#daulity

It’s...hmmm. You know I don’t really consciously do it, so pardon my ramble while I try and out words to my subconscious way of doing things.

TLDR: I don’t bring gender into magic, so it’s easy to not think about it and let it throw me off. Gender is a social construct, not a spiritual one.

So here’s a little background on me and it touches on how I work with certain things. I look at a lot of stuff philosophically and through Plato’s Theory of the Forms (or The Allegory of the Cave) to utilize things as archetypes to channel energy through.

This falls into what I define as spirits: could be people, plants, stones, deities, ghosts, fae etc. like a poorly explained animism 😅. To continue on your question of Tarot and working with it in a non gendered way, the archetypal emotions, situations etc aren’t gendered. Happiness, reunion, failure, success, etc aren’t gendered. Though the pictures they represent may be, that was the artist’s choice and not mine. I use certain tarot cards because I like the artwork, and art and beauty aren’t gendered either. (Though I did do a little squee when I got my Prisma Visions deck and the Lovers were different couples all wearing masks including two people center stage in tuxes).

Duality is a very important part of my craft. And while I don’t work with gender boundaries within it, I can see how that can be very stifling for some. I already have an uphill battle being a witch and a cisgendered male because people don’t want to put the time into thinking that their culture didn’t invent witchcraft, and gender had very little to do within certain cultures. And while it may be their interpretation, it’s not inherently fact.

Going past that, how do I balance it in myself and my craft? Well, it’s all just labels and stereotypes. Cooking, why is it that there are so many famous male chefs, but women are expected to be in the kitchen? I view that as BS. Cooking falls into certain masculine heteronormativity-killing animals, using knives, Fire good oogabooga...But is seen as feminine because even through destruction there is creation. You’ve created a meal, an atmosphere, sustenance and life through death. I take the gender out of everything I can because nothing is inherently masculine or feminine because we all have the potential.

That’s what witchcraft is for me, it’s utilizing the potential in specific ways for specific means. I’ve said it before but one main reason I utilize poisonous plants is in fact for their duality. They are a mirror of human nature. Able to destroy, grow, entice, repulse, protect, and wound, and it’s all in how it’s used. I can grow, destroy, entice, repulse, raise up, or strike down.

I thrive on flipping the norm because that’s what witches do. What’s a beard? It’s hair doesn’t have gender and everyone has it, so why is it masculine because it grows on the chin? Skirts and dresses? Fabric and stitches, why is it feminine because it’s draped and flows instead of constricting? It’s all social expectations and toxic gender normatives and as a witch, I’m already breaking social norms, so why would I bring in toxicity to that as well?

I’m a blend and a contradiction and if people would be honest with themselves about that, it would be a lot less pressure and a nicer place to live. I cook and bake, I cut hair and make candles. I have a beard, placed in league for wrestling in high school, I can shoot a gun and throw a knife. I like to read, I can sing, I’ve composed songs, i like bugs and insects and reptiles, I like dogs and owls. There’s nothing inherently gendered about any of those. It’s other’s ideas of what is and what should be that put a obstructive curtain around somethings, and I don’t need that.

I think that view of gender connecting to spirituality is another reason why religion just didn’t do it for me. I always connected more with Mary than Jesus growing up. And I don’t need more gender re-inforcement of Wicca either, especially for gender roles and hertosexual imagery. I don’t find peace or comfort in fitting a mold or the archetype of being a man. No need to ceremoniously stab an atheme into a chalice or talk about how every cauldron represents a womb...because that’s not true to me. (Now this may not be your experience, but my brushes with Wicca as a youngin, That was my experience. And I still see it in some places so I stay in my lane.)

MY practice, MY beliefs, MY peace and MY power are all based in me as a person, not because I’ve got a dick.

Again, this is just my perspective (as shown by the capital MY’s 😂) but looking at all these posts about the sacred feminine makes me just as uncomfortable as seeing posts about the divine masculine. It just shuts people out, enforces a power dynamic that isn’t helpful and seems toxic.* Which comes back to why I work with things as an archetype. The archetype can be fulfilled by multiple things. A creative deity, a destructive one, a fertility spirit, or a blight on the land. While it may be represented as one gender, it can be fulfilled by another. And working with established deities who are one gender or another is that cultures interpretation of that deity. Looking at it archetypically and through synchretism can help shed some of those things that wear down on you:

In one culture, the moon is feminine, in another a man. War gods or war goddesses, guardians of the dead, tricksters, nurtures...each culture has a story, and the reason they do is because across cultures, we share the same experiences.

So like the tarot deck, someone chose a specific representation of a deity, a spirit, a situation, of beauty, or disgust, but that was their choice. It doesn’t have to be mine.

🦇Cheers, Barberwitch

*I check my privilege. I realize workings with those gender archetypes of sacred masculine and feminine may in fact be very peaceful and fulfilling for some. I’m all for that, but forcing it as an issue on others is where I draw the line. Saying someone needs to channel the divine feminine OR the divine masculine to connect to a specific thing on a meaningful level...is restrictive and exclusionary. Hence, why all my posts, spells, and workings I post are not only secular, but non gender based.

Slipknot- Daulity