Witch. Witch, WITCH!

From the moment Phyllis Curotts Book of Shadows flung itself into my life, I couldn't escape the word Witch even though I had tried to wiggle around it.  At first, it was a mysterious love affair.  I wanted to know, read, feel and absorb everything witchy.  The more I learned, the more curious, and hungry I became. What was this historical information so purposefully left out of my upbringing? Of course we studied the Salem Witch trials in history class. But glory be that we glanced over The Burning Times!  The very first holocaust just politely swept under the rug for why?  The more I consumed in knowledge the more enraged I became.  Millions of innocent women and children drowned, burned or hung for their land or because they didn't convert to Catholicism. All hail the power of organized, weaponized religion.

      This was early 2000's mind you, alone in my San Francisco apartment watching a documentary and weeping. It felt as if everything I'd known had been a total lie and that lie was protecting me from my own authentic truth. I felt somewhat validated in my differentness, in my weird way of knowing.  The fact that intuition was once honored and considered a sacred connection to the divine took my deep seated Catholic guilt and wiped the stain glassed windows into my soul with it.  For a moment, history included me and women like me and the things that were happening in this lifetime seemed almost not so scary anymore. This truly felt more like an initiation, a baptism of sorts into worlds that were forced to be forgotten.

Once I was reborn into this new way of knowing, that women

were indeed considered sacred and

that Goddess was in the throne along side God as co-creator, as mother of earth and wisdom, I started walking a little taller.  My fear of what was going on when the lights went out subsided and I felt a bit like my pop culture hero, Wonder Woman. Could that book, The Book of Shadows by Phyllis Currot have been my initiation into some past realm now looking to be unearthed and excavated in the hearts of women all over the country?  Was I supposed to be a part of that awakening?  Excitement filled my chest cavity at every turn.  I saw hints of the Goddess in everything and everyone I met, dead or alive.  

Everything became serendipitous. I joined a small group of women on a journey called the Cosmic Cleanse and learned how to eat whole foods "like the ancestors".  Together we also dissolved so many untruths about what it means to be a woman.

We  moved our bodies used breath in a way that honored our whole physical self instead of shaming or condemning what our bodies did or did not have. It felt good like Goddess energy was waiting for me and cheering me on at every turn.       When I went out with friends, I refrained from drinking so much alcohol and asked The Divine Feminine energy to work with me and through me and the high alone from on a dance floor kept me floating for days.

I was in a mad love affair with all things witchy well, except for Stevie Nicks.  (SORRY!)

There was just something about her.  I used to have nightmares of her as a kid. It's true. I really did .On a Sunday outing, I took my video camera as I often liked to do and hopped a cab to Golden Gate Park.  The driver, upon hearing a Fleetwood Mac song turned to me and in a thick Indian accent said "I lost my virginity to Stevie Nicks."

"Ah. Which song?" I nodded in disbelief that strangers (still) say the craziest shit to me.

"No, to Stevie.  She took my virginity!  She is a white witch you know?"

I had no idea what his virginity and the fact that she was a white witch had to do with one another but I took it as sign that Goddess had a sense of humor and wanted to tickle me in the weirdest and most peculiar ways.

Despite church going and reverence for the foundation of faith upon which

I was taught, this, this actually felt like home. But the word Witch itself

still carried quite a stigma, a biting of the lip, holding of the breathe,

and oh my God I am in bed with the devil kind of afterthought that kept me from wanting to scream my new proclamation of faith from the top of Noe Valley.

When I went home for the holidays however, I tried to reveal to my mom my way of spiritual thinking and she likened me to that of the girls on Charmed. "They film it in San Francisco! I watch it just to think of you, well that and Monk." 

The fact that she threw my confession into a cross reference with pop culture made me feel like she was interested in maybe someday, she'd be open to having a deeper understanding.

I created my very own book of shadows, filled it with photographs I'd take on my California expeditions. I started to recognize Pagan holidays and explored spells for self love and rituals of cleansing and protection to keep me from the negative energy I would feel right before I went to sleep or from some of my coworkers who wrestled with my harmony.

I honored my intuition and did things to exercise it.  I wrote down all of my adventures in a journal and any spell I tried I would follow it up with written testimonial.

I learned fast and hard that things I put my energy into became real.  So I tried an innocent love spell to see if I had the mojo in me.  It worked. Too well.  I wasn't specific in what I had wanted, just more or less a lover that was deeply attracted to me.  I conjured a man and a woman at the same time as if to say the Universe wanted me to take my pick.  I felt spoiled rotten and excited and powerful. I had my fill with both parties pretty fast and realized that neither of the people who had shown up were actually listening to me when I talked, rather they just wanted to just consume me. It got pretty hairy scary fast. And I needed to reverse course. Everything was about physically touching, staring, pawing, kissing.  There was no other form of communication taken more seriously.  At first, it was enough to keep me power hungry but after a few weeks of the same zombie lovers it was a bit frightening.  I knew I fucked up.  This wasn't natural and it wasn't right.  When I went to end it with the vivacious, curvy, bartender who was so much fun and opened my eyes to things I had no idea were possible with a woman it was like I never ended it. She kept calling and laughing, after I had asked her to please stop calling. She would show up places I didn't expect. 

The man was easier to get rid of although he came in and out of my life for years after I moved out of San Francisco.  But after this experience it was clear that manipulating an outcome or influencing someone's free will just didn't sit well with me. I made a vow to myself that I could not do it again under any circumstance for myself or for anyone else.

 As time went on, it seemed like there were witches or interested budding witches everywhere.  San Francisco or the Bay Area really felt like home to all the women and men who were reborn from the Burning Times.  I came to realize so many events and groups that celebrated Pagan ways and it made me so happy.  And yeah, maybe my mom was right, maybe it had something to do with the popularity of Charmed.  But then out of nowhere came a book that that had the whole world talking; Harry Potter.

     Stomping my feet, I refused to read any of the books or see the movies.  I wanted my experience to be totally my own, untainted and not influenced by pop culture.  I never watched an episode of Charmed until six years after the last episode aired and magically landed on Netflix.  My journey of magic and feminine divinity was sacred neophytish and of my own design.

When I left San Francisco I was certain it would be just me floating in an ocean of uber right wing Christians when I moved 'home'.  I was half right.  My daughter's great grandmother, an evangelical who spoke in tongues and it was ok for her and her daughter to participate in swollen, hyper animated church services in which non English language poured from their lips as a way of worshiping God but mention of me having an earth based faith condemned me to outcast. And if anyone had gotten wind of my psychic or medium abilities forget it.  It was not my gifts, but I, me , I alone as a person was against their religion.

Bartending, I cut off a woman who had too much.  She had also stolen my friends puppy and hit my daughter's Uncle with a car, twice. When I told her she couldn't partake in happy hour festivities she stood on her barstool, hissed, spit flying from holes between the teeth in her mouth "At least I'm not a Witch!"

I laughed. "That's all you got?"     

It was absurd the way people treated me. I didn't have to really say a thing.

I never wore a moon shaped necklace or pentacle.  My long black hair and bohemian style and maybe a few Facebook posts about Samhain did me in.

The worst backlash however didn't come from people who were

freaked out church goers. In fact they were always more than curious and a few came to me for help when they needed with their boyfriends crazy ex or court case they had pending. It was endearing and I didn't mind looking into ways that helped.  

Backfire however, was never harsher than from other self proclaimed witches. 

Yes, two witches I broke up with in bussiness deals became my magical arch enemies. They both sucked the ever living day lights out of me and used every drop what they could, money, my family name, etc until I had no more to give. And did I bend over backwards magically for them? Unfortunately, yes.  Was it a landlord that wanted rent? Spell! 

Did an ex lover from five years prior cross paths with a certain witch and make her doubt her current reality? Spell! Could the donation made to a certain art gallery mean that a certain witch wasn't supporting another? Spell, spell spell! 

Did I mention I met so many witches in the concentrated little town of Jim Thorpe?

Everywhere I turned was a woman with a pentacle hanging from her neck and a twinkle in her eye like don't fuck with me or I'll put a spell on your ass. And the moment they recognized me recognizing them, they'd drop hints like 'Merry meet' to which I would mile and retort the same.  Other than the women I had bonk relationships with I kept my head down and my business to myself.  But when I blogged about my travels or experiences with the Paranormal team, I would hear whispers at the restaurant or in line at the grocery store.  I mainly wrote to remember.  I had no idea that people will be reading, judging and making up their own stories.

Other than my book of shadows, I didn't whole heartedly

practice as much. I was busy with my baby and trying to get stabilized in, you know, capitalism.I read as many books as I could get my hands

on and meditated accordingly. I went into nature as often as I could to commune.

 I knew things were getting weirder when a strange woman came

into my storefront and told me that my name and image had been a recurring tagline in her dreams and visions.  She was sent to tell me that other women, two in particular that I had done business with were putting bad juju on me.  She said that she belonged to a 'clan' and that they could offer me protection.  The head of their group was a Native American woman would would heal me and help to clear the hexes that these women had thrown my way.

Anger overcame me.  At that point it had been two or three years since I had dealings with either woman and I kept to myself to put a roof over my daughter's head.  I was the medium with the antique shop, the real life Ghost Whisperer and I helped as many people as I possibly could.  What more could I do to escape the wrath or the gossipy tongues of jealous

women I didn't want to be in business with anymore?

So I called this Shaman.  I made an appointment for her to remove this negative energy from me. She was kind. She made me feel welcome and laid me on a table where she rattled a drum over me first, burned sage and then laid hands. She said she saw it all. 

From what she described, I had wondered who had told her my most recent life story?  Who was talking?

She mentioned that these women were fearful of my power and wanted what I had. 

That one of them tried to kill me. 

Nothing I hadn't heard before. 

She said she placed protection over me and that St. Michael The Archangel

was ready and willing to work with me.

Bonus note, this past New Years Eve, I was told one of these women is still "obsessed" & tried to "kill me." again.

     Months later the woman who came into my antique store to tell me she could offer me protection in her coven from the women placing hexes on me yelled at the top of her lungs "Oh my Goddess you are so much better than you were before!" Thankfully no one was in the shop at the time.

"How do you know? I looked up from my coffee. "How can you tell?"  I furrowed my brow.

"Well before you looked like a rape victim and now, you look just fine."

WOW.

No harsher words to be spoken than that of an honest sister witch I suppose.

None that felt like they would save me from drowning in a sea of witches anyway.

XOXO MG