I’ve been thinking about ways of getting together as a group to feel into the moon phases, explore some Tarot, and connect groups in a healing capacity. And I think I’ve got it—let’s start a coven!

A coven is a gathering of witches. The word “witch” can mean a lot of things, but all it means to me is someone who taps into their own intuitive powers and the powers of the natural world. Being a witch doesn’t have to require initiation, a leader, or any religious doctrine—in some ways, it rebels against all that. It’s a practice of inner connection that doesn’t need an authority figure.

I first learned about the term process-focused or process-oriented Tarot reading from Jessica Dore, a Tarot reader and teacher whose first book, Tarot for Change, just hit the shelves. Her approach is so much more intuitive than I had often seen when I was trying to leaf through guidebooks and memorize the meaning of each card. She offers Tarot the way I had already been reading it: by observing the images of each card and noticing what comes up.

There’s no evidence witchcraft as a specific religion ever really existed, though as a young teen who would light candles and try to cast spells while blasting the angsty strains of Alanis Morissette, I still can’t help but yearn for a ritualistic practice that literally gave women power. Magic wasn’t really what was being hunted, though: it was any form of power that could belong to a woman, especially if it related to her reproductive abilities.