A Confluence of Witches: Celebrating Our Lunar Roots, Decolonizing the Craft, and Reenchanting Our World
An excerpt from my contribution to this Modern Witches Anthology
“You’re reading everyone around you, all the time”: Learning energetic boundaries with the self and others, for readers, healers and Witches
Ethics are personal. They are not rules imposed; they are lines drawn and re-drawn through experience. They come into being as manifestations of lessons learned, and intuitions listened to.
Once ethics are in place, they become values and roots. You don’t have to keep thinking about them, because they become a natural part of you. These are not walls and boundaries that you have to keep reinforcing, they are organic limits of your holistic form that complement the ideal shape of yourself. Personal ethics are supportive and flexible guides and tools to use when making decisions that are healthy for you.
The worlds of magic, energy, and spirit are ones that we can enter at any time, but how we approach them determines our experiences there. If we have a strong ethical root system in place when working with others — other people, energies, or worlds — we are more likely to have a profound and meaningful interaction, without any level of harm done. Our personal Witch ethics modulate and inform our thoughts, feelings and actions, and in turn these thoughts, feelings and actions shape our realities. When we proceed without first consciously choosing and embodying our own values and beliefs, we can create unnecessary struggle for ourselves and others.
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Foundational to a basis of witchcraft is an acceptance of the power of our own actions and behaviors, and the responsibility that goes along with this acknowledgement of personal power. Our own actions are what can most strongly shape and shift the world around us, for each of us. Our responsibilities include knowing that a single action on our part will be reflected back to us three times over, and acting accordingly. Among the many possibilities of the origin of the words “witchcraft” and “Wicca,” one that I like descends from a word for “bend” (“wic” or “weik”).
“According to this view, a Witch would be a woman (or man) skilled in the craft of shaping, bending, and changing reality.”
(Adler, Margot. Drawing Down the Moon. Boston, Beacon Press, 1986.)
When looked at from this perspective, the boundaries that can help us the most are actually the ones that are in regards to ourselves. We can be more effective in how we shape the world around us when we focus on our own thoughts and actions, not those of others. Everything is reflected from us and through us. We are not just singular beings, but a part of a larger web of existence. Because of this interconnected understanding of reality, focusing on ourselves doesn’t create a vacuum or a bubble, but simply places our attention where it can be most effective, while still interacting within the larger web. When we heal ourselves, we heal everything. When we establish our own personal Witch ethics and maintain them as yet another living system within us, we demonstrate the possibility of this to others. Our personal Witch ethics in action are in and of themselves a form of healing.
The Witch, in historical mythology, is one who helps others while maintaining their emotional distance, and this distance is what creates historical discomfort in more capitalistic, authoritarian, patriarchal societies. The Witch says, “I will give you my all for a specific purpose, but I will not fix you or do the work for you,” and “I will not compromise my own ethical code for your needs.” “I will stay true to a power that is beyond human, a power that is earth, sky, and spirit, and if your needs contradict these powers, I can’t help you.” This is uncomfortable for those who don’t understand the deeper connection behind the ethics, or whose own ethics can be influenced by short-term needs. Modern Witches are in a unique position today, where there is less ostracization and more openness from mainstream society, and therefore more opportunity for the Witch to share their tools outside of their circle. Boundary work is a vital piece of this toolbox, in order to maintain a level of ethics that honors the Witch’s values.
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Early on in my own journey as a Tarot reader, and as a person in the midst of healing many of my own interpersonal dynamics, I met with a clairvoyant Tarot reader for a session. I told her I was also a reader, and so she put the cards aside and just channeled directly for me. In that moment I remember feeling validated as a peer, as one who also understood the invisible world. During our session she observed, not unkindly, “You’re reading everyone around you, all the time. In fact, you’re trying to read me right now.”
I told her I didn’t think I was, and we kept talking, but later upon reflection, I realized that I was, and that this habit was actually causing a lot of problems for me. When reading everyone around me, even when it was unnecessary and almost absurd — like when I am literally paying someone else to read me — I was accepting more work than I could handle. This insight sent me on a path of prioritizing boundary work in my own intuitive work, and somehow instantly ended my practice of reading everyone, all the time. Perhaps it was the acknowledgement: when we become conscious of something, we can suddenly make choices about it that we are unable to do when unconscious of it. Validation and compassionate acceptance of a behavior (being witnessed and loved) can negate the need for that behavior at all, enabling us to quickly release an unnecessary habit. My impulse to read people all the time, unintentionally and outside of my professional reading work, was also a trauma response, a way to stay vigilant to manage other people’s emotions so that I felt safe. My wounds and my gifts overlapped in such a way that I was going through life working as a reader at all time, even while outside of the container of a session, even outside of any useful function for my gift. The more my wounds heal, the less I need to use my gift for protection, and the more I can use it in the way it naturally wants to be used.
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You can see more info and pre-order the book here. It will be officially released on October 7th. I am so honored to be a part of this group (“a ‘Who’s Who’ of voices from the contemporary witchcraft community”), and to have my writing included amongst such incredible voices:
Contributions to this anthology have been made by the following writers: adrienne maree brown, Aja Daashuur, Ariella Daly, Sanyu Estelle, Star Feliz, Edgar Fabian Frias, Amanda Yates Garcia, Rachel Howe, Madre Jaguar, Jessie Susannah Karnatz, Alejandra Leon, Aurora Luna, Angela Mary Magick, Dori Midnight, Liz Migliorelli, Maria Minnis, Kiki Robinson, Kimberly Rodriguez, Eliza Swann, Olivia Pepper, and Jezmina Von Thiele.
Modern Witches is hosting the 2024 Witches Confluence and Magical Marketplace on November 2nd in San Francisco. I will be at the market with all my goods (Tarot decks, books, ceramics, t-shirts, prints), eager to see and meet fellow witches and seekers! More info here!
This is SO applicable to me right now: I realised how staying in my job at a toxic workplace is actually against my ethics, and that I was doing a lot of unpaid emotional work for others in lieu of an HR department (start ups don’t have HR) and so I quit and actually said to them it’s against my values to work somewhere that bullies staff. Making a choice like this is brand new to me. I love how this piece you have written brings me a new understanding of the spirit and power of boundaries and has made me see my situation in a new light. I’m so excited for this book! I’ve preordered it 💜✨
I love this so much Rachel. 🩵🩵🩵🕷️🕷️🕷️