WOMANHOOD | FEMINISM AND FEMININE MAGIC
I Am Woman, I Am Earth, I Am Magic, But Am I Witch?
Turning insults derived by patriarchy into empowered change
Something was triggered in me recently. Not in a good way.
I was listening to a podcast about a modern day (and absolutely awful-sounding) cult. At one point, the leader turned horribly nasty on a woman who began questioning the cult’s practices. He called her “a nasty little witch.”
There was something about the words and the way in which he said them that really sliced into my heart and my stomach. My ex-partner had, on numerous occasions, uttered those very same words to me, with exactly the same level of vitriol. It felt so hurtful and ugly. Yet it also reflects deeply on the person whose lips uttered them.
I played those same words over and over, trying to understand the deep emotions they evoked. And then they preyed on me for days afterwards. And that’s when I began looking further into the world of witches — the dark and gruesome side of the supposed rise — and fall — of witches when many women were tortured and murdered under the guise of being found guilty of practising evil magic, but also the beautiful and magical side of what is considered modern day witchcraft.
