared her.

More here and here.

The notebook can be viewed here.

Picture found here.

Dear Christine,

Bravely Out of the Broom Closet

So we're coming up on what some people have decided is to be "Out Yourself as a Pagan" Day. And, of course, this effort is motivated by good ideas.

We all know the stories about, for example, homophobes who were transformed by the discovery that their child, next-door neighbor whom they really liked, coworker, etc. was gay. It's easy to hate an abstract "Other" and more difficult to maintain your prejudices against someone you know and like.

And the more of us that there -- demonstrably -- are, the more difficult it becomes to pretend that we don't exist, that only angsty teen-age girls practice Witchcraft (as if that were a reason to de-legitamize it), that Witches are all man-hating feminists with granola stuck in their teeth, that only oddball failures become Witches, etc.

Further, there's the simple relief and authenticity that can come from not having to hide a part of who you are. I love it that my Son, DiL, and G/Son, Landscape Guy, and political friends know that I'm a Witch; it's nice that I don't have to hide an important part of my life from them. I like being able to say to Landscape Guy, "I need the stonework around the firepit large enough to accommodate a circle of women." I like being able to say to political friends, "As a Witch, I can never go along with any policy that will lead to eliminating wild spaces."

So, yes, I get the possible value of a "Coming Out" Day for Pagans, even if it's not associated with Pagan Pride Day, which generally comes in October.

However, my formative years were heavily influenced by the union movement (yes, I am that old), and I've searched in vain for any indication that the organizers of "Out Yourself as a Pagan Day" have set up the equivalent of a Strike Fund to pay the expenses of those who get fired for outing themselves or the legal fees of parents who find themselves on the downside of a custody battle. Strike Funds are what serious movements do. I think it's lovely to invite others to take risks, but I am old and cynical enough to understand that people really do lose jobs, leases, custody, etc. when they out themselves. And outing yourself to even one person, especially in today's world of Social Media and internet files that never die, is, at the least, opening the possibility that you will be outed to the entire world.

I've said before that broom closet decisions are personal decisions and that I'm not in a position to make them for even one other Witch. At its core, for me, Witchcraft demands Honor and that means that I completely and unwaveringly respect each Witch's own decisions concerning where hir broom closet begins and ends. I have friends who make their living as public Pagan leaders. I have friends who are "out" in their federal government or nonprofit jobs, but who would fall on their athames before causing their fundie families the pain that would be caused if they "came out" as Witches. And I respect every shade of grey in between. And while my family, close friends, and select neighbors know that I'm a Witch, I could become less effective at and ultimately lose my job if people in that world knew about my religion.

I'll also say that, as someone who has been on the receiving end of TMI concerning other people's (fundie xian I was next to in first-class all the way from SF back to DC, recently, I'm looking at you) religious experiences, I often think that the world would "go round a good deal faster" if casual and business acquaintances were less, rather than more, "out" about their religions. There are (a few) times when religion naturally comes up in the conversation and there are times when you're forcing the issue and requiring others to participate in your own ego needs in ways they'd likely rather not. I don't like it when people force conversations with me about their religions and I don't feel any need to do that to others.

Which is all a rather long-winded wind-up to proposing a few suggestions for those who are going to be interacting with the media during "Out Yourself as a Pagan" Day.

1. The reporter is not your friend. S/he does not want to help you get your message out. Hir job is to sell Viagra. The more sensationalistic a story s/he can turn in, the more Viagra sales. Every word that you say to the reporter needs to be informed by this decision.

2. You need to become crystal clear about your objective. Why are you talking to the press at all? Can you put the message that you want to get out into one, short, pithy sentence? If not, don't talk to the media. Let someone else. Spend as much time as it takes to get your message into one, short, pithy sentence. Lawyers sometimes spend all day writing the opening sentence for a brief or oral argument. If you don't have the time to devote to this effort, then don't talk to the media.

3. My blog is a broken record on this topic, but I'm going to remind you that if you attempt to negate a frame, you reinforce that frame. If you've read even three books on Witchcraft, you've come across the notion that you don't craft a spell to focus on what you don't want. So, for example, you don't write affirmations that say that you're banishing sloth and loneliness from your life. You write affirmations that say that you bring Fire and the ability to focus as well as the ability to attract love into your life. Think of Richard Nixon announcing, "I am not a crook," or Christine O'Donnell saying, "I'm not a witch; I'm you." Today, when people think of Nixon, they think of a crook and when they think of O'Donnell, they remember that she "dabbled into Witchcraft." If you say, "Witches are not evil old women with green skin who do spells to harm people," the next time people think of Witches, they will think of . . . .

The message here is that you MUST NOT begin your interview by telling the reporter that, "Witches don't eat babies," or that "Pagans are not Satanists," or that "We don't really do evil spells." Negating a frame reinforces it. If you give the Viagra salesperson a sound-bite about not being a Satanist or not eating babies, I guarandamntee you, those are the six seconds of your entire, 90 minute conversation, that will show up on tv/on the radio/in print, etc. Really. Trust me. And you are not smarter than the reporter. The reporter does this everyday of hir life, while you may talk to the media a dozen or so (if you're v active) times in your life. If you say it, they will use it to (1) sell Viagra and (2) make you look like an idiot. You are playing on their field. Don't give them ANYTHING that you don't want them to use.

4. "Out Yourself as a Pagan" Day has even more pitfalls, IMHO, in terms of media communication, than does Pagan Pride Day. While even fairly mainstream religions may have Pride Days (DC has a great Greek Orthodox festival, for example), the entire notion of "coming out" brings up the issue of why anyone feels the need to stay in the broom closet in the first place. Discussing prejudices against Pagans (the reason some Pagans stay in the closet) without slipping into the whole "We're coming out because some folks think we eat babies, but we don't," (which winds up on the evening news clipped to "We eat babies"), requires a level of media-savvy that I don't think many of us possess.

So if you are going to participate publicly in this event, I urge you to have one, pithy, quotable sentence about why you are are coming out. "I want the whole world to know that a [doctor, lawyer, computer technician, architect, fireman, neighborhood volunteer, librarian] can also be a Pagan." "I am proud of the ancient traditions of Paganism that brought us democracy, philosophy, science, sustainable agriculture, etc., and I want to share that with my community." "I am proud of who I am and I wanted to participate in this nationwide event to share that with my friends and neighbors."

What will you say if the reporter asks you, "But what about the people who say that Witches eat babies?" You need to not only have your answer to this question written out, you need to practice with a friend (preferably on video, if possible) how you will answer this question and all of its variations. If you don't have time to do this, you don't have time to be a public spokesperson. The objective here is NOT to give a detailed, nuanced, thorough answer to the Viagra salesperson's question. The goal here is to get away from negating a negative frame and to IMMEDIATELY GET BACK to the message you've decided that you want to get out. "Sensationalism aside, Pagans have a long and proud history of providing civilization with important institutions such as democracy and philosophy that . . . ." "What I want to focus on is how modern Pagans can be important in a post-peak-oil world, especially given all we've learned over the ages about respecting the cycles of nature. For example, next month, my group will collect seeds at Ostara to donate to a local community garden, where, last year we . . . . " "As I mentioned, this Summer, MYGROUPX will be holding seminars to teach anyone who's interested the basics of Witchcraft and you can register for these classes at www.mygroupx.com or you can . . . ."

Go spend an afternoon watching, say, Rachael Maddow or Fox "News" and see how conservatives respond to every question that comes up by ignoring the question and repeating the message that they want to get out. It's a learned skill and you can learn it. Buy and read George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant. Role play with a friend. You may not like conservatives, but they have been wildly successful at getting their message out and at framing (death tax, partial birth abortion, America is a xian nation, etc.) the issues that matter to them. If you're smarter than they are, why haven't you been more successful at getting your message out?

I'll leave to each Pagan's own conscience and decison-making process, whether, when, and how to come out. I've already made my own decisions on those issues. But I will beg each Pagan who decides to come out to the media to do it in a way that doesn't harm the rest of us. Dealing with the media is a skill and it can be learned. Or it can be royally botched. You owe it to all of us not to botch it, esp. when it's so easy to just shut up until you know what you're doing.

5. Paganism, Wicca, Faerie, etc. are religions. They are not faiths. Xianity and Islam are based, to a large extent, upon "faith." This is the notion that "believers" have "faith" in, for example, Jesus or Mohamed, and that they accept "on faith" certain precepts of the religion. Even when one's rational mind might cause one to "doubt" certain tenants of such "faiths," one is encouraged to "have faith" in one or another promises of the featured "faith." Not all religions are "faiths." Paganism is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of religions, including, for example, Wicca, Druidism, Asatru, etc. None of these are exclusively "faiths," but they are all religions. So when you talk to the Viagra salespersons, don't describe Paganism as a "faith," or as a (tickles back of throat) "faith community." Describe it as what it is: a religion. My religion has nothing to do with faith and everything to do with direct experience of divinity/nature/nature/divinity/etc. If you're going to speak for all of us, speak for all of us, including the majority of us who have zero faith and 100% experience. Why legitimize the idea that the only valid religions are those based upon faith?

May the Goddess guard those who come out. May the Goddess guard those who practice privately. May all of us show Honor to all of the rest of us. So mote it be.

Picture found here.

No One Could Have Anticipated

Season of Misogyny.

Picture found here.

Witches, Right Here in Columbia's District

Nice to see a local lady make good.

Katrina Messenger: Connect DC is a group that focuses on public ritual. Katrina Messenger’s work with this organization has created a sense of openness and interconnectedness within the DC Pagan community. As the founder of the Reflections Mystery School, a facility member of Cherry Hill and organizer of the Sweeping the Capital Clean event Katrina has a long history of service to the community. It is however, her focus on providing public community for all Pagans that brought her to my attention as a Pagan that “Walks the Talk”.

I stopped by Katrina's annual New Year's party this evening and had a chance to congratulate her on her great handling of the media during the Christine O'Donnell "I Am Not a Witch" debacle. Katrina managed her interview with grace and good humor, avoiding the too-familiar Pagan slip-up of becoming defensive and announcing that, "We don't worship Satan." Connect DC is about to go from 4 public rituals a year to 8.

Photo by the blogger; if you copy please link back here or to Connect D.C.

Still Enough to Get You Burned to Death

And it's still usually women getting burned.

The fear of witchcraft in Ghana has been traced back to the 15th century when the nation was introduced to Christianity. It was through the churches teaching that raised the anxiety of locals about the destructive influences of witches. Women named as witches were accused of drinking human blood and eating the flesh.

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More here, here, here, and here.

Daily Practice

I know that I'm a bit of a broken record (now there's a term G/Son's generation won't get) about this, but one of the most important things that a Witch can do is to have a daily practice. One of my v favorite bloggers says that we Witches need to work all the time to answer the question: "What are Witches for?" And, I agree.

One of the things that we're for, IMHO, is for having a daily practice.

A daily practice is a way of checking in (of being in relationship with), daily, with Mama Gaia, your landbase, your watershed, the (perhaps quite tiny) "bit of Earth" of which you are the Witch. When I sit in my altar room and call the Elements, I announce myself: "I am Hecate, the Witch of this place," and by "this place," I mean the less-than-a-quarter-acre bit of Earth that I have delved, planted, laid upon, grounded in, weeded, raked, done magic upon, consumed the herbs grown from, and come to know these past seven years. When I wake in the morning, in the small room in the Northeast corner of my house (now refreshingly chilly and full of reminders of how lucky I am to have sheets, blankets, comforters, socks crocheted by my own grandma), I connect my roots with the roots of the three giant oaks, the two American wisteria, the two temple pines, the three Japanese maples, the many herbs, the gardenias and lilacs, the jack-in-the-pulpits, the drancunculus vulgaris, the toad lilies, and the daylilies that live here with me. I reach out and connect with the squirrels, and chipmunks, and cardinals, and bluejays, and Carolina waxwings, and rabbits, and foxes who live here with me.

When I eat my oatmeal and poached egg, I call upon Columbia, the Goddess of This Place, and Hygeia, a Goddess upon whom both I and my circle of women have called, and I ask for their blessings. I go out and give birdseed to the birds I know and I give coffee grounds to the gardenias. May we never hunger. May we never thirst.

When I go to work, I purposefully drive along-side my beloved Spout Run and my adored Potomac River and I give gifts to "my" Homeless Vet who waits by the entrance to the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge. These are the acts of a Witch.

When I get to work, I stop for a moment and invoke every woman who went before me, working with laws, words, her ability to write, and argue, and persuade. (What my secretary sees: "Just like every morning, she's taking off her sunglasses, rummaging in her purse, and putting on her reading glasses. Just like every morning, she stops, holds her hands over the keys, and then types in her password (just now "elegant editing.")) (What's really happening: Hecate recites her morning prayer: 'I am a manifestation of the Goddess. Mother, help me to grow into my Better Self. It's all real. It's all metaphor. There's always more.' Hecate stops for a moment and invokes Hatshepsut, Druidic women, Boadicea, QE I, Mistress Margaret Brent, Abigail Adams, Susan B. Anthony, and Athena, Goddess of politics and laws. Hecate invokes Hecate, Goddess of liminal spaces, the space where her words and arguments may create change. Hecate asks Mama Gaia for guidance. Hecate slips on reading glasses, sends reiki to her keyboard, and hits "Open" on the first e-mail of the day.)

At 11:00 and 3:00, my computer gives me a message: Time to get up, walk around and move, create some energy, and change, and movement. I walk the halls of my firm sending blessings to everyone there. "May we serve justice. May Fortuna bless our work." I return and face East, South, West, and North and ground in the zinging and singing and whirring swampy clay of Washington, D.C.

When I get home, I sink onto the rolled-up cotton yoga blanket before my altar, touch my forehead to the wood, and ground. Again.

Having a daily practice gives me the opportunity to connect with, send Reiki to, strengthen, and bless my own bit of Earth. It allows me to do the work of a Priestess, a Witch, a woman of Earth.

I believe, and I may be a crazy old woman but I do believe, that my daily practice does Earth good. And that, more than anything else, is what I am for. I am here to connect with the Earth and to let her know that she has an ally. I am here to connect with a run and a river and to let them know that they are seen, heard, loved, and experienced. I am here to drive over the bridge from Virginia to DC and to let the shining city on a swamp know that her ally is back, to get one v short glance of the statue of Columbia above the capital, and to let this polis know that she is loved in all her marble monuments and all her hidden gardens. I am here to minister to the trees, flowers, herbs, and animals of a tiny spot in northern Virginia and to send shining energy to them.

And that, as Mr. Frost explained, has made all the difference.

What are you for? What does your daily practice look like?

Photo by the author. If you copy, please link back.

But, of Course, It Could Never Happen Here

An atheist group in Malawi says it will ask the president to release dozens of women jailed on allegations of practicing witchcraft.

The Association of Secular Humanism wants President Bingu wa Mutharika to order the immediate release of 80 women, many of them elderly, sentenced to up to six years imprisonment with hard labor. Most of the women were accused of teaching witchcraft to children in the southern African country.

ASH spokesman George Thindwa says the women are innocent.

Witchcraft is not a crime under Malawian law. But the government has set up a committee to investigate criminalizing the practice.

Recently Mutharika pardoned Malawi's first openly gay couple after sentencing them to 14 years' imprisonment.

Story found here.

It doesn't even have to be against the law.

Last Wild Witch

It's getting complicated.

The other night, G/Son, his 'rents, and I were eating at our favorite Mexican restaurant and the 'rents were saying that maybe they'd come over to Nonna's neighborhood, this year, for trick-or-treating, since their neighborhood doesn't take trick-or-treating too seriously, not having many kids. And I said that would be great; they could come over before Nonna and all her friends began their ritual. I said, "We all dress up like Witches, because we are."

G/Son, who loves his Nonna and thinks she's a nice old lady who will buy him the Star Wars toys that he wants and play make-believe games with him and let him stay up eating Cheerios and watching movies, said, "No, you're not Witches." He knows that I've told him that I am a Witch, but he's at a stage where he doesn't want it to be true. It confuses him.

I said, "Yes, we are. We are good Witches, who honor the Earth. Like Glinda, the good Witch, remember her?"

G/Son said, "Yes, but she was just a Witch because she had a magic wand that worked."

We're going to have to have a longer talk about this soon, but I think we need to have it on a walk, outside.

I'd give almost everything I've got not to make his life complicated. But he's a smart kid; he's going to be able to understand this. Please.

Well, Christine, I Am. And I'm Tired of Your Bullshit.

Here's Christine O'Donnell running on her I'm not a witch platform.

Last person I heard say, "I'm you," was Linda Tripp. Who was, you know, not me.

Christine, I'm a witch and I've got a nice black dress and a nice strand of pearls, too. You've been using Witches to get attention for years; now you want to use them to get elected. Stop it.

It's not November, yet, and I'm already tired of this.

Picture found here.

Bite Me

The guest was Eliot Spitzer, and while maintaining that the Democrats would hold the Senate in November, he referred to an offhand remark by Christine O’Donnell, the Republican Senate nominee in Delaware, that she had “dabbled in witchcraft.” [The remark was hardly "offhand." She said it and went on to defend it.]

“There are a substantial number of safe Democratic seats since the Republicans nominated, you know, some folks on the fringe that, you know, witches,” Mr. Spitzer said. “I mean, since when do you nominate a witch?”

More here.

I don't know, Eliot, apparently New York nominated and even elected a whore-monger. I'll take a Witch, any day.

Picture found here.

Don't Pretend

If you're going to charge for spells in Canada, you'd better not be "pretending."

Completely unenforceable law. Discriminatory. What if someone charges for praying to Jesus or St. Anthony? The fact that the law is seldom enforced, but can suddenly be used when police like is a problem.

Come on, Canada. You can do better.

Burn Her!

Old woman and grandchildren hacked to death because the woman was suspected of witchcraft. Her home had previously been burned down for the same reason.

Thank goodness there are no crazed mobs who'd do anything like that over here.

And I Am Marie of Romania

Nothing to see here. Move along.

And, surely, nothing here, either.

She's a Witch! Burn Her!

But, we, surely, are not at risk.

Brutally beaten, made to eat human waste, ostracized, denied work and earning opportunities, forced to live in isolation – this is the story of Rubiya Bibi, a poor Muslim woman in Jharkhand, India, branded as a ‘witch’ by men in her village.

A mother of four children – all under 10 -, Rubiya’s husband is mentally unstable and oblivious to what is happeing. Rubiya’s in-laws have supported her tormentors and driven her away from her husband’s home.

Rubiya now lives at her father’s home. Her father, a poor labourer, struggles to feed so many mouths with his meager income. Rubiya’a children can’t go to school as their mother is a ‘witch’. They can’t play with other children because everyone teases them as the ‘witch’s children.

Still Enough to Get You Burned

Being elderly is a decided disadvantage.

Hedge Witch

You know, it's funny. I read this headline to mean something quite different from what it means.

Picture found here.

OK, the Calling in Sick Part Was Pretty Dumb

More on the "professional Witch" of Wookey Hole.

Guilty As Charged?

Back when I was a "guitar Mass" Catholic, we used to ask each other, "If they tried you for being a follower of Jesus, would they have enough evidence to convict you?" (Yeah, xians love to feel persecuted; they do. I was maybe six when I first longed to be burned as a martyr or to have stigmata. Note to St. Germain, I take back everything I said to you at my confirmation. I actually have ZERO desire to die coughing blood and hiding it from Mother Superior in my handkerchief, no matter how romantic I may have believed that to be at age 12. Really.)

But I want to turn that around. If you were charged with being a member of a nature religion, what did you do today that would be evidence of that? If not on the Dark Moon, then when? Eight times a year / = enough.

What about the child closest to you? Does s/he know that you worship nature?