What it Means to be a Witch

Beyond our innocent joy and celebration of life we become burdened by the weights put upon us. As we grow and change to adapt to this world it becomes apparent that woman have not been allowed to embrace their power, to present the magic that they feel inside. We are buried under the rubble of our ancestors and work hard to claw our ways out. Piece by piece we move the heavy stones of our aching bodies. Female presenting people are particularly underestimated and undone by society alongside their black and brown brothers. We have been burned and bullied into submission throughout history. Yet the witches who show their bloody and broken fingers to the world and cast spells with the crimson ink are the woman who stand even when ordered to sit. They are the ones who have remembered their power, and spit in the faces of their oppressors.

Witches are the people who remember what the divine feminine signifies. Remembering through their bodies, through sexuality, discernment, creation/destruction and manipulation of the energy surrounding everything. The ones who remember what it is to know their own power, taking one’s femininity in their hands and adoring it. Giving it a safe space to gestate, adding the exact amount of food, light and water for its optimal dive into the richness of the soil. Through the darkness, hibernating in the absolute of the divine until it is ready to burst through the earth and master its own creation. The witch is a creature of becoming, she is one who will bring herself forth and work to bring those who are oppressed with her.

Unveiling potency in the body, she listens to the wisdom of the heart. This is where the Divine Feminine finds the self and scorches the social impediments and expectations that have weighed her down throughout the lifetimes of her and her sisters. She feels what it is to play with her limbs in the world, to dance and to move with the beat of the universal drum. Taking the tips of her fingers and tracing the faces of those she has loved. Her muscle memory allowing her to skip the parts that don’t serve her anymore. Her body is her reflection of her spirit in this world. When her body become the messenger instead of a thing to be battled, she learns her place on the throne. The moment a witch realizes that her legs are movement and roots to the earth in the same breath, she will find balance. For this is her connection to all that is. And when she forgets why she is here; this is her tether to her own body.

The Divine Feminine is accessible through female bodied sexuality. Shame has held the female form in bondage throughout time. Shame shackles us to the masculine domination and disallows the Feminine power to be found in the physical. Eliminating this stigma is how the witch becomes free from the social structure, internal conditioning of her constrictions, and the binding of her ancestors before her.

When the witch find access to her sexuality without distain of her own form or the voices of physical neglect and abuse, she finds her body is a portal to divinity. She is able to know and feel what it is to be connected to the Universal force. Through that openness to her own sexual energy, in whatever that is for her, she can dissolve the restrictions and fears of how she walks in the world. Moving beyond the motivation of the masculine; entering into the absolute power of the Feminine. The witch’s ability to find herself through her own orgasms is a way of knowing her majesty and possibility of her own unique being. When one no longer listens to those who tell her she has no right to pleasure, the witch will become the lover of the Divine. Receiving messages, insights and connection to all that is.

An Exercise: Stripping away the shame, that many women have inherited through generations, is a very difficult process. Be gentle on the self, that is the most important part of the process. Find a quiet place to focus your attention where no one will be able to bother you. Bring a hand mirror. Close your eyes and dive deep into a situation where you felt shame about your body or sexuality. Meditate on that feeling, dig into it to the point where you feel it in your body, and in your heart. Start to question this feeling of shame. Where did it come from? Would you project that shame on someone you love who was in your exact situation? Does the shame come from societal norms, someone who told you that who you are or what you enjoy is shameful? Have you been told that you are too much? Too little? Has someone told you that your body isn’t perfect just as it is? Has media told you that you are different or wrong in some way? Think about all of your answers. What is real? What is Truth? What has been conditioned into to you or brought about by trauma? Begin the process of dismantling these thought processes, disprove them. Think about what you would say to a dear friend that felt this way. Look in the mirror and tell your self that you are perfect just as you are. That your body is not shameful and/or it is beautiful to be sexual. Be more specific to your own experiences. Thank yourself for being kind and understanding. Thank yourself for being raw and vulnerable. Eventually, if you become comfortable with it you can try to talk to someone you trust about what your ashamed about. Being transparent often deflates shame.

What is a witch who cannot discern her traumas, pain and conditioning from her truth? She will put her magnitude into the unhealthiest of places. Her sheer force will be misdirected into anger, fear and constriction of the heart and she will lose the very self she has fought so hard to regain. To be a “good witch”, she will learn what is truth and what is the rubble she climbed out of. Listening to her body to discover that which narrows her potentiality, and that which exemplifies it. If the witch has gained knowledge in the sensations of her own physical response, she will discern that which will hold her captive in her own emotions and that which will allot her to become her own guide to truth. Beings can only trust themselves if they know what to heed. As humans we are mixed up in the rubble where we have been entombed, and our own essence gets lost in the mess. That essence is the Universe, we are not separate from it. Every cell of our human form is it! We are divine! Yet so many forget to figure out what is rubble and what is the true self. When we remember, we are able to know all the Universe knows; it is available to us if we realize it is there. The key is differentiating between the subtlety of the body, heart and mind that is truth, and the sentiments and responsiveness that has been formulated by hardship.

The discernment I speak of here is about discovery of this true self. Weeding out all of the thought patterns and attachments to ideas that constrict us. Allowing our being, as unique and extravagant, to recognize our oneness with every aspect of the Universe. We are part of a kaleidoscope, and in our own infinite wisdom we contribute to the prism of the world. Witches are finders of this information, being masters of the infinite while remaining in the body. Living in that which seems beyond the comprehension of people who choose to stay under the rubble. Through the Divine Feminine, the realm of possibility expands into the sky above, the earth below, the elements and the spirit. It is the natural flow of opening and allowing, seeing and knowing, being and becoming in an endless dance between the human form and the transcendental.

Witches know that creation and destruction are a part of life itself. When witches carry a womb, they experience this process through their bodily cycles of menstruation and fertility. Through the cries of creation through our own germination, the body flows with the moon, soon after to die and be reborn. The cycles of life and death are all around us. Without these cycles, a witch must only look to the sacredness of nature. As the leaves sprout from the barren branch, the rhythm of life continues on. The forests burn to break open the seeds for a new world. The witch knows this in her bones, more than any other thing. She can create and destroy the entirety of the world. Because she is energy and force, flow and power. She is the record keeper for capability and beginnings, the movement of the electrical current that runs through each and every one of us. She can burn it all down with the flick of her matchstick, only to fertilize the sacred ground for the next incarnation. The witch only finds this true power when she has first learned discernment; only approaching once there is no shame. The witch must be free to move forward. She is one who knows in her heart what it all looks like when the lights are on. Then and only then will she be able to know where to shine her brilliance. Witches know that if they are to have a relationship with themselves and the Divine, they must include the nature world. If her vision gets cloudy, the she will find her way through the earth, the air, the water and fire. The animals, the mountains, the oceans, lakes and rivers, will bring her back to the truth.

The witch is the master of manipulation, the one who carries magic in her back pocket and soil under her fingernails. Because she knows of life, death, creation and destruction, she is gifted the ability to make changes in the world. This is only possible because she has learned to amend herself. Once the witch has become skilled in her own abilities to transform into her true self, she becomes able to transform the world around her. The spells she casts are her mark of the Universe on hungry souls. She moves the rocks from the piles, enabling the lost to get a glimpse of what is imaginable. Clearing space for possibility, she gives permission to explore what one truly desires. Far and wide her powers terrify and excite; those who want to taste her tears and understand how they too can come to the truth in themselves attempt to bind her magic. As they do not want to feel the pain of growth and change, loss, love and the rejection that comes before shame is eliminated. They want to be like her with out the suffering it took to be her.

Yet as so many Mother Goddesses before her she will sit with compassion and intolerance of ignorance, leading those who carry hate into a place of love. The witch is an alchemist of the spirit, in herself and in the world. The witch is a leader, showing what life as a human being can look like. Leading those who are lost towards a new way of existence. Being labelled a witch has become a nasty characteristic, because it is a word that has been poisoned and disturbed by the patriarchy. When what a witch carries on her shoulders is the weight of the rubble of the world. The witches are the ones who have unburdened, so that the rest can have lightness in their opportunities; that they may be lifted up to see that there is so much more to existence than what they thought possible.