Articles
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The Life and Times of a Normal Witch
By Castiel Willow, Elder Grove-Coven of the Tangled Pines
My boss called me into his office—it turns out he had some “concerns.”
I sat trying to look calm, interested, receptive, while inside my stomach was making a 1,000 foot plunge then scrambling its way back up into my throat. I’d just started this job about four months ago, in an attempt to bring some much-needed financial stability to my family’s life, and I needed to keep it. He said that he felt like I wasn’t paying enough attention to detail—perhaps the inclination wasn’t there? I assured him that it was, and promised to do whatever it took to complete things the way he desired them to be done. I’d known going in this guy was going to be a stickler for the little things, and I thought it wouldn’t be a problem. Apparently I was wrong. I spent the next several weeks in a state of constant dread and anxiety, scrutinizing every little thing that crossed my desk. This morning I re-read a 25-word letter five times before I printed it on the sacred letterhead.
The truth is, I love the money, love the benefits, and even my co-workers are growing on my, but deep in my heart, I don’t want to be here. It’s just a job.
Meanwhile, back home my husband sits amidst piles of papers and books about nursing, three dogs run in manic circles around him, and dishes, laundry, dust and general crap pile up everywhere. As his exercise in masochism (known more commonly as grad school) will most likely result in the most earning power this family is ever going to see, I leave him to his microbiology, pharmacology, and theories of nursing and get dinner started. And cleaned up. And try to squeeze in some folding, cleaning, and if I’m lucky I might make it into the garden to do a small fraction of the desperately needed watering, pruning, harvesting. If I’m REALLY lucky, I might get to read a page or two of something, anything. I’ll say, “I want to be in bed by 10:30 tonight,” and we’ll finally crawl between the sheets at midnight, and he’ll say, “It really will be different when I’m done with school.”
Oh, it better be!
It doesn’t take much to make me feel like I’m a total failure when it comes to all this real-world stuff. No wonder we have an archetype of the wise old witch living alone in the woods, far, far away from letterhead, timesheets, e-mail, socks, dirty towels, junk mail, the water bill…
It’s my fantasy land, that woodland cabin. Getting up in the chilly morning with the sunrise, stoking the fire, greeting the Goddess and the brilliance of the day; puttering around with cutting and drying herbs, baking bread, picking berries, and working charms all day long; at night, standing out in a wooded glen reaching my hands up to the moon, feeling the creatures of the forest slowly slip from the trees to join my in my ritual. Would I give up family and friends, comforts like running water and electricity that I’ve grown up with as necessities, the reassurance and love of a spouse to have this dream?
Some days? Absolutely. Bring on cold, B.O., chopping firewood, no modern medicine, malnutrition…
There are some days when the only witchyness I can manage is five minutes at my altar in the morning—light the candle, try to sit quietly while the neighbors pull out of the drive below my window, the Today Show blares downstairs, and cats climb all over me, vying for my attention, say my affirmations, reach out with my spirit to the God and the Goddess, and then try and sense their presence within, try being the operative word—and it’s frustrating. I might chat with a coven mate on the phone, too. And I manage to get most of my work for coven—writing rituals, meditations, classes, or administrative materials—done between the “details” at work, because I know I won’t have time, or even access to my computer, which my husband has commandeered, once I’m home. I’m writing this article at my work computer, clicking back over to my e-mail every time someone sounds like they’re coming into my office. Is it any wonder that my focus at my job can be somewhat lacking?
When what you really want to be when you grow up is the storybook witch, how do you manage to work 8-5, keep the home fires burning, and still maintain your identity? How do you further your craft when you get six hours of sleep per night, and every waking hour seems to belong to someone else?
Maybe this is why it seems like there are so many self-employed/unemployed/ massage therapist/yoga teacher/ “sales associate” Pagans. Maybe this is why it seems like so many women come to the craft as they are approaching middle age—the husband has wised up or they’re divorced, the kids can make their own frozen pizzas, the pets are also middle aged and just want to be left to lie on the heater vents in peace.
Maybe this is why Pagans get the reputation for just not being “normal.”
I have never been normal. My family wasn’t normal, and neither was my childhood. Oh, it was so, so great, but it was so not normal. My adult life has also not been normal—Witchcraft is the least of it! I’m actually not really sure what normal is. I think it has something to do with iPods and Fall sales and dieting and red roses for Valentines Day and the job and the house and the car. When I meet some normal people, I’ll let you know.
I would completely discount normal as unimportant, except for the one aspect that I can’t exactly discard, due to its large role in my daily survival: integration. To some extent, in order to participate in this society, by which I mean bring home a paycheck that translates into a place to live, food to eat, and a few wholesome comforts, a person has got to integrate. And sure, you get to decide at which level you want to integrate. Plenty of people make choices that allow them to exist almost entirely in their subculture—those people who open successful metaphysical stores, for example, or have a large client base for their massage practice, or live in an RV and sell crafts and the occasional magazine article—and maybe they experience a greater sense of personal freedom. And by no means do I want to suggest that these people are coping out. They have their priorities, and their hard work. They are, I imagine, achieving spiritually and magically what I, currently, can only dream of.
I hope that they do, and I aspire to be one of them. It’s my dearest wish to open that candle-herb-oil-crystal-tarot-etc.-etc. store that will allow me to be, basically, a professional witch.
But for so many reasons, that is a not-now, and maybe-never, dream, and that has to do with my choices, the other things I want—like having eight pets, loving the man I love and want to spend my life with (he’s not exactly the live-in-an-RV type), and generally being compelled to take care of other people’s needs before I attend to myself. I know, I know, put your own oxygen mask on first…I try to remember.
Am I making myself sound like a martyr? I’m not a martyr. I don’t want sympathy—I love my life. It’s not perfect, but it’s rich, both with comforts and with challenges. And the biggest challenge I face every day is: how do the secretary, the wife, the coven member, the lone witch in the woods, the writer, the seamstress, the organizer, the cook, the gardener, and whoever the heck else is in there all find the expression they need to have in order for me to be, well, me?
Is it insane to try and practice a shamanic, earth-based, organic religion and try to be a member of a stressful, urban, materialistic, over-scheduled world at the same time? Well, maybe that’s the real reason most people think Pagans are crazy! But maybe, just maybe people like me, the “normal” witches, are in a kind of liminal space, like a bridge or a doorway. Maybe we’re in the process of crossing over to the kind of freedom of being and expression some of our peers and elders experience. Or maybe we’re a new breed, redefining “crazy Pagans” for the rest of society, helping to ease them into open-mindedness about the full spectrum of our subculture.
I’ll tell you one thing I know for sure about being a normal witch. Whatever else I may be, I’m tired.
And I won’t say, “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” because that would be a lie. Still, I’ll take it for what it is.
The Life and Times of a Normal Witch
By Castiel Willow, Elder Grove-Coven of the Tangled Pines
My boss called me into his office—it turns out he had some “concerns.”
I sat trying to look calm, interested, receptive, while inside my stomach was making a 1,000 foot plunge then scrambling its way back up into my throat. I’d just started this job about four months ago, in an attempt to bring some much-needed financial stability to my family’s life, and I needed to keep it. He said that he felt like I wasn’t paying enough attention to detail—perhaps the inclination wasn’t there? I assured him that it was, and promised to do whatever it took to complete things the way he desired them to be done. I’d known going in this guy was going to be a stickler for the little things, and I thought it wouldn’t be a problem. Apparently I was wrong. I spent the next several weeks in a state of constant dread and anxiety, scrutinizing every little thing that crossed my desk. This morning I re-read a 25-word letter five times before I printed it on the sacred letterhead.
The truth is, I love the money, love the benefits, and even my co-workers are growing on my, but deep in my heart, I don’t want to be here. It’s just a job.
Meanwhile, back home my husband sits amidst piles of papers and books about nursing, three dogs run in manic circles around him, and dishes, laundry, dust and general crap pile up everywhere. As his exercise in masochism (known more commonly as grad school) will most likely result in the most earning power this family is ever going to see, I leave him to his microbiology, pharmacology, and theories of nursing and get dinner started. And cleaned up. And try to squeeze in some folding, cleaning, and if I’m lucky I might make it into the garden to do a small fraction of the desperately needed watering, pruning, harvesting. If I’m REALLY lucky, I might get to read a page or two of something, anything. I’ll say, “I want to be in bed by 10:30 tonight,” and we’ll finally crawl between the sheets at midnight, and he’ll say, “It really will be different when I’m done with school.”
Oh, it better be!
It doesn’t take much to make me feel like I’m a total failure when it comes to all this real-world stuff. No wonder we have an archetype of the wise old witch living alone in the woods, far, far away from letterhead, timesheets, e-mail, socks, dirty towels, junk mail, the water bill…
It’s my fantasy land, that woodland cabin. Getting up in the chilly morning with the sunrise, stoking the fire, greeting the Goddess and the brilliance of the day; puttering around with cutting and drying herbs, baking bread, picking berries, and working charms all day long; at night, standing out in a wooded glen reaching my hands up to the moon, feeling the creatures of the forest slowly slip from the trees to join my in my ritual. Would I give up family and friends, comforts like running water and electricity that I’ve grown up with as necessities, the reassurance and love of a spouse to have this dream?
Some days? Absolutely. Bring on cold, B.O., chopping firewood, no modern medicine, malnutrition…
There are some days when the only witchyness I can manage is five minutes at my altar in the morning—light the candle, try to sit quietly while the neighbors pull out of the drive below my window, the Today Show blares downstairs, and cats climb all over me, vying for my attention, say my affirmations, reach out with my spirit to the God and the Goddess, and then try and sense their presence within, try being the operative word—and it’s frustrating. I might chat with a coven mate on the phone, too. And I manage to get most of my work for coven—writing rituals, meditations, classes, or administrative materials—done between the “details” at work, because I know I won’t have time, or even access to my computer, which my husband has commandeered, once I’m home. I’m writing this article at my work computer, clicking back over to my e-mail every time someone sounds like they’re coming into my office. Is it any wonder that my focus at my job can be somewhat lacking?
When what you really want to be when you grow up is the storybook witch, how do you manage to work 8-5, keep the home fires burning, and still maintain your identity? How do you further your craft when you get six hours of sleep per night, and every waking hour seems to belong to someone else?
Maybe this is why it seems like there are so many self-employed/unemployed/ massage therapist/yoga teacher/ “sales associate” Pagans. Maybe this is why it seems like so many women come to the craft as they are approaching middle age—the husband has wised up or they’re divorced, the kids can make their own frozen pizzas, the pets are also middle aged and just want to be left to lie on the heater vents in peace.
Maybe this is why Pagans get the reputation for just not being “normal.”
I have never been normal. My family wasn’t normal, and neither was my childhood. Oh, it was so, so great, but it was so not normal. My adult life has also not been normal—Witchcraft is the least of it! I’m actually not really sure what normal is. I think it has something to do with iPods and Fall sales and dieting and red roses for Valentines Day and the job and the house and the car. When I meet some normal people, I’ll let you know.
I would completely discount normal as unimportant, except for the one aspect that I can’t exactly discard, due to its large role in my daily survival: integration. To some extent, in order to participate in this society, by which I mean bring home a paycheck that translates into a place to live, food to eat, and a few wholesome comforts, a person has got to integrate. And sure, you get to decide at which level you want to integrate. Plenty of people make choices that allow them to exist almost entirely in their subculture—those people who open successful metaphysical stores, for example, or have a large client base for their massage practice, or live in an RV and sell crafts and the occasional magazine article—and maybe they experience a greater sense of personal freedom. And by no means do I want to suggest that these people are coping out. They have their priorities, and their hard work. They are, I imagine, achieving spiritually and magically what I, currently, can only dream of.
I hope that they do, and I aspire to be one of them. It’s my dearest wish to open that candle-herb-oil-crystal-tarot-etc.-etc. store that will allow me to be, basically, a professional witch.
But for so many reasons, that is a not-now, and maybe-never, dream, and that has to do with my choices, the other things I want—like having eight pets, loving the man I love and want to spend my life with (he’s not exactly the live-in-an-RV type), and generally being compelled to take care of other people’s needs before I attend to myself. I know, I know, put your own oxygen mask on first…I try to remember.
Am I making myself sound like a martyr? I’m not a martyr. I don’t want sympathy—I love my life. It’s not perfect, but it’s rich, both with comforts and with challenges. And the biggest challenge I face every day is: how do the secretary, the wife, the coven member, the lone witch in the woods, the writer, the seamstress, the organizer, the cook, the gardener, and whoever the heck else is in there all find the expression they need to have in order for me to be, well, me?
Is it insane to try and practice a shamanic, earth-based, organic religion and try to be a member of a stressful, urban, materialistic, over-scheduled world at the same time? Well, maybe that’s the real reason most people think Pagans are crazy! But maybe, just maybe people like me, the “normal” witches, are in a kind of liminal space, like a bridge or a doorway. Maybe we’re in the process of crossing over to the kind of freedom of being and expression some of our peers and elders experience. Or maybe we’re a new breed, redefining “crazy Pagans” for the rest of society, helping to ease them into open-mindedness about the full spectrum of our subculture.
I’ll tell you one thing I know for sure about being a normal witch. Whatever else I may be, I’m tired.
And I won’t say, “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” because that would be a lie. Still, I’ll take it for what it is.
bravenet.com