#selfcarewitchxo

I was first introduced to witchcraft at a very young age, at, of all places, girl scout camp! I remember it was summer, and I was at Camp Grove Point. I was a brownie at the time, so I was between the ages of 7-9. I made friends with another girl my age, her name was Tara. Tara told me her Mother was a witch, and knew magick. I remember first thinking she was just imaginative, and her Mother must have supported it. She told me her Mother worked with herbs and spells, and could make things move...and so could she. Before I realized the difference between ‘Magick” and “Magic”, I was assuming this girl meant her and her mother practiced stage magic, tricks. I didn’t believe her, until I saw her prove it. She was right, she didn’t mean “Fairy Godmother from Cinderella” type magic at all. I remember my initial repulsion at the word ‘witch’. I thought it was bad, sinful, wrong! I had no idea how wrong I was, or that this was my first step to reclaiming the word for my own.

Tara wasn’t lying, she really could move things. Not far, but they moved. Yes, I realize it’s nuts to say and I sound crazy, but you can’t deny what you’ve seen with your own eyes. I remember how my entire world lit up, watching the impossible. We’d sit hidden somewhere, away from the other campers, and I’d balance sticks, leaves and small stones for her to wiggle, or slide. She always told me her Mother was better at it, and she was still learning. I watched her ‘hex’ people, she’d call it ‘sending bad luck’. She’d pick a poor victim around the campfire and make them fall off the logs we were all sitting on, over and over again. I’ll never forget the look of confusion on their face as they couldn't figure out why they couldn't stay seated on this log. They’d look around, blame the person beside them, trying to figure out the trick, while her and I were in fits of laughter.

Of course at the time I didn’t realize that what Tara was doing was really energy manipulation, not Harry Potter type spells, but whatever it was, I knew it worked, and I needed to learn it. I asked her to teach me, and she did, but after a strong warning that I've always remembered. She grabbed both my hands, and looked in me in the eyes seriously, “I’ll teach you, but you can’t EVER tell anyone.” I hadn’t planned on it, who would believe me?. “If you tell, they’ll kill us. we’ll get experimented on, or locked up. My mom says they’ll hurt us.”

I realized then what a big deal it was for her to even tell me, her Mother had obviously put the fear of God in her about revealing their secret. Tara really believed this was so rare that her and her Mother would be taken, and experimented on like science projects if anyone ever found out. Of course at the time I didn’t realize that others could do such things either, so I believed this, stayed fearful for myself as well, and always kept the secret, until my later years when I had more knowledge. I still have my journals from childhood, with many pages of small, fearful me, writing about experimenting with such things, but always being mindful of being found out. I wish I’d have realized sooner people would only think I was nuts, and I didn’t need to worry about being trapped in a lab ;) We weren’t aliens after all, just women who found their power again.

For the rest of that camp, Tara taught me to meditate, connect with the earth, and manipulate energy. We were always off doing our own things, whispering conversations and secrets others wouldn’t understand. That summer changed my life, and I think about Tara a lot, I always hoped I’d reconnect with her someday.

As I grew older and kept writing about this in my journals, the need to tell someone and not be so alone grew. I needed someone to understand. I remember once, and only once, I tried talking to my Dad about it. I told him some things I could do, and he stopped cooking, looked at me, very calmly, and said “You know, it’s a family thing, your Grandmother used to be able to bend spoons, but then got into church and got scared of it, now she doesn’t and we don’t talk about it anymore”. I tried to ask more questions, but he wouldn’t let us keep talking about it. Problem here is, my pops is a pathological liar, so whether this is truth, or him being him, I’ll never know. I tried bringing it up years later, but he wouldn’t talk about it then either. He either pretended he didn’t know what I was talking about ,or really didn’t remember that conversation we had, I’m not sure which is the truth.

Later I tried telling my Mother. I told her about the shadow man in a hat, with the collar of his trench coat flipped up, who would walk around my room at night, or stand outside the door. I told her how I’d walk into my playroom and see my Barbies stand up on their own, spin, then fall back down. I told her I heard things fall off my bookshelf but nothing was there, or sometimes there was a book on the other side of the room. She told me she didn’t believe me. I didn’t think she did for years. Finally the day we moved out of that house, when I was older, she told me the truth. Two people actually died in that house. She took me through the home and showed me the bullet holes through the house. A few in the kitchen, another in the living room, back to my playroom and bedroom, then finally one more in my Mother’s room, underneath the light on the ceiling. The story was, a couple lived there, the man was an angry drunk, a family member of the landlord we rented from. He got angry (over what I don’t remember) and chased his wife (or girlfriend, unclear, landlord didn’t like talking about it for obvious reasons.) through the house with a gun, shooting at her, starting in the kitchen. She ran to get out through my room and the playroom (there was an exit door to the porch here, the house was like a loop) but didn’t make it, she died in my playroom, the man then went into my Mother’s room, sat on the edge of the bed, and put the gun in his mouth, committing suicide, thus the bullet hole straight up in the ceiling, and why it was now covered by a ceiling light.

So, clearly, this house was kind of a hot spot, with a lot of bad energy, but somehow I was never scared, nothing ever tried to hurt me there. (Also, I like to point out I think this energy was made worse by the fact that my landlord very sadly allowed KKK meetings to be held in our backyard in the 50′s, I found a sign saying “KKK Whites Only” and two hoods buried in the leaves while playing back there as a child. Our landlord was old, Southern, and unfortunately racist and behind the times.)

More interesting, my sister and her boyfriend moved into that house immediately after my mom and I left moved. I was thrilled to hear she also experienced activity while living there (tweezers flying from the bathroom sink, into the living room, things being ‘misplaced’, moving on there own, strange sounds). We both noticed the activity seemed worse around a particular time of year, I believe it was in the winter around Christmas, our theory was always that maybe that’s when the murders occurred.

Fast forward to the new house, starting in 6th grade I began attending a Christian school, it was here I learned that many things I and others could do, weren’t “magick” at all, but spiritual gifts. Christians like to leave spiritual gifts out of the conversation, and pretend they are no longer around, but they are. Prophecy, healing, speaking in tongues, intuition, these and more are all discussed in the Bible, and given by God, but we see them being condemned by the same faith, and these healers, being called witches by their own people. In 6th grade I was having many confusing and strange things happen to me. The ghost encounters were stranger, the dreams more vivid and true, I always knew things I shouldn’t, and felt like I was being watched and followed. I saw deceased family members and animals. I was a bit of a hub for ‘strange’, but didn’t know what to do to control what was happening around me, or even if I could. I knew I needed to talk to someone but I didn’t know who. After revealing all this to a close friend, she said maybe I should talk to our Headmaster about it. I decided it was the best option. I remembering crying in his office, because I was ‘scared I was a witch’ and I thought I was going to hell for being ‘sinful’, or worse, maybe I was just nuts. I told him about Tara, and spilled my guts on what I've been doing. He hugged me, and told me I wasn’t bad, or sinful, that instead, God wanted me to do these things, and they were in the bible. It was the first I'd heard of this. I left that day feeling recharged, confident.

Since then I’ve learned ‘witch’ wasn’t a bad word at all, I also wasn’t nuts, or alone. As I grew into my own I realized I’d best be classified as an ‘eclectic witch’, meaning I am eclectic in my practice and pull from various sources and cultures to create magick that is completely my own. I’m a unique blend of intuition based magick, Celtic witchery, Buddhism, kitchen witchery and everything in between. However I do like to point out that NO I am not Wiccan ;) Wicca I consider to be a religion of Witchcraft and it’s not for me; I like to clarify as it’s one of the most asked questions witches get, especially when people aren't familiar with the differences of religion or spirituality and the variations of witches and witchcraft.

(I’d like to briefly point out here that RELIGION and WITCHCRAFT/ SPIRITUALITY or ENERGY WORK do NOT have to go hand in hand. Spirituality is not always a religion to people, but it can be. Witchcraft is not a religion, but it can be! this all depends on YOUR practice. I am a practicing witch, but consider my ‘religion’ to be spirituality. I would not say my craft is my religion or a religious belief, I see it as energy work, which I find to be rooted in electrical workings of the earth, which is science to me.)

As for what I specifically believe, I’m all over the place and open to many ideas and theories on that as well. I don’t call myself a Christian any longer, as I don’t wish to be associated with their beliefs, but I do still believe in the Christian God and Jesus, and some of the bible, but I have LOTS of thoughts about all of it. Also I’d be a hypocrite Christian, as I have reached out to or felt a call by other Goddesses/Deities, and been answered. Kali Ma, Hekate, Freya, Kwan Yin, Persephone, The Morrigan, just to name a few favorites.

I don’t have an explanation for this yet! I also accept I may never have that answer until I’m dead. I believe in God, the universe, aliens, that dragons existed, I believe in the Fae, in myths and legends, manifestation, energy work, I believe everything may have some truth, I believe in many things, with many theories on all of it. I’m open to the idea of past lives, as I’ve had strange experiences myself; But at the end of the day, all I am 100% certain on, is that when I pray, work with energy, or put out into the universe, things happen that I cannot explain. Whether it is God answering, The universe answering, or If God and the universe are on the in the same, I don’t know! and don’t claim to know. I just know I am heard, and it works. I’ve just seen things that have no explanation, both light and dark, and all I know, is that more exists in this world that what we can see and put our hands on. I don't claim to have all the answers or know everything, and I think anyone that does is frankly, full of shit. I find myself thinking of new theories and ‘what if’s’ on a regular basis, and it would be nothing but arrogance and ego for me to claim I know everything I’m talking about. Part of the craft, is learning as we go, and never having all the answers. If someone claims they're all-knowing, then they're no witch. So I’d like to make it clear, that while I’m not a beginner, I’m also by no means an expert, and I am always learning, and evolving, as every witch should.

I notice all the Goddesses I am called to have similar themes, sometimes I wonder if they’re all the same energy, just with different faces for each culture. I also know of many Gods who have a ‘rose after three days’ story. I wonder if these too could perhaps be the same God? I wonder if God even has a sex? Is there really Gods/Goddesses or is it sexless energy? or energy combined with power from both sexes? I believe not being set in one way or another allows me to keep my mind open and see things and theories from all angles.

So now in my practice, I pray, I manifest, I meditate, I look to Goddesses for inspiration and strength, I stay focused on putting good out into the universe, and not bad. I practice candle magick, manipulating energy, I work with runes, tarot and other forms of divination. I sage my house, work with astrology, crystals and crystal grids and do my spellwork by the moon, and celebrate my Sabbats on the wheel of the year. My beliefs and practice are simple, yet complicated, just like I too am a paradox.

I hope this explained a little more about my background and beliefs, for more, check out my neck blog post “What ‘Witch’ Means to Me”, as I explain why I call myself such, and what ‘witch’ even means!

For more witchy goodness and self care tips, be sure to check out my Instagram page that connects with this blog @selfcarewitchxo

Forever your sister witch,