Witch: A Lyrical Essay Of Historical Proportions

Witches crave organic spaces, otherwise we rebel in unforeseeable ways, otherwise we break their machines.

We have been called worse. But no other word shook our reputation from us, took it from our divinity, and twisted it into rope with which to hang us.

The story of the witch started with the goddess. Goddess worship was practiced most notably in Upper Paleolithic period, among early humans. Anthropologists have cited matriarchal communities as standard. Neolithic periods produced Venus figurines and cave paintings. Offspring even took the mother’s last name rather than the father’s.

When our reputation outgrew our temples and goddess worship covered vast areas, men realized our influence.

They were witnesses to sex magic, nature worship, and vulva adoration as something they couldn’t tame — and they trembled. They retreated. Then they took from us. They reached between our legs and stole fire. Furious that their own sexual potency couldn’t match our own, they stole from us. Then they seized sacred and turned it evil. They asserted. And in today’s world, it looks like violation and lack of respect and improper health care.

When they said hysteria, they simply meant that we have wombs.

Our sanctified selves, gone. Our identities warped by word. We became workers of demonic proportions. We became witches. And it all happened so fast. Before we had a chance to react. We didn’t see it coming. Don’t be surprised. Not all witches are psychic or have intuition. Learn about the various sects of witches, then our history might make more sense.

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It started with our bodies. Meddling and labeling, we moved from consecrated to condemned. It took them a few centuries to do it. As Abrahamic religions progressed, goddess worship was suppressed. Little do they know we are still here. Not just lingering, but all the way looming and growing. We haunt all the cunts born and not yet born. The cunt is a vehicle for birthing magic. Whether we have one or not isn’t exclusively mutual with being a witch or a woman. Some witches had penises, too. Having a cunt does not make us women. And not having a cunt doesn’t mean others can’t be women.

These bodies create other bodies. These bodies aren’t crazy. But they are crazy for pegging us, for cornering us. A trapped opossum only does what comes natural. And some of us witches are descendants of rodents, real opossum blood. They need not be warned. We divide and conquer. We take up space they can’t see.

We scurry under their feet while they sleep.

Despite proof that we could survive almost anything, they branded us. Forgetting how life pours from our bodies. Forgetting the magic that rests in simply uttering the word "witch." They spoke their own banishing spell into existence. They manifested their demise.

Once we were removed from holy institutions and all power ripped from our beings, the speculation about our bodies and minds twisted into a fist with which they threatened us. We were prohibited not only from reaching elevated states, we were damned to a life of submission, servitude, and salaciousness. That was once. Now we rise, we float, we ride the fumes of infusions made of pen, ink, and body — straight from the broom.

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Both the ancient and modern world have several theories about us. And none of them are good.

First, we had wandering wombs. Men claimed to know more about our own bodies than we did. What other choice did we have? Wandering wombs healed through the introduction of herbal satchels. Which doesn’t sound too bad, but the wandering womb was the main reason we were considered weak, capricious, and later hysterical. Hysterectomies became another form of control, the etymology so obvious it stings. When they said hysteria, they simply meant that we have wombs.

Unable to control our own bodies, enemies against ourselves, men stepped in and prescribed formulas: multiple pregnancies, repeated sex sessions, smelling salts, and pills. We have never been safe under their guise of guidance. We have never been in control of our own flesh suits. At least, not once the church took over. Goddess worship long gone, long buried and burned, we lost autonomy over our bodies. Our bodies were destroyed and disrespected, but our spirits thrive. The spirit is passed from one flesh suit to another. Our dominion expands into intangible realms where we preside over the divine feminine.

Women’s bodies became a playing ground for men and their tools. We were either too weak or too strong, never in the middle — always on the outskirts, teetering between extremes. Thus spawned the slut/virgin and angelic/demonic dichotomies. The women of two humors, of two constitutions. In order to achieve balance, women needed men. Their theory, not ours. No one even asked our opinion, for it was uncertain whether we possessed brains enough to create theories in the first place. Facilitating balance, men came to our rescue. As if. The hero saga thrives. The fragile princess myth burgeons.

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Later, weak constitution caused not just physical issues, but mental ones as well. Dizzy spells, vapors, and hysteria, the undoing of our doing. They told us we were madwomen, and we fell victim to the false academic ploy, the conman professor. The secrets of our sanity lie in our connection to Mother Nature. Remove us from our natural environment and we become legit crazy. Masculine forces try to excommunicate us from nature, then breed us under rules of technological advance and industrialization.

Witches crave organic spaces, otherwise we rebel in unforeseeable ways, otherwise we break their machines. Beware the witch, I say thee.

Organized religion’s fear of us was the turning point. Namely, the church called us witches. Friends and neighbors, brothers and sisters pointed fingers, too. Single women, widows, spinsters, and healers were the targets — but no woman was safe. All of society was against us. Then it became us against them. They named us. They screamed us into a hole and buried us. Only some of us survived physically, but all of us survived spiritually.

We don’t play by their rules and we don’t fit into their categories — we expand into all realms because that’s what witched do. We are within and without, above and below. We are here, but also over there. Beware.

In the face of current events and allegations, it’s clear to see that the witch hunt has never truly died. This is no re-awakening, but proof that the witch hunt has been lying dormant. Men deny their charges and blame us for misconduct and inappropriate clothing. Men laugh at us as though our words are foolish. They have been pining after our magic and in order to touch that divinity, they hunt us down.

The divine feminine takes some of us for the cause. No matter though, we come back stronger. As trees, ravens, snakes, storms, raging winds, tempestuous seas, as crumbling cliffs and lightening bolts.

Some came back sweeter, dripping like honeycomb, enticing, transforming, winning. Gaining access, learning code, translating all universal law and text.

The witch can’t and won’t be killed, nor her spirit. That lives long into the future because the past is still propelling it forward.

We are the honeycomb and the bee’s stinger. Buzz that sound into a dictionary, call it divine feminine, witch, which have you — its power still lives on.

Sources: Religious Tolerance, The Mystica