I keep reiterating that I am finding that now I am on my path of discovery and understanding, I keep getting things driven home to me. This is either via repetition or various other means. This week’s phrase is the Witch Wound. It came to me on Instagram, on Facebook and via a friend.
“The Witch Wound is a collective, intergenerational, spiritual wound that keeps people afraid of their own magic and power.” – Celeste Larsen, Mage By Moonlight
Celeste has a new book which is available to order via her website here.
Kirsty Gallagher defines the Witch Wound as “a trauma that’s buried deep in our psyche and our DNA. It is carried from our past lives and ancestral lineages, from times when women were persecuted, shamed and even killed for being healers, wise women, wild women, herbalists, visionaries and truth holders.”
There are various lists that describe how you can identify whether you could be ‘suffering’ from a Witch Wound.
- You often hold back your truth out of fear of being noticed.
- You have spiritual gifts but are afraid to share them with the world, or even deny their existence.
- You want to be your most liberated self but are afraid of the impact on your relationships.
- You fear being attacked or persecuted for expressing your voice, magic, or feminine power.
- You want to connect to your intuition and emotions but you have been conditioned to think that if you do, you are crazy.
Re the first one, I just wrote about how I love the invisibility of being a crone after spending so many years being freaked out by people staring at me when I was younger. Curiously that post is called ‘Touching the Wounds‘ and this post is named ‘Wounded’. Number 5 is one of the biggest lies, those things are our superpowers! The trick is to unlearn this conditioning of repression of our true selves and to step into our power. To heal these wounds.
The Witch Wound is rooted in the Witch Trials of the 1600s which were also referred to as ‘The Burning Times’ or the ‘Witch Craze’ and was the period in early modern European history when prosecutions for the crime of witchcraft reached their peak.
The impact of the Burning Times reverberated around the world, influencing the Salem Witch Trials and other trials in North America, as well as witch hunts in other regions influenced by colonialism, including India, Nepal, Tanzania, Kenya, and Ghana.
This was largely a targeted attack on women, especially those who had sexual relationships while unmarried, received or performed abortions, or wielded “too much” power and influence in their communities.
These trials were a vast femicide that spanned Europe and the Americas and saw thousands of women senselessly persecuted, tortured, and killed in some of the most horrific ways to die. Some estimates place the death toll around 60,000, others suggest it was closer to 100,000. To put it in perspective, there were a reported 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War.
It took anything even slightly out of the ordinary to make them suspect you as a witch. For example, I could be accused of being a witch because I am so close to my pets. You could be accused because you were a healer or a medicine woman, a midwife or just because you were single and wealthy or because you were an outspoken, independent woman. You could be accused because of a birth defect or the colour of your hair or eyes. You could also be accused by another woman out of jealousy, or by a man threated by your business success. Two of the only ways poor women could earn a living was through medicinal herbalism and midwifery—two practices commonly condemned as proof of witchcraft.
Of the 50,000 or more individuals executed for witchcraft during the Burning Times:
- 80% were women, many unmarried and over the age of forty
- 40% lived in modern-day Germany, and 75% lived in what were German-speaking lands at the time
- Many were burned alive, but many others (especially outside of Germany) were beheaded, hung, or drowned
The result is that now so many of us have to remember our truths, re-wild ourselves to re-learn so many of the things we knew as children before it was drummed out of us by the adults around us, most likely due to their own ancestral damage from their lineage of magic and knowledge.
I feel so many passageways in my brain are being opened. My awareness is changing, my consciousness is changing, my entire energy is changing. It is time to stop hiding my magic and reclaim my power.
Celeste provides us with 8 Affirmations to heal our Witch Wounds.
So many messages are flying at me and I am just trying to hold onto them long enough to absorb what I need. This week Tass sent to all of the students the following words, how mind blowing is this:
Since self love and self acceptance are both big issues in my life this hit me hard. I also saw someone say that you can love your body but also strive to be the best you that you can be or the healthiest you can be or whatever desire for change you may be pursuing. Both can be true. I guess the lesson is, I need to accept myself as I am and love myself but that does not mean I can eat all of the donuts and not expect to have health issues.
One principle of the Red Road is that you should not ‘pray for yourself’ unless the ultimate result of the manifestation of this prayer will benefit someone else. I do pray for help with lowering my blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar and raising my VitB12, VitD and dealing with my post-menopause issues. The way that spirit has chosen to help me is to remind me every night to take my supplements. In other words, do not expect every thing to be solved via a miracle, you have to put in the work.
I have to acknowledge my part in my health challenges and continue to do what I can to resolve them. Now I just need to summon the energy to exercise. I do dance, but not as often or as long as I should. That will be my next focus, more physical activity. I will start by stating movement as an intention each morning. That will be enough and spirit will manage the rest. I will hear songs that force me to move or the dog will steal something and I will be forced to chase him. Something will get my ar$e moving. All it takes is intention and the rest just flows to us.
I also need to examine my Virgoan expectation of perfection, both in myself as well as in others. Acceptance. I need to see the good in others and focus on their intentions. I am always very suspicious, especially about men. But that is based on my past experiences, not my current life. I need to try and shift that focus to letting people just ‘be’. Everyone we encounter has a lesson for us, in one way or another.
Then after Tass sent the above I saw the following words from Angell Dear.
On the shamanic path, we learn to walk with one foot in the middle world (the world of the living) and one foot in the spirit world. Only with the wisdom from both world can we inform our lives of the best choices to make and then see things from a different perspective.
On one side, the world of spirit. The world of surrender. On the other side, the incarnated world, the dual world, the world of the ego (healthy and unhealthy), the world of our traumas and beliefs, prayers, and actions.
Very often, most human beings live not in balance between the different worlds. Either too much in the dual world, the incarnated world, and far from connection to the spirit world.
Or too much in the spirit world, praying without actions, spiritual bypassing, waiting to be saved by Spirit or the creator, letting go of accountability and not in touch with the body, the shadows, the full rainbow of human emotions. Not walking the prayer.
To find flow in our life, we need balance. Between heart and mind. Healthy Ego and Spirit. Dual reality and non dual reality. Discipline and surrender. God within and God without.
Too much discipline, you leave no space for spirit to guide you. Too much surrender, and you refuse your free choice and responsibility. Balance. Middle way. Red Road. Harmony.
Masculine and feminine.
This is the place of flow. Flow with spirit AND flow with our desires and dreams. It’s a hard place to understand for the mind that looks for duality. But the ultimate goal is to bring both control (direction) and surrender (spirit will).
I often refer to it as “pointing your prayers very precisely and yet leaving space for spirit to adjust the arrow.”
On this divine fine line is your divine flow. One that you control by letting go of the illusion of control.
A beautiful place for meditation, reflection, prayer, dreams, shamanic journeys, and rituals.
A dance with Spirit and life…”
I am hearing that control is what I have to release, I need to stop trying to hide the real me and accept the duality of the various contrasting characteristics that constitute me. By opening the world up to me and my past I may help someone else who is suffering.
Last weekend when Lily was with us we watched the Guy Ritchie film ‘Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre‘ starring Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, Josh Hartnett, Cary Elwes, Bugzy Malone, and Hugh Grant.
In summary the description online is “Super spy Orson Fortune (Jason Statham) must track down and stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology wielded by billionaire arms broker Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant). Reluctantly teamed with some of the world’s best operatives (Aubrey Plaza, Cary Elwes, Bugzy Malone), Fortune and his crew recruit Hollywood’s biggest movie star Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett) to help them on their globe-trotting undercover mission to save the world.”
First of all I love that Aubrey Plaza seems to be getting more work as she is absolutely hilarious and in this film we get to see how truly beautiful she is!
I found Hugh Grant’s portrayal of ‘Greg’ to be a caricature of the well known British character Frank Butcher from EastEnders. The greasy hair, the glasses, the perma-tan, the gold chains, cockney accent and the gravelly voice.
It was Frank!
The film was all a bunch of nonsense and perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon. I chuckled a lot so I give it 4 Kitten Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐.
We just had takeaways over the weekend with the kids here. Finn loved to watch us intently when eating in case he is needed to rescue some ham or something critical.
I cooked on Wednesday night as Norm shopped. I roasted some vegetables and grilled some kingklip. It was a lovely warm evening so we sat outside to eat.
But then we woke to rain on Thursday. It poured on and off all day so I could not sit outside in the afternoon.
I had bought a few things online and Norm took me to exchange them on Thursday afternoon. I was really anxious on the way there and was a bit snappy with Norm. He asked if I had eaten and I realised my blood sugar was talking for me. I consciously decided to shift my energy and I successfully did so. The trick is being able to recognise it myself instead of waiting for Norm to get it in the neck and reflect it back to me!
I tried on a few pairs of denims but SA jeans do not fit my body shape. They are made for women with bums and I have a pancake butt and no hips and all of my weight is in my tummy (aka my ‘kangaroo pouch’ as I kept calling it in the shop. The sales lady wanted to laugh but was afraid I was serious.) It is almost impossible to find flattering jeans, I am like an egg with legs. I did buy a cute denim jacket because I appear to have given all of mine to charity. I cleared out 5 more huge black bin bags while Lily was here so she had 2 bags of things to take home to wear and the other 3 I have bagged up for charity. Most of the clothes are like new but too small for me or no longer suitable for either my body or my life.
Lily and Josh also took the crib and all of the other bits and pieces when they left on Sunday. They managed to put the crib up but they are still decorating the room and I cannot wait to see it all set up. The bedding on the cot all came with the cot. We will buy her more bedding once she goes through what she has already and decides what she needs.
We still do not know for sure what baby’s name will be. It is all very exciting watching Lily’s cute lil belly grow! She looks so beautiful and healthy. I sang to Lily’s belly and Pickle punched me. Even an unborn baby knows I am tone deaf.
We have woken to grey skies and rain again. We wanted to go buy a new rug to go under my desk but will see if we can summon any enthusiasm. Tomorrow we have another meeting of the students of the Path of the White Wolf.
Oh – another thing I wanted to manifest was drumming and I am hosting a drum circle in a few weeks. I also wanted to manifest more social activities with other women and I have also just joined a new book club. Life is pretty fabulous!
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and week ahead. Until next time, Kisses from the Kitten xoxoxoxxo
Kitten in the City 
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