On Being a Witch

I almost hate to write this, but lately I’ve been inundated with links to articles about what it is to be a witch. Although I do believe that being a witch is a personal thing and can look as varied as anything else can, one idea I’ve seen expressed again and again is that for some reason, witches must become acceptable in the world. As if we have to somehow reclaim the term witch and make it whole again.

Look. I get that witches aren’t the most accepted people in the world. But since when has any of that mattered in the broader scheme of things? Have we not simply moved around such people, living our lives in any manner we wish? Who is it exactly that will confer this so-called acceptability on us? The people who foolishly believe we’re evil? Why on earth would we need or want their approval anyway?

I love it though. The same people who think witches need a revival of sorts are the same ones who want to make a living off of their new identity. I’ve never believed being a witch is something that I do. It’s always been something that I am. So I don’t understand selling spells or giving classes or sponsoring retreats where endless long, dark nights of the soul are explored. My initial response to that nonsense is to suggest they get over themselves, not go down the rabbit hole with them.

I suppose given that I believe we create the world that we see, seeing something that needs to be fixed seems counterintuitive and a result of faulty judgment. Or maybe it’s the Crone in me, but I’ve never thought that witches, or women for that matter, need to embrace any aspect of the physically expressed self. The only thing we need to do is to align with our Source within and move forward in joyful creation. That’s it.

We don’t need to embrace the Goddess within, because She’s never left us.

We don’t need to heal wounds that we agreed to experience before incarnating into physical form. They were just something to experience, perhaps as players in someone else’s experience. Seeing any of it as anything other than an agreed upon experience is a judgment that takes us in an earthly, ego-based direction and away from our greater aspect of Self.

Why would any of us do that? Why would any witch do that? Why would any of us see ourselves through the ego’s vision and in turn less than? Why would we give any of this collective perception any more significance than it truly has? Why would we make any of that real?

I know women are tired of being treated disrespectfully. And if the woman is also a witch, she may experience more of that kind of treatment. But she doesn’t let it change who she is, and a witch needs no one to define her.

We only need to reclaim witch if we never understood what it was in the first place.

Blessed be the witch who defines herself.