Be My Witch
“Be my witch”.
Three words that came into my mind as sharp as a sword, as bright as a flame.
Back at Beltane last year, I did a crossroads ritual to Hekate, a deity I’ve never worked with before then. I’m still not sure why I chose to reach out to her specifically, but hers was the name that appeared in my mind at the time. Six months on, at Samhain, I was doing a tarot reading to try and figure out the nature of this arrangement I’d got myself into. These were the words that came to me, not as an audible voice, but as a thought that felt very much like it was not one of my own.
That phrase reverberated in my dreams, and I have turned it over and over in my mind since then, as I’ve read all I can about Hekate and how to work with her. I think the challenge of the new year might just be to stop thinking about it and start actually doing it.
A friend of mine asked online recently about people who moved to theistic paganism from non-theistic forms of paganism, and since this was in part my own journey, it got me thinking. The best way I can express it is the move from intellectual knowledge to intuitive, deep connection – on an embodied and ensouled level.
With my background in academic theology, I’m rather good at the former and terrible at the latter. If witchcraft is just an idea, then it’s an interesting curiosity to explore. If the gods are metaphors of natural forces ancient people didn’t understand, then it’s easy to dismiss them, or to consciously work with them as symbols and turn paganism into something like a self-help practice (spicy psychology). But if witchcraft is real? If magic works? If the gods exist? Then we’re out of the realm of ideas and into the realm of relationships which…are not my strong suit.
Being raised with “male” expectations and disconnection from my intuition and emotions didn’t exactly help, and the hardest part of my transition so far has been this inner work of learning to listen to those parts of myself that I repressed for decades out of fear and shame. But that’s another story.
Coming to experience the gods (note I don’t say “believe in” here) is a process of learning what not to do as much as what to do. In my case, that’s meant learning not to over-analyse every experience I have and rationalise it away as coincidence, or pattern-seeking, or confirmation bias, and to accept that sometimes weird stuff happens. Magic happens. Sometimes a god just shows up and when they do you can refuse them or accept them. They’re not going to smite you if you choose not to answer, but there’ll always be that sense of “what if”?
A wise Druid once said “Practice Begets Belief”. This is counterintuitive for those of us used to religions and philosophies where belief is central. For paganism, it doesn’t need to be – the practices, the “craft” bit of witchcraft can be done with or without any particular belief in gods, magic or all the rest – but by doing those practices regularly and seeing results (which will never be independently verifiable or rise to the standards of scientific evidence), then beliefs will naturally emerge from that, as life naturally emerges from a well-balanced ecosystem.
All of which is to say that the answer to the challenge “be my witch” is to roll up my sleeves and do the stuff.
Hekate is a goddess of witches, of course, but also a goddess who protects the oppressed, who guides the spirits of the dead, who curses the powerful and corrupt, who teaches baneful magic as well as healing arts.
Sound relevant for the world we’re in today?
If I am to even attempt to be a witch, let alone a Hekatean one, then that means stepping up. It means not hiding away, taking the big scary steps to come out as openly and visibly trans and queer in all areas of my life, and being a safe person for other trans and queer people as well as a thorn in the side of those who seek to keep us down. It means actively resisting fascism and oppression. It means hexing those who deserve hexing – don’t @ me with any “love and light” witchcraft here, curses have been part of the craft for thousands of years for a reason.
It means giving a damn. About the world, other people, nature, and – most challenging of all – about myself.
So that’s the challenge this year. Time for your friendly neighbourhood River to stop being such a damn academic librarian and reading about witchcraft and actually be a witch.
Hope you’ll join me on the journey!