What is a Witch?

The definition of a witch is one of the things that piss me of right now.

In the dictionary, the definition is:

witch: noun

1.a person, now especially a woman, who professes or is supposed to practice magic, especially black magic or the black art; sorceress.

2.an ugly or mean old woman; hag: the old witch who used to own this building.

3.a person who uses a divining rod; dowser.

 

I won’t go on about the third, but I am going to have a massive rant about the first two.

 

I have a massive issue with witches being women. To correct the dictionary, I insist to inform that there are equally as many men witches and they go by the same name. It is ridiculous in this time and age to be that ignorant.

 

More ignorance is clearly shown in the part where it says that witches practice black magick. Just a curiosity, how would we call someone that practices white magick? Or is all magick just black? To answer, neither. Magick, like nature, is neither white nor black. The same shining sun that warms my skin and makes flowers bloom, in a different part of the world causes famine because it is too hot. Rain is useful, wished for, a blessing, but it can cause floods. Nature is neither good, not bad, nor white nor black. It just IS. Same with magick. To think that is either one or the other is at the best being uneducated about the subject. I can use magick to bless as much as to curse. Now, because I am a Wiccan and I believe in karma and the three fold law, I would carefully stir away from curses. Not because I am a good girl or because I don’t think that some people utterly deserve it. There are plenty of people that deserve it, and my personal list contains few names. So, no, the reason I don’t curse is not because I am naive or good in heart. Nah… The reason for why I don’t curse is because I love myself too much and I quite like my life as it is so there is no incentive for me to mess it up by getting all that nastiness three times back (Others might have different reasons, but I’m quite the selfish type)… 

 

Curses… Is a subject I could go on and on and on. What is a curse? At it’s most basic is wishing evil upon something… Do you know how many people I hear daily saying stuff like “Damn this weather”, “damn my stupid car/computer/etc”, “damn the ….”. Now, because damnation is quite a nasty thing (I mean who or what would like to burn forever?) qualifies as wishing evil upon someone or something. And that is cursing. Sorry to say, but considering the evidence, are much less witches cursing then other denominations. Why? Because witches are way too aware that what you send out, comes back three times.

 

Now that I established that witches don’t curse as a favorite way of spending their time, I will move onto the black arts…

 

According to the dictionary black arts are:

Noun

1.

black art – the belief in magical spells that harness occult forces or evil spirits to produce unnatural effects in the worl

Do witches harness occult forces? You bet. Witches do work with the occult. But occult means hidden. Not easily seen. Now, if we think about it, the wind is something we can not see. We can feel it. We can see it’s effects, but we can’t see it. Therefore, the wind is occult. Psychology… The human mind is not only hidden and hard to grasp, but is basically unknown. Are so many differences, so many nuances that more often then not, psychologists work blindly… It’s instinct and experience backed up by some basic knowledge. We simply don’t know why some people get stronger from misfortunes and why other people are destroyed by it. So, because the human mind and it’s workings and motivations are hidden, means that the psychologists deal with the occult, which if we listen to the definition, makes them witches. Now, as it happens, I have a deep respect for psychologists. Actually, as a witch, I have a deep respect for All life, from rivers and oceans to insects and animals, to humans. Anyway, I was saying that witches do work with the occult, which means hidden.

 

Generally speaking, most of us, humans, use about 10% of our brains. The rest is unknown matter with unknown functions. Are people that are able to use more then 10%. Those are the really amazing geniuses that transform our world and push us on the evolutionary scale. Deep gratitude to Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Edison.  I totally appreciate having a car instead of a horse (even though I’m sure that ecologically speaking the horse is much better and the car might be more expensive, but hey, it’s faster), electricity instead of candles (I love candle light but  it does not power my washing machine), my computer and so on. However, not only geniuses use more then 10% of that mushy matter that is the brain.

 

Do you know that animal can see a much bigger light spectrum then we do? Oh well, most witches are the same. Able to see, hear, taste, touch and smell things that most people can’t. Now, I am not reducing witches to humans with animal senses. Which are a massive help, don’t get me wrong. But is not enough. Witches also need the intelligence to understand what the senses relate and lots and lots of practice in order to control these senses. Personally, while I find it useful to see auras (that the energy field around the body, and if need is, I can demonstrate how do we have one), I would like sometimes to relate to people without knowing exactly how are they feeling physically, mentally, spiritually. Part of that is because I like to keep some mystery in my interactions. Another part is because it would be some much information to process  that my brain would have a fry up like an overloaded computer. Also, is the same with sound. If I can’t control how much I hear (and i do have an extremely selective hearing), it would be extremely tiresome to hear all that happens on a twenty meter radius, in great detail. And so on.

 

The only way to harness this abilities is with lots and lots of practice, which requests patience, wisdom, determination and good management. Actually most witches I know manage to have a happy family, an outstanding career, a perfectly clean house, enough time for friends, enough time for themselves and manage to sleep a decent numbers of hours every night as well. And for witches, like anyone else, the day does not last more then 24 hours. Which is not that pleasant, but that’s the way it is… Do they use their nose to move things around the house to clean? That would be awesome and a skill that would be very much appreciated. Unfortunately, no matter how talented, the witches still need to vacuum using their arms, cook with their hands, put the washing in the machine with their own hands. The rest, is perfect plot for Hollywood.

 

What is it that these witches do? Fly on the brooms all day? Nah. We use brooms, but we don’t fly on them. My kids would love it, especially to use one to fly far away when I ask them to do something, but does not work like that. Most of the stuff we do is helping others. Not only humans. We, humans have a really overrated opinion about our importance on this planet. More so as we do more harm then good. So the witches help humans, animal and most importantly, the planet.  We use green energy, walk instead of driving if possible, watch how much water and electricity we use, often pick up other people rubbish and put it where it belongs (in those varied colored bins used for recycling) and so on. What else do we do? We listen. We are very, very good at listening. And because we listen very well, we know more and are able to tell others in what areas to improve their lives, about in the same way the psychologist does. We are also very responsible. Towards ourselves, others and our planet. Opps, I mentioned the planet again. Our planet, with it’s ecosystem is one of the main believes of the witch. We don’t pray to the planet, we pray FOR the planet (we do much more then pray. We tend to put our hands where our mouth is.) What else do we do? We have families, we laugh, we cry, we have jobs and friends, we go through happiness and grief… We are human. Maybe a bit more emphatic humans, but the ones that have more too gain out of that are the less emphatic ones. Sometimes, but not really as often as thought, we use the “thought over matter” principle.

 

What is this idea of thought over matter? Oh well, as the quantum physics are just starting to discover, all of us, humans, can change the course of atoms according to our will. It’s just possible. Now, as much s I am aware, none of us manage to create entire festive meals just by using our minds, unless we want to eat it in our minds as well. Witches are not magicians. We don’t pull white rabbits out of our non existent hats (we really really don’t wear pointy hats) and we don’t make things appear out of thin air. That’s the jobs of magicians. But if something IS in thin air, most of us can see it. What do we do? More often then not, we work really really hard at changing. OURSELVES. That effort for change often means better health, more aware spiritually, more usefulness as members of society.

Now… The second part of that very informed definition makes me crack up laughing. While I do understand that wisdom comes with years, and some of the older ones are amazingly wise, not all old persons are wise and not all youngsters unwise. Or whatever other word is wished for. Like all others, we are old, not so old, not so young and young. Some of us work years and years at perfecting ourselves and even then, no one is perfect. I know plenty of young witches. Some of them look as yummy as the fairy tale’s princess. Some of us have long, blond, wavy hair, blue eyes and long legs (that Mother Nature’s job or if really needed the plastic’s surgeon. We don’t change our appearance to look like a fantasy). Some of us have short, straight black hair, brown eyes, not so perfect skin and short legs. Most of us, however, are way past according so much importance to the way we look, we feel quite good in our own skins and usually we put more importance on the wisdom we harvest then cosmetics. I, love cosmetics and I’m vain. But not all are. We go on the idea of Mens sana in corpore sano. That means Healthy mind in a healthy body. So we don’t eat as much junk. Are old witches? You bet. In the same way that there are old parents. But not all of us are old. Most of us love the word hag and crone. Because it implies wisdom and that is something we appreciate.

 

So, how about we grow up and stop being scared of what we don’t know? Because it is not that hard to find out and to stop believing in horror movies. Honestly. Let’s get past the ignorance specific to our specie and get informed. And let’s change the dictionaries. Are highly inaccurate as I had the misfortune of finding out.

 

So… What is a witch? A wise person (male or female) that respects Nature And All LIFE (including their own) and use more then 10% of their brain… Is it really that scary?