Happy New Year! I hope you all had a blessed Samhain and thoroughly enjoyed the full moon.
On Friday night, the Long-Distance Uncoven cranked up tunes to cleanse our respective spaces, then chatted about our process doing the full moon ritual written by The Light For All, whose work we follow and are constantly sending back and forth. I especially enjoy how Emily starts out using “family-friendly” explanations and then as she gets more animated and excited, the grown-up words come out. It makes me laugh every time.
We also gathered yesterday to share our roses and thorns from the previous year, and to set our intention for the year to come. The meeting contained several firsts for me: it was my first time casting a circle, my first time doing spell work in a group, and the first time I’ve celebrated the new year on Samhain instead of on January 1. The whole thing was a lovely and supportive experience and I’m excited to do it again.
Speaking of which, my focus today is to provide some background as to why I started this project in the first place, and where I hope it will go.
Last December I was sitting at my mom’s dining room table, texting my best friend while watching the family play board games. I mentioned that the new decade should be the Decade of the Witch, she suggested I see if the domain was available, and here we are. Many an ambitious adventure has begun with just a title, so I feel in good company. As I thought further, I realized that my own journey into being a witch and how to incorporate it into the world outside my house might be interesting to catalogue for myself, and perhaps to others.
The ultimate goal of the Decade of the Witch project is to build a community of witches who are grounded in growth, for themselves as witches and for society as a whole.
I believe that witchcraft is deeply anti-kyriarchal in nature, that witches are inherently knowledge-seeking, and that we all need to find a balance between lighting candles and putting ourselves into the world to be actively antiracist, anti-patriarchy, anti-capitalism, anti-bullshit; to seek equality, equitability, and balance.
As this project grows and evolves, I will keep returning to the idea of growth.
So I ask you, friend: what kind of growth would you like to achieve in the coming decade?
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Personally, I am looking forward to giving even fewer fucks about how people feel about me.
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I am excited to grow in this craft and nurture my spiritual side, which to be quite honest has been sorely neglected through my 20s and 30s, when I rejected the evangelical Christianity of my mother and embraced a brand of skeptical Atheism that was equally damaging to my own soul.
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Regarding practical matters, I have several bad habits regarding finances that I need to outgrow. More on that later, especially how it ties into witchcraft and anti-kyriarchy.
Frankly it’s difficult for me to envision the next 8 months, much less the next 10 years. As I write this, Election Day 2020 is ~36 hours away in the U.S., and regardless of who spends the next 4 years in the White House, there is an incredible amount of work to do. I invite you to grab your witch hat and join me as we approach the next hours, days, months, and years with the power of the Universe at our backs.