Welcome to the New Witch Craze
Spoiler: It’s the Same System Rebranded
The rage and grief I have felt over the past few weeks of January has been insane. Over the past couple of days, I have spent most of my mornings outdoors, either lying or walking barefoot on the grass, in an attempt to regulate my nervous system.
Being connected to nature has always been very healing for me, as I have looked to the natural world for clarity. On multiple occasions in my life, when everything seems to be crumbling before me, or I am unsure which direction to take, I have found myself visited by cardinals. Which perhaps isn’t that unusual, since these birds are often associated with resilience and connection to loved ones on the other side.
Moreover, cardinals, a bird often seen in winter, always remind me of cycles. That even in the darkest parts of winter, their bright red color stands out among the grey and emptiness. A signal of hope for something new to come. As I am about to enter the menstrual phase of my cycle, or the “winter” of a woman’s reproductive cycle, I am reminded that this time in history feels very much like a winter for us all.
Like most people in the United States, I am on edge. The killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agents feels like a turning point in our history from which there is no return. Yet it is also not unfamiliar to us. Good was a mother, a friend, a wife, but most of a woman who refused to comply with what the system wanted her to do.
While I don’t know much about her personal life, what I do know is that Good, was a queer woman who lived with her domestic partner, and that the unprovoked killing of her by Jonathan Ross proves that no matter how hard we try to tell ourselves that we have moved on from the misogynistic rhetoric of the Witch Craze, the patriarchy will always place the blame for men’s horrific behavior on women.
While I refuse to show any videos of her death on my personal blog, in the many videos that I have watched on social media regarding her death, I am haunted by her words. “That’s fine, dude, I’m not mad at you.”
…
How many times have I uttered this exact phrase or heard a woman in my life say those words?
I’ve used that phrase when I was being sexually harassed by a former male supervisor of mine in my doctoral program, yet I kept my mouth shut so that he wouldn’t fail a student of mine because she refused to do harm to her client at his unethical request.
I’ve used that phrase in my early and late 20s when I was in bars and clubs with men who cornered me on my way to the bathroom, refusing to take “no” for an answer.
I used that phrase to subdue the ego my male stalker when I was a freshman in college, who followed me around my dorm, accusing my boyfriend at the time of physically assaulting me. An accusation that was entirely false and only came after I rejected his advances.
And the worst part of all of this is that I know that every woman can at least identify with one of these experiences, if not all three.
No matter if they are a Republican Bible-thumping “Karen” or a Liberal-ass “snowflake,” every woman knows what it is like to feign likability to protect themselves. Except it didn’t protect Renee, nor will it protect any of us if we are being honest with ourselves.
That’s because no matter where you fall on the spectrum of extreme ideological beliefs in this country, women will always be caught in the goddess-witch spectrum.
This concept, which I coined in my Yonic Theory™ and can be accessed below through my Yonic Journal™, is nothing new.
As soon as Renee’s death hit social media, the rhetoric surrounding her death began. Was she “asking for it?” Was Ross right to call her a “fucking bitch” after he shot her? Was she a witch who deserved what she got because she didn’t comply with the ICE agents’ requests? Or was she an innocent goddess caught in the crossfire?
From the video, it is clear to me that Renee was trying to protect herself and her wife the best she could. Trying to get away from what would have no doubt felt like a terrifying situation for any woman to be in, and one which she knew she could not “win.”
Yet, even in her death, we can see the same propaganda of the goddess-witch spectrum being used against her by conservative media, and this is nothing new - oppressive male-based systems always need a woman to blame.
It is also important to note that Good was the first person killed by ICE, and sadly, I do not think she will be the last. Yet, the reason she is getting so much attention is because she is a White woman who refused to comply with the system. A system that has been murdering Brown and Black women and other racial minorities for hundreds of years. Therefore, she is meant to be a warning sign to women – specifically White women – who refuse to comply with the system.
Make no mistake: associating her with the witch archetype, while women like Erica Krik are elevated to the status of goddess, is a dynamic as old as time. It dates back to the Roman Empire’s conquest of Egypt, where Cleopatra VII was branded the “witch” of the sinful and sensual lands of East. Effectively establishing our standards for Western elitism that we continue to follow today.
Bust of Cleopatra VII housed at the Egyptian Museum
Moreover, this is something that I dive into further on the podcast episode I did on the Movie adaption of Wicked, which you can listen to for free here:
Thus, it is the same narrative that led to the rise of the period of history known as the Witch Craze, which, in truth, never really ended for women.
In my latest article for my Yonic Journal™, which you can access here, I outlined how the Church used the Witch Craze to establish our standards for “professionalism” and remove female healers from their roles as leaders within their communities. This systematic attack on women was done to establish a male-based system of the medical elite, and it is not different than what is currently happening with Trump’s new reclassification of healthcare professions (those fields dominated by women) as “unprofessional”.
It is the same system rebranded. It never left - it just got better at hiding itself in plain sight.
It’s the same system that killed thousands of women, just like Renee. Women who just wanted to live their own lives, free of men attempting to control them. Women whose narratives were taken from them in death as the system tried to relabel them as a “threat.” Women who were someone’s wife, mother, daughter, lover, companion, and best friend.
Women who were just themselves, which is perhaps the most dangerous thing a woman can be, because it makes it harder for us to brand her as a “witch” or a “goddess” because in owning herself, she decides to be both, and that is the ultimate threat to the patriarchy. When women no longer comply with the narrative.
Yet it is dangerous not to comply, because we struggle to tolerate ambiguity for women. We struggle to accept how a woman can be both caring, loving, and nurturing, and yet also seek justice, calling out ICE and other oppressive systems for their lack of respect for human beings.
Yet, if nature reminds us of anything, it is that it is the role of the feminine to restore order and balance to things.
There is a reason so many earth- and water-based deities are Goddesses: they remind us of our connection to matter and to the great mother. That which I refer to as Soul/Psyche in my theory. Since it is the principle of the masculine (that of Spirit/Eros) that wants to transcend the Self’s connection to matter. To earth and to the mother.
As Woodman (2011) noted, it is this overemphasis on this connection to the masculine principle of Spirit that has disconnected humans from their connection to matter, the feminine, and the feminine principle of the Soul.
Which brings me to a dream I had recently:
In the dream, I am conducting a tarot reading for an older man. His spread is the Magician, Strength, and Death.
Fifth Spirit Tarot by Charlie Claire Burgess
Yet in the dream, the strength card does not say the word strength, but “surrender,” which is perhaps a less common interpretation of this card, but still important, nevertheless.
Given that Strength is my life path card, I am not unfamiliar with its lessons in resilience, overcoming challenges and setbacks, and, of course, learning to integrate one’s “shadow aspects.”
Yet, the word “surrender” in my dream reminds me of the aspect of the Strength card I still struggle to integrate, as do many of us, which is to know when to ask for help. Or rather, perhaps in this case, when to accept the inevitable ending associated with death.
In my dream, it was clear to me from this reading that the old man in my dream would not survive whatever battle he was facing; the metaphorical death associated with the Death card indicated a physical one for the man in my dream. Which is perhaps ironic when we compare it to the Magician.
The Magician to me symbolizes the light masculine in every sense of the word. He has the Ego strength to manifest his desires and dreams, yet that light masculine power, when not directed appropriately, can lead to feelings of superiority and manipulation. Which is what I believe we are seeing among our corrupt politicians and the rise of “alpha bro” culture on the internet. Thus the time to idolize the masculine as the ultimate symbol of power and dominance has come and gone.
What we need now is strength, but not just any type of strength, the feminine strength of surrender. Something women understand on a deep, profound, soulful level, just like nature knows when it is time to shed and re-grow.
It takes strength to accept when a cycle is at its end. It takes courage to surrender to what is coming next.
It is important to note that this interpretation is not meant to be a prediction of the apocalypse, but rather a changing of the tides. We have lived for far too long idolizing the realm of the masculine. Our culture rewards men for their masculinity, the Peter Pan tech bros who refuse to grow up, the copycat Patrick Batemans of the finance world, and, of course, the wannabe gangsters turned politicians of the corporate world.
Christian Bale as Bateman in American Psycho
These “magicians” with their tools and their tricks fear death because it means surrender, it means having to submit to the feminine. That which destroys the heads (I.e. egos) of men, as the Goddess Kali reminds us. The feminine is meant to check the masculine; she reminds us that ultimately we all meet the same fate when the spirit leaves, and we return to the matter (i.e., the mother from which we all came).
Image of Kali
After my reading in this dream, I found myself in an abandoned cottage, with a broken roof and floor boards, and somehow knew I was in the “house of my mother”. Not my biological mother, but THE MOTHER. The feminine, the Goddess, Anima Mundi, if you will. It was there that I discovered a collection of recipe books, or grimoires, hidden beneath the floorboards. As I did, the house transformed into a beautiful home, filled with candlelight, furniture, children, and an intense feeling of warmth.
I have sat on this dream for months now, mulling it over and trying to understand it. But it wasn’t until last Friday, when I was standing in my backyard, that I saw a cardinal, a female cardinal across the fence, and I was able to finally make sense of what I dreamt.
While dream work is always subjective on behalf of the dreamer, I took this synchronicity to symbolize that the “end” I predicted for the old man in my dream is also the symbolic rebirth of the feminine. The surrender that I and we are all being asked to do in this moment is a reminder to embrace the cycles of death and rebirth and to reclaim our mother’s home.
It is a call to reclaim the earth, nature, and our connection with the natural world. To remove ourselves from the allure of the magician and his AI and man-made materials, and to instead, embrace the flow of life and cycles.
It is also a call for me and all women to document what we know.
As I work on my theory, I am constantly reminded that there is so much wisdom about the feminine that I still do not know, and cannot possibly know, as I am just one person. The roots of my Yonic Theory™ are inherently grounded in feminine wisdom and healing traditions, and yet I fear that, as this ending and shift in perspective is inevitable, we might lose access to that information.
Which is why I am so passionate about documenting these practices in my Yonic Journal to preserve feminine wisdom.
Yet, in documenting this wisdom, I have to surrender to the knowledge that I cannot do this work on my own. None of us can.
It will take a conscious effort on all of our parts to come together and preserve this wisdom. Thus, it requires collaboration, not competition.
Meaning if we want to restore the home of our “mother” to its former glory, we can not go about in the same fashion as the Magician.
Greed, capitalism, and the scarcity mindset are rooted in the masculine drive to compete. Yet, what our world needs now is not more competition, but the urge to work together, to create communities rooted in connection and sharing the wisdom of the feminine. So that we can continue to support the Earth and future generations.
It is why I have chosen to take a step back from psychotherapy and counseling, to focus on the healing practices of female folk and Indigenous healers in my research. Which, as you read this, I am already working on my next article, which features an interview I conducted with a local psychotherapist about the healing practices of her grandmother and mother in her home country of Poland.
In addition to this article, I have many more to come as I am currently in contact with INELDA to set up an interview with a death doula.
This research, while important, takes time. It’s qualitative in nature and requires hours of transcribing data and peeling back the layers of our history. The ways the feminine has been suppressed and how that bias towards the feminine is rooted in the colonization of healing practices across cultures, as women were often the wisdom keepers of their clans.
Therefore, I need your help. I need to know where to look and where to uncover this feminine wisdom.
If you follow me on Substack, you are probably familiar with my work. As I embrace this attitude of surrender and collaboration rooted in the feminine, I invite you to comment below with suggestions for practices and techniques you would like me to explore. Or if you know a healer/midwife/guide, or witch who would like to share their wisdom for me to document in my journal, feel free to message me or share my contact information here.
As I said before, this work cannot be done alone, nor was it ever meant to be something that just happened in silos. That is a masculine-based form of healing, and it is clear from our current healthcare system that this approach is no longer working for us.
It is up to all of us now, to document and uncover the wisdom of the feminine and return to our roots. Wisdom, which was covered up and destroyed throughout much of history.
Thus, it is imperative that as we enter this new cycle of ending and beginning, we document what we can, so that the generations after us can build upon it.
As all humans have done, throughout history.
OX,
Your Dark Fairy Godmother
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Reference
Woodman, M. (2011). Holding the tension of the opposites [Audiobook]. Sounds True.