Awaken The Witch Within
Last year, I attended my first women’s festival. It was tucked away on a parcel of land in Parsons, BC, and held within a grove of cedar trees. It was there that I walked on fire and remembered the witch that I once was. It was in returning to the festival this year through a collective prayer that I awakened the witch within me now.
I have come to know in my body that the word witch is synonymous with what it means to be a whole woman, or a womban, I should say. I will explain, but first, let me share a personal story.
Last year, at the beginning of the festival, when they mentioned a fire walk, I knew I was meant to do it, but I felt fear and nausea flood my body. I know now that this was my body remembering the trauma of being burned lifetimes before. However, at that moment, I just knew I was scared. The only thing I could do to calm my nervous system was to connect my womb to the Earth and breathe. I asked Mother Earth to hold me and for my ancestors to guide me. This calmed me slightly, and I got to my feet.
As I did, we were called by a fierce red-headed woman to gather in. Imagine fire manifested in human form, and you have the woman leading the fire walk. She was tall and muscular, with freckles and a piercing gaze. Some women sat back on old bleachers, choosing to witness, while a hundred others began to form a line to do the fire walk. It was as if we were reorchestrating the witch burnings that happened in Europe 300 years ago. The difference was that this time we were choosing to claim the fire and not let it claim us.
I took my place in line, and my eyes caught those of another woman. We were both naked and instinctively just stared into each other's eyes. Deep love flooded into my being, and I knew she felt it too, for tears began to stream down both our faces. In those brief moments looking into her eyes, I was transported back to a past lifetime with her. What I saw and felt was that we were sisters who honoured the Earth, and we were accused of being witches and burned for it. Whether she received the vision I did, I cannot say for sure, but I knew that we both felt a strong connection to one another. In silence, we walked towards each other and embraced. In that moment, Celtic music began to play, a sign the fire walk had begun. We burst out laughing, as though the ancient spirits of our ancestral lands were affirming what we both felt within our bodies. We instinctively interlocked hands, nodded in affirmation, and together walked across the burning coals with our heads held high. In that moment, I felt we walked the fire for those ‘witch’ sisters we once were so long ago.
I walked the fire another four times that day. Each time, a layer of fear dissipated, and a ferocity grew within me. Something was awakened, my own fire, you could say. That night, when I went to sleep, I dreamed of vomiting, and I woke up in the middle of the night, dry heaving. I woke up again at dawn, and nausea still flooded my body. I now understand that the nausea was my body’s way of processing the trauma of my past lifetime as a witch.
I truly believe that the hundred women who walked the fire that day were burned as witches in lifetimes past. As we were once burned down together, our souls chose to rise up together, honouring the witches we once were. Like phoenixes, we were rising from the ashes of our past selves.
I went to the women’s festival again this year. This time, singer and songwriter Marya Stark orchestrated a living prayer called Voice of My Womb. With several hundred other women, adorned in red, we collectively honoured our wombs through rest, prayer and song. The prayer began with us collectively lying on the ground in a circle to rest, a symbolic honouring of our menstruation and our right to rest. A prayer was given by Uma Dinsmore Tuli, welcoming us back home to Mother Earth. With my body resting on the earth and hearing her words, I broke into uncontrollable sobs. My body felt the remembering of something ancient, the collective honouring of our bodies in connection with Mother Earth. I felt the Goddesses throughout the ages and female ancestors surround us. We were a constellation of women fulfilling a collective prayer planted by our ancestors so long ago. A prayer to honour the voice of the womb. My soul had been waiting lifetimes for this moment and I was soaking every moment in.
After resting, we walked the land as a collective red thread, singing Marya Stark’s Voice of My Womb, from our wombs to the womb of Mother Earth. At the end, we paused in a circle, an unbroken tapestry of women on the land. I turned, and there beside me was the woman that I walked across fire with the year prior, the ‘witch’ sister from a lifetime past. Tears filled both our eyes, and this time we sang from the voices of our wombs to each other. I felt our reunion the year prior was to honour and reclaim the witches we once were, and that our encounter this year was to honour and see each other for the witches we are now. It was sacred. I never saw her outside of these moments during the two years at the festival, and I wonder if I will see her again someday…
Almost every day for the past four months I have connected my body to Mother Earth to listen. In my journeys, she has shared so many sacred stories and ancient teachings that are stored in a liminal place where our bodies meet. However, since the festival, I have been guided by her to connect to the witches, the ones that live within my womb. And so, I want to share with you something that they have shared with me, which leads me to take up where I began.
They have shown me that the witch is synonymous with what it means to be a whole woman. And, the time has come to face our fears, and to collectively own and honour the witch within us.
The witch is our wild and true nature, and her magic is our life force energy. She is the powerful force that stirs the caldron of our wombs. She is the shapeshifter within us that transforms us from maiden, to mother, to sorceress, to crone. She holds the cycles of the moon and the seasons of the earth within our bodies. She is the time traveller allowing us to know every woman that we ever were, simply by journeying to our wombs. She is the magician and knows the portal to visit our inner child and wise sage. She is the caster of spells working menstrual & moon magic, teaching us when to call in and when to let go. She is the green witch of our own earth, guiding us when to sow seeds, harvest blooms, and let the lands of our bodies lie fallow. She is the alchemist transforming our emotions into creative works of art. She is the seer and the sensor, the one who foresees and the one who simply knows without reason. She is the transformer who she births, midwives and then reaps all that needs to die within us. She is the intuitive who can sense good from bad, guiding us when to stay and when to go. She is the sorceress who knows how to infuse spirit into form, taking our dreams and transforming them into reality. She is our darkness and our light. She, the witch, is what it means to be a whole woman, a womban guided by the wisdom of her womb. She is the voice of our womb.
The root word for magic comes from magh, meaning “to have power”. Our wombs hold this power within them, and we are the witches who alchemize this power into magic. For thousands of years, this power has been feared by men, and so, using coercive and now subversive means, they have tried to take this power away from us. In the past, we were burned, beheaded and drowned for accessing this power. Now, so many of us have personally internalized the executioner that we unconsciously stop ourselves from accessing our power. However, the revolution also happens from within. It begins by resting our hands on our wombs and asking her to guide us home. Then, pausing and listening to what she has to say.
The witch is synonymous with being a woman because she is the embodiment of our divine feminine essence and power. She is our birthright and our true nature. The time has come to claim the witch within, awaken her powers and set her free. Long live the witch within you and long live her within me.
Leeleeleeleelee
Laurel