Morally Ambiguous Witch of the Midwest

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You grasp your head, fist your hair, hiss, whisper why me why me I am weak I am dirt I am dust I am nothing–

Why you? Because the earth is made of dust and dirt and you are as essential to me as earth is to sky; you give me something to set my sun against.

Kai says:

So here’s the short version: there are people who believe that, but they’re old, assholes, and nobody listens to them anymore.

But here is the long version, kidlets:

The main founder of the modern  neopaganism movement, also known today as Wicca, was a British man name Gerald Gardner; he wrote a couple of books called  Witchcraft Today (1954) and The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959). He’s credited with basically being the first person to go “you know what? I’m a witch, fuck all of y’all, we’re cool people” and from that stemmed a literal fuckton of literature, written by man, women, and queer people alike. Gardener was not incredibly original though, to be honest: looking back at his works, we can see a lot of his inspiration came from old pagan roots as well as Victorian Era occultism, and a smattering of other festivals and ideas that were appropriated from other cultures the British had ruled over. Good old fashioned imperialism, folks. It never gets old, apparently.

So, after this resurgence of what was called “the old craft,” things were going pretty well... Up until a movie came out in the 1970s. 1973, in fact. You might have heard of it, it’s called The Exorcist. Because of the events shown in The Exorcist being billed as “a real story” (spoiler: it is based off a telling of the events described around the 1949 exorcism of Roland Doe, but even those events are circumspect) there was a massive uptick in Evangelism in the United States, following concerns about “the devil” and “devil worshipping satanists.” This was informally called “The Satanic panic” and, for the sake of brevity, I’ll just say there’s an excellent article on Vox that you should read in regards to that.

Why does “The Satanic Panic” matter here? It matters because it spurred the pagan community to take themselves underground, way underground, in order to protect themselves and their families. Pagans could be fired from their workplaces, have their children taken, and could even be jailed over accusations like these. It was a dark time in the 1970s and 1980s. Some older pagans describe this period as “the burning times,” and believe me when I promise you, they mean it very unironically.

During this time, a group started to come together, led by a lady who has a really kickass name wasted on a not-so-kickass personality: Zsuzanna Budapest. Z. Budapest, as she’s more commonly known, started a movement for female pagans called Dianic Wicca. Based around the Roman Goddess Diana, it was actually a pretty awesome movement in theory: it was based in feminist roots, it celebrated women, and they have a heavy focus on healing wounds caused by patriarchy. Z. Budapest even advocates for the hexing of rapists. Sounds pretty chill, right?

Yeah-except for the fact that Z. Budapest is a raging TERF. At a women’s ritual she ran at Pantheacon (the largest pagan convention in the United States) in 2012, she stated that only “genetic women” were allowed to participate.

 This, unfortunately, is a common issue with Dianic Wiccans. They don’t want anybody in their space except for “biological women,” and they see an attack on them as TERFs as an attack on them similar to what they went through in the 1970s, which causes them to close ranks and refuse to acknowledge that we have changed as a society since then. Fortunately, they are a minority.

Will I say that paganism is perfect? No. Organizations throughout pagan religion have been struggling and falling behind on acceptance and celebration of their transgender members. But this does not mean witches can only be women, and that witchcraft is something you cannot practice as a nonbinary person. There is still a vast community of people who will accept you. Just be wary that, if you do enter into the pagan community, there is a small group-a group that is, by the by, steadily losing membership because of their opinions-that believes in “women only” spaces and magic. But they are the minority.

Scrabble tiles can be used for divination. 

Self Check-up Tarot Spread by Psychic Cat 

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Free Tarot Readings

The Aries Witch ♈

The Fool Tarot Spread

This spread is to help you recognize your fears in a new situation, so that you may learn and grow.

Shuffle the deck and lay out the cards as per the diagram at right.

Card 1:

This card represents you, your attitude, innocence, naivete, your inexperience in this situation.

Card 2:

This card represents that upon which you have always relied, the solidity of the past that you may have to leave now. This card is certainty and routine and the familiar.

Card 3:

This card represents the risk you have to take, the first step into the unknown, whether large or small.

Card 4:

This card represents your fears, which can be real or imaginary, grounded in the reason of the situation or founded in panic.

Card 5:

+ Ground through the history of your town. Send your roots deep down into the past of those buildings and what they have seen

+ Tap into the power lines, the web of lights at night to draw strength from

+ Draw energy from the buzz of the road, send messages along the rivers of cars

+ Arrange meetings with spirits in the liminal spaces of metro and bus stops, deep metro tunnels where it is always dark

+ Lose your sadness and worry in the morning hum of peopleful streets

+ Look into the many window-eyes of your city and listen to its lessons