My Mystic Journey
The reality is…it ain’t easy being a witch.
From the time I was a little girl, I knew I was different. I could feel the energy of my parents, my siblings, my teachers and my friends. I knew how they were feeling, if things were troubling them and I quickly learned that I could knew what to do or say to a person to put them at ease. I could morph myself to fit any situation and it served me very well. I recently read this quote by Augustan Burroughs in his memoir Toil & Trouble, “A witch knows how to hide in plain sight.” And that’s what I did. I hid myself away in plain sight. Over time, I forgot I was doing it. It become the only way I knew how to be.
After many years of toiling away in school, trying to be what I thought would make my teachers and parents happy, I landed at University where I stumbled upon Philosophy. It’s changed my life. I realized that I was very, very good at debate and at having others see my point of view. When I got my first A+ I was hooked. Little did I know at the time, that the even the most ancient Philosophers had more than a toe dipped into Esotericism. I took every class I could find on mysticism, religion and philosophy, eventually landing in a class on Hinduism.
It lead to my start in the practice of yoga, which in the late 2000s (in Edmonton at least) was tragically dominated by the military overtones of the Bikram yoga franchise. the sergeants demanding NO REST! NO WATER! It took awhile to find my footing into the yoga community but soon I was at the studio everyday. I could feel myself cracking open. My energy was shifting.
At the time I was married. Of course my ability to mold and shape myself into anything that other people needed, had led to my first real boyfriend becoming my husband. This did not bode well for me when I started to realize that I was changing. Well, changing is the wrong word. I was emerging.
By this time my yoga practice had gotten pretty good. I was young and strong and had reached the point that if I wanted to learn any more I would have to train harder. I signed up for yoga teacher training in late 2015 (honestly, so I could learn how to arm balance) and unbeknownst to me, this would be the beginning of the end of the old me.
I learned many things in those 200 hours. Ironically, a handstand was not one of them. I learned about prana. I learned about sankalpa. I learned about mantras and mudras. I also learned that I was deeply, deeply unhappy. I started remembering what it was like to be myself. In a room of likeminded people, I felt safe for the first time. I finally felt that I didn’t have to be someone for them, to appease them, to calm them, to bolster them. I could be whoever the fuck I actually was (that part would take much longer to figure out, but that’s the journey of a witch in the modern world).
By the fourth week of my training I new my marriage was over. Because my husband had thought I was exactly like him (I was because I pretended to be), when I started to be myself, it was an actual nightmare. He was angry and so was I. It ended like an earthquake, a tsunami and an atomic bomb happened all at once. There was nothing left but carnage.
All of a sudden I was a 25 year old divorcee. I was in a job I hated, working for a corporate not for profit. I was spiralling with alcohol, drinking bottles of wine at a time to numb my pain and anger.
My training ended and I started teaching right away. The benefit of hanging out at a studio like a fly on shit is that it’s not too hard to land a job. Soon I was teaching 20 hours a week plus my full time job. My performance at work suffered, everyone could tell I had changed but they let it go, blaming my divorce. Finally, I couldn’t manage the monotony anymore and I quit. I started teaching yoga full time and it was the best decision I ever made.
I found myself in this new phase of life. Where I was making choices for myself. Not for my family or my friends or for whatever society thought was “the right thing to do.” I started dancing. I started praying. I started following the moon and her cycles. I started to learn about shamanism and tarot and astrology. I started meeting people who opened my eyes and my heart. I read absolutely everything I could get my hands on about Occultism (much to my surprise and pleasure, there are A LOT of witches working at the Edmonton Public Library).
I built my first altar and cast my first spell. It was official. I was a witch. Well, I always was one, but I had found my way back home.
It was a few more years before I was comfortable talking about my new way of life. My family are estranged Catholics, who are mostly agnostic, if not atheist (I believe my deep love of ritual performance stems from my years attending catholic mass. Also Mother Mary?! How much more divine fem can you get?). I think they spent a lot of time rolling their eyes at me (I am certain they still do). They are very accepting of me and for this I am grateful. I know that many witches face much more challenging situations with their families. Having a family like mine is my life’s greatest blessing.
After getting remarried to a man who knew me completely, witchcraft and all, and having two children with him, it seemed time to open the broom closet. I want my children to see me stand firm in my beliefs, not in fear of judgement. I want them to know that they should always be themselves, even when it makes them different, or makes other people uncomfortable. Even when they know how being some other way will make life easier or make other people more happy. I want them to have a connection with nature, I want them to know how to heal themselves. I want them to believe in something. Whatever that is, I guess we will have to find out.
Once I started to practice openly, my gifts started to really emerge. I realized that the thing I was always doing from the time I was born perhaps, reading other people’s energy, was something that I could sharpen with practice. I now pride myself on my ability to access my higher self. Something in me resists the word psychic (I don’t speak with disembodied spirits of people who have passed on, I guess I’ve just always associated psychics to mediums). I prefer the word intuitive, even thought the two words can pretty much be used interchangeably. I can read you like a book (but only if you want me to). Tarot is my divination method of choice, because I like the confirmation of my inner knowing. But honestly, it’s really because I like the ritual of it all. I like the symbolism and the art. It’s just so fucking witchy.
It’s my hope that by living in my truest authenticity, that others can be inspired to live in theirs. I use the word witch proudly, even though I know it makes some people cringe. Witch really just means, powerful person. And that’s what I am. That’s what you are too.
If you’ve ended up here somehow. If you’ve read this and thought, “Am I a witch too?” Let me affirm you. You absolutely are. You now how I know that? A muggle would never ask themselves, “Am I a witch?” It would never cross their muggly minds.
It’s my life’s purpose and my deepest passions to be the lamp holder for others who are on the journey of discovering their inner-witch. To hold the door open as they exit the broom closet, into the world of magick and mystical wonder. I have a lot more to learn, and you know what, I am pretty fucking excited about it.
In the words of the ancient witches, “Know thyself.” I promise I’ll always be working on doing just that.
