“When women were birds, we knew otherwise. We knew our greatest freedom was in taking flight at night, when we could steal the heavenly darkness for ourselves, navigating through the intelligence of stars and the constellations of our own making in the delight and terror of our own uncertainty.” —Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds When I sat down to write about my experiences as a witch, something strange happened. I watched fear creep in; I intuited danger, and wrote little of my actual experience. Instead I detailed my relationship with the traditional systems I use to access intuitive knowledge. The first version of this piece was anemic, and the editors asked me for something more specific. More “in-depth.” I realized something then: when a woman sits down to write about her experiences as a witch, she doesn’t feel safe. It may take a long time before she does. Literally, she prepares herself to branch out into a space where she was brutalized by invasive ideologies, both spiritually and physically, not so long ago. By more “in-depth,” maybe the editors meant something that didn’t try to masculinize intuition? Something that didn’t avoid the blood and underbelly of being a woman who cultivates second sight? Oh, right. A friend recently asked me how I pull together disparate elements in spell work. Without a second thought I replied, “fluids.” Body fluids, of all kinds, usually. These are the most potent, and I use a wide variety of my own in almost all of the spell work I do for myself. Depending on the spell, my next choices are fluids I’ve set out under particular lunations to “draw down the moon,” as is common practice among many witches. For example, I may set spring water out under the Full Harvest Moon for abundance spells I craft throughout the year; I might put rose water out under the Full Strawberry Moon for spells involving self-love and self-care. Other fluids I use are ones I’ve gathered from locations I consider sacred, to call the genius loci of the place into my work; for example, I frequently use water from the Yuba River. I also often integrate the essential oils of plants whose energy bodies are applicable in the work. Any or all of these fluids come into play, and I intuit which to use. No book of rules or methods hold authority over the visceral gut instinct I have in these moments. My magical work is my own creation. I receive it from my body, the site of many influences: physical, astral, intellectual. I sort through and respond to these influences in my own sovereign process. I work professionally as an astrologer and intuitive counselor. While this is a niche profession, it still sounds oddly clinical to describe the work in this way. I prefer to relate it to the fluids. More than anything my work feels like spelunking through the strange and multidimensional territory of individuals’ psyches, and telling them what archetypes, complexes, and potential solutions I find there. Solutions, of course, look completely unique to each individual I work with. Sometimes the solution I offer is the simple suggestion that a person sit with their current reality in a completely nonjudgmental way. Sometimes the solutions look more like literal life-coaching strategies a person can use to change their circumstances, and the client leaves with homework. Often, these solutions show themselves to me through the symbols I see in a person’s astrological chart or the cards I’ve pulled for them, but there’s more to the process. I ask my ancestors and guides to be present when I prepare for clients, I set out feathers and bits of snakeskin to honor the symbolism of feminine empowerment and to have more skin out there to feel through. Esoteric systems of knowledge, such as astrology and the tarot, are really only road maps to the basic structure of the human psyche. These systems are how I get my bearings when I’m dealing with an individual, and yet the skeleton keys to the psyche that Astrology and the Tarot offer have unlocked a way of knowing that is wholly apart from the systems themselves. The intuitive process I apply is, again, body-centered. I go by the authority of the subtle sensations I get physically, like chills on the back of my neck, butterflies in the stomach, sensations at the crown of my head or the base of my spine. Sometimes I feel something at the bottom of my feet and suddenly know I’m supposed to say something. Often when I’m in session and see a symbol in a chart, I’ll know its rational meaning, but then I just, get a feeling. Writing all of that feels, I admit, sickeningly vague. The origins of these feelings are usually totally invisible, they could be spirits talking, or my lunch. Same goes for the phrases that sometimes float enticingly through my imagination. Could be sympathetic resonance with my client, a piece of language gifted by my ancestors, or the phrase a lover whispered in my ear some years ago. The only way I know if I should say any of these things is if I have that physical feeling of trust. Learning how to pinpoint that extremely subtle sensation has been trial and error, success and failure. And this whole process has been worth it to me because success usually reveals synchronicities that create conversion moments for the client: suddenly revelation becomes available, they can see the way through, the gateway to healing is unlocked. Along the way I’ve learned from teachers, friends, and fellow witches how to invite in influences that can be trusted. I ask my ancestors and guides to be present when I prepare for clients, I set out feathers and bits of snakeskin to honor the symbolism of feminine empowerment and to have more skin out there to feel through. Before sessions, I sing witches’ folk songs taught to me by other women. In sessions, I use mythology, as well as fairy and folk tales as points of reference. I stimulate my imagination with these tools, and I make myself feel safe. The safer I feel, the safer my client. I’ve never written about these practices in such detail with the intent of publication. There is a fear of a particular stink: the messiness of the body and the undissectable mystery of the way consciousness inhabits it. Worse is the fear of being outed for the subversive empowerment that making friends with this stink lends the witch. The fallacy of the hygienic virginal prototype dies. Patriarchal academia may never accept you back…and you are left, initiated into your own knowledge as a living breathing being, nothing more, nothing less. Relying on intuition is no longer a sin to much of popular culture. Lucky for womxn, queer folks, POC, and all culturally marginalized groups born in the west today, we live among many people who have been dismantling this patriarchal fallacy for several generations. Witchcraft, magic, the occult, and the zeitgeist of self-worth are experiencing a renaissance. The Guardian reviewed Kristin Sollee’s book Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive. Queer Astrologer Chani Nicholas is hailed a radical feminist heroine. The Atlantic and The New York Times publish articles on Astrology taking over the Internet, on Tarot trending, and they don’t make this out to be a bad thing. The Puritanical purity complex is less pervasive now than ever (sadly, it’s not dead). Relying on intuition is no longer a sin to much of popular culture. While we’re lucky, we’re still working through the inherited wounds and ancestral pain that come with the territory of being marginalized populations. Speaking as both a witch and a biracial, female-bodied person, I wonder, why did no one help me understand the meaning of my menstrual cycle? Who initiates women who give birth? Who witnesses women whose cycles end? I remember the shame and alienation I experienced when my brother and cousin found out I’d begun bleeding and they caricatured my body as monstrous. This was right around the time my mother entered menopause, and witnessing her alienation from everyone around her impressed upon me a deep distrust for this whole “being a woman” thing. At the time, it all seemed like a life-long nightmare. But these terrifically personal events are the ones that mark the very real passage of time, sacred life and death cycles, and the wisdom of human incarnation. The rituals surrounding these events are a part of our culture that has been violently repressed since Inquisition times, and women have only recently had the social freedom to begin reintegrating these rituals. My mother recently visited me in California for the first time. When she saw the shelves of herbs I keep for cooking and for spells, she hesitated over them for a moment and then told me how shocked she was when she first realized I had become a professional witch some years ago. I legitimately cringed at “professional witch.” But she told me that it made her happy, that my kitchen reminded her of her kitchen when she was younger. And then, for the first time, she revealed that when things had begun to go particularly wrong for my father and he became abusive just before I was born, his explanation for his violence was often that he was sure my mother was working witchcraft against him with her herbs and oils. She stopped keeping herbs in the kitchen after that. In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes of the fragmentation of matrilineal lines of initiation and about the importance of “homing,” of people coming back to their “deep-eyed and oceanic knowing” after botched initiations. It’s an exhilarating time, to see more and more marginalized groups feeling safe to access this process as we become increasingly connected through phenomena like social media, and have more knowledge of each other’s experiences. My hope is that the more we know of one another’s vulnerable realities, the more we can support those around us in real time, so that intuitive people can share their experiences without shame, or fear of the witch hunt. Because long live the witch. If she’s lived through this much, I think we can hedge our bets on her. More insights and divination from Amalia at @hareinthemoon
