Welcome to Witch Season

This post is from my October newsletter.

I’ve been thinking a lot about witches lately. I do consider myself one. Let me explain what I mean by that. 

It’s not so much about magic spells—although I admit, I do cast those rather a lot. And it’s not so much about magic—except that, actually, it is, I do believe a lot of what I do is magic. But magic isn’t special—no, that’s not true either, it is special. But it’s not exclusive, there’s no real secret to it, it’s not something that only some can access. You don’t need an invitation.

Image by @catherinebyrdy

When I cast a spell, the person I bewitch is me. I am using ritual and imagination to open my own perspective or to let go of something my rational brain can’t understand. Spells and rituals are powerful because they can reach the parts of us our logical brains simply cannot approach. 

For me, a witch is also a radical political position. It’s someone who insists on finding their own power in a culture that does not want that. Who listens to the wisdom of their bodies and the seasons. Witches work to heal the intergenerational trauma that lives within them. They work to stay connected in a world that wants numbness. I think of Jessica Dore’s book Tarot for Change, where she writes that the practice of reading tarot

provides a path toward reclaiming the imagination from the grips of doubt and rationalism. Toward reawakening the part in us with the audacity to know without material evidence.

Three ways I sometimes feel like a witch from Liz Huston’s Dreamkeeper’s Tarot deck.

During the long centuries of worldwide witch hunts, the people targeted were often those who had some natural or intuitive power, those who knew, for example, how to use herbs to cause an abortion. It was people (usually women) who didn’t fit in with the new patriarchal Christian order that was trying to take hold at the time (see more in the books Caliban and the Witch and Witches, Midwives, and Nurses). Those witches are the ancestors of today’s feminists, anti-racists, activists, and healers, the ones that resist the wounds and oppressions of the status quo. Never forget that your healing is a radical act. 

A lot of naturopaths and bodyworkers are witches. So are many doctors and pharmacists. Counselors are often witches. So are surgeons, writers, actors, lovers, parents, cooks. All children, at least until the world teaches them to stop trusting their intuition. You might be a witch. We all have the capacity to be in contact with magic if we choose to. 

So welcome to Witch Season. Halloween, or Samhain, is the official beginning of the Witches’ Year, if you’re looking at it from a pagan/Wiccan perspective. This is traditionally the time when the veils between the worlds thin. Some of us find it’s easier to tap into our intuition right now, to talk to our ancestors, and to get guidance from Spirit, whatever Spirit means to us individually. 

If you think you might be a witch, welcome to the club. This is your season.