Elven World Healing Arts Community

Nature inspired arts, music, poetry, dance & song

Borrowed from :
https://owlintheoaktarot.com/2018/12/29/you-say-witch-like-its-a-ba...

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When I opened Owl in the Oak Tarot, more than one person told me that I shouldn’t refer to myself as a witch to the public. One woman told me she was afraid I would get hurt if I was open about being a witch. Another time I was at a networking event at a new age shop and someone asked about my tarot services, wanting to know more about me. I told her I was a witch and the look on her face was telling enough to know she wouldn’t be calling me. A woman who overhead walked up to me a couple of minutes later and said, “I don’t think she liked that you called yourself a witch. Maybe you should come up with a different way of describing yourself.” I responded, “I am a witch. How people react to that isn’t my problem, and it lets me know right away who is meant to be working with me.”

The irony of being in a new age shop and receiving that kind of attitude is not lost on me. Many people enjoy drawing from witch culture and practice while looking down their nose at witches. You want to work with the metaphysical properties of gemstones to bring about healing or other desires? That’s witch territory. You want to work with the spirits of herbs and learn herbalism? That’s witch territory. You want to be able manifest certain results in your life? That’s witch territory. You’re super interested in tarot and other forms of divination? That’s witch territory. You make wishes when you blow out your birthday candles? Witch territory. Petition deities, saints, or angels to help you? Witch territory. You banish or rebuke spirits in the name of a deity? That’s witch territory, my friends.

But not everyone who does one or more of these things is a witch. The priest rebuking a spirit in the name of Jesus wouldn’t be happy to be referred to as a witch, after all. These are just common components of many forms of witchcraft practice. However, to draw the line as if these practices are divorced from witchcraft instead of born from it, and elevate the practices while demeaning witches and witchcraft, is asinine. You can put these practices into whatever religious or spiritual framework you want and they are still at heart the work of the witch.

I’ve been told I’m going to hell plenty of times in my life. Someone with no authority threatened my fiancé’s job (he works at a church) over Facebook messenger because I’m a witch. I have a friend who shared my Facebook page and was confronted by her mother for supporting me. Being a witch carries with it historical and present day marginalization and ostracism. It is not an easy mantle to carry. It is even worse in a culture that pilfers our practices while simultaneously deriding us.

Many women are claiming the title of ‘witch’ in order to reclaim their power, but I will say that though these two are interconnected, reclaiming power isn’t all there is to being a witch. It is one component of a complex practice and lifestyle. A society that looks down its nose on women naturally looks down its nose on witches. However, it’s just as easy for the tide to change for women but not for witches, as the two are not synonyms and witches have always been “other.”

“Witch” does not belong to any agenda or movement. It is not a buzzword. It is not a trend. It is not a title focused on evoking imagery to propel change and be discarded later. It is a living practice older than all of these constructs. It pervades all of history and present day. “Witch” is not a title of defamation. It is a glowing recommendation of wisdom, knowledge, power, and action. It is an indication of connection, of clear sight, of something ancient at work that has been at work since the beginning of all creation moving through the people who have answered the call. It is the lineage of the healer, the observer, the scientist, the justice seeker, the shaman. Respect the witch. After all, the whole of humanity, our ancestors, our progeny, benefit from the Craft.

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Replies to This Discussion

This is kind of silly but I watched a show about modern witches called “good witch”. She is a woman who practices kindness and magic and helps the people in her town including with teas and herbs and premonitions that guide her to bring people together. She has some rituals, too. xoxo

Humans are humans, sometimes they could be termed as Homo Nonsencius. XD

They get so triggered when people use some terms, even can dare to send others to jail just for calling them something. So infantile...

People will always fear that which they dont fully understand, anything that goes against the grain to what they have been raised with so to say.. but one would think these days with the internet as it is that human minds would be way more open to the knowledge & concepts of white magic witchcraft and not be still close minded & complacent in prehistorical indoctrinated fears.

I personally kind of find it hilarious when you come across one that's oppressed, as their body language & the nonsensical things they say just make me laugh, even things to do with shamanism they know nothing about and call it witchcraft. The world still has many closed brains & eyes & I blame religions for it all..they dont have awakening consciousness within them at all,rather the opposite...thus oppressed consciousness is the root of all evils..

Yes, we do have the internet, but the people are not taught to seek the information out for themselves, but to lsiten to the authorities.

You'll always get the ignorant,vulnerable & indoctrinated mindsets out there in society,no matter if knowledge is out there to be seen & add to that all the time religions brainwash people listening to their authorities too...but who really cares,those who are open to see will be drawn by the energies being given out in information, those who dont will keep on sleeping..

God Seed / Gorgoroth - Prosperity and Beauty (Live @ Wacken Open Ai...

To make music or art is witchcraft yes, there are about a billion witches on this planet.

People that are unhappy with themselves and are stuckup are usually dissatisfied with everyhting in life and have no generosity or open mind to understand even their own children, let alone beauty.

Gees I havnt listened to Gorgoroth for years Aiylyeaelle..awesome show thanks for sharing it,hes rather cleaver isnt he..as for music being considered witchcraft I dont believe that at all,as its human creativity & sharing of energies, its those people who have been indoctrinated to believe its witchcraft like religious people that believe in Satan & evil & hell etc lol they actually have a Spiritually Transmitted Disease STD if you ask me..as they are just narrow minded sorts..as you cant have light without moving through darkness first, as light comes from dark.

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The world as you know it - all that you see, taste, feel and touch, comprises only about 5% of all of the stuff of the universe. The other 95% is what we have considered "nothing" or the "firmament"  or dark matter or the heavens or mystic Other Worlds. This 95% is multi-dimensional and consists of potential realities that may be perceived.

A single thought...a mere whisper, ...... barely upon a breeze that catches a spark... all is tinder before the firestorm... and yet.
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