What is A Witch? What is a Poetry Witch?

Am I a witch?

Yes I am!

I was raised as a Quaker, to believe that there is divinity in everyone. As a witch, I take it a step further and believe that there is divinity in everything as well. The witches’ Goddess is not transcendent; she is in the world: immanent.

As a witch, I find sacred meaning in the cycles of life and death and the seasons and life and the body. I believe that all nature, including humanity, is holy and interconnected. I don’t find a separation between the sacred and the mundane. At my deliciously witchiest times, I live every moment, do every task, in a way that opens me to its spiritual nature.

I think of witchcraft as a folk religion, a grassroots path in which each person can craft a spiritual life, creatively, out of the materials at hand. There are as many kinds of witches as there are materials ready to be crafted: Green Witches who are versed in the magic of plants. Kitchen Witches who cook up magic in that most magical of rooms. Art Witches who use their artistic skills to share enchantment. As a proud Poetry Witch, my materials are those of poetry: particularly the meters and forms, repetitions and rhythms, stanzas and shapes whose crafted structures distinguish poetry from any other kind of writing (more detail on what makes poetry unique here).

I express my witchy spirituality through poemcrafting, dancing, singing, connecting with nature, myth and story,and enacting spells, rituals, and ceremonies, some learned and some spontaneous, that shape my own growth and support those I love. My ancestors were the poetry witches of Old Europe: Celtic bards and Nordic volurs. I gather in circles or covens to feel the power of witches together and perform rituals that help us to connect with the spirit in ourselves, each other, and nature. And I do my best to follow the deceptively simple Witches’ Creed: “If it harms no-one, do as you will.”

I haven’t always led such a fulfilled life. Like many women today, for decades I was tormented by loneliness and self-hate, struggling to find a way to belong in thisall-too-patriarchal world of ours. The path of the witch, based in the insights and rhythms of ancient female-centered cultures, helped me to create my life as a strong, joyful, healthy contemporary woman. Now I’m ready to share what I have learned . . .