Healing the witch wound
I’ve been wanting to try to heal the witch wound for a while now. Many of my clients tell me how much they struggle to find their voice, or be authentically seen by others, or put themselves out there in the world, playing it small instead, diminishing their emotions and intuition, all of this because of an inherent fear around being seen and heard, which in many cases is a hang over from the witch trials.
Furthermore, many find it challenging to truly believe in their healing capacity. They might be drawn to earth energies, plants and nature, but don’t have the confidence to work with them. Others are told they are “too much” or “not enough”, all of which lays heavily on them and prevents them feeling they can be themselves in the world.
So a group of us ladies, 18 in total, joined together at the stone circle on my folks’ land near Vazon. Dad and I established the stone circle many years ago now but I haven’t really used it much as the energy hasn’t been quite right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it and my sister in law in Australia has used it much more on her visits to the island - some of you may well have sat in circle with her there.
It is a lovely space nestled within the trees and quite by chance my Dad decided to move the stones around and add a few more without realising that he was shifting the energy and making it into something I had wanted all those years ago, but hadn’t realised until now - there is a timing to everything!
So now the circle has 19 stones, like the stone circles in Cornwall. This because the ancients had an interest in understanding nature’s cycles and harmonising earth and the cosmos.
Thus the placing, design, mathematics and orientation of ancient sites were all carefully calculated to embody the eclipse cycle, the anomalistic year, the solstices and cross-quarters of the year, lunar phases and probably longer-term cycles such as the sidereal and synodic cycles of the planets.
Furthermore, the ancients had a double calendar - solar and lunar. The solar calendar was based on the solstices and equinoxes while the lunar calendar was anchored in the lunar phases, of which there are around 12.5 cycles per solar year. The lunar and solar cycles synchronise once every 19 years and this synchronisation is called the Metonic Cycle.
The solar calendar relates to the seasons of the year and the lunar calendar to cycles of tides, water levels, rainfall, light at night and natural fertility. The coming of spring or autumn is determined by the sun's cycle, yet the visible changes, when flowers come out or the leaves fall, birds migrate or the weather turns, are timed by the moon - particularly at new and full moons. A 19-stone circle thus embodies the integration of solar and lunar calendars, also indicating an interest in eclipse cycles.
The Encyclopedia Britannica defines this as:
...in chronology, a period of 19 years in which there are 235 lunations or synodic months, after which the Moon's phases recur on the same days of the solar year. The cycle was discovered by Meton (floriat 432 BC), an Athenian astronomer.
The Metonic period of 6,939.6 days, almost exactly 19 years, is equivalent to:
19 solar years,
20 eclipse years (cycles of eclipse positions),
235 synodic months (cycles of lunar phases),
254 sidereal months (lunar orbits),
and 255 draconic months (lunar conjunctions with its north node - eclipse-related).
Our stone circle is as circular as possible (some stone circles are flattened and egg shaped as this creates a certain energy), like Merry Maidens, and now contains 19 stones to celebrate the meteoric cycle. It feels right. I cleansed it, called in the guardians and felt held by the ancestors. It is a beautiful space.
We left a stone free for the witch yet to come…and sat around the fire together, enjoying its warmth and indeed energy. We threw rosemary onto the fire to remember our ancestors and those who were burned alive. Then we breathed and used our voice to chant, sitting silently before writing down our fears and burning these on the fire.
We came together with intent and it is intent which changes things. We worked with intent to make our own manifestation and/or healing spell, which we each took home to hide amongst draws and allow the magic to enter in, not trying to control it. We finished by holding hands around the fire, oracles cards and some treats.
I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who felt a deep connection to our ancestors and left the session with a lightness in my heart and a determination to reclaim the feminine - the true feminine, not the women’s empowerment masculine equivalent, which sees women more exhausted than ever before, trying to be all things in the name of empowerment and feminism.
Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful to all the crusaders before me who have tried to change things, but I feel it is time now to honour our divinity and our goddess nature and let go of all our crappy patriarchal, religious and political conditioning, and honour our truth and essence - be our true selves.
I will be holding more fires at some point this season so do look out. There might be some wand making at some point too.
What is the Witch Wound?
The Witch Wound is an inherited, collective trauma that is rooted in the dark history of the witch trials and manifests as a fear of being seen, speaking up, and stepping into your full magic and power.
This was all thanks to a famous book called Malleus Maleficarum, The Hammer of Witches written in 1468 by Heinrich Kramer, an Inquisitor of the Catholic Church and was first published in Germany in 1487 where it circulated Europe before making its way to Britain. Its purpose was to find and essentially flush out women and men who were believed to practice witchcraft and therefore ‘dance with the devil’.
It fuelled a frenzy of fear and suspicion that overwhelmed society for three centuries. Many innocent people were accused of witchcraft, tortured and executed. Those who knew them were forced to testify against them including children, family members and friends - or be tortured themselves.
During this time, tens of thousands of innocent women and men across Europe were imprisoned, tortured, and executed in the most inhuman and brutal of ways: burning, beheading, drowning, hanging.
Some of these victims were healers, midwives, wise women and men, and diviners who served their communities. Others were just people who were too outspoken, too old, too rich, too poor, too beautiful, or too ugly, or in some way a threat to the establishment.
It is fair to say that of them were victims of patriarchy, capitalism and religious tyranny.
Our ancestors who survived these dark times carried the memory of these events not just in their minds, but also in their bodies. Their fear, their grief, their shame, their survival instincts have been passed down through the ages, and now live on in our blood and bones.
This is the legacy of the Witch Wound, which exists on a soul and cellular level. Of course it also exists on a societal and cultural level too. Even today, the toxicity of patriarchy, capitalism and religious tyranny lives on, restricting our self-expression – those of us Reiki attuned are not allowed to practice in St Martin’s Community Centre, for example, as the land is owned by St Martin’s Church.
Here on Guernsey, anyone convicted of being a witch was burnt alive at the bottom of Tower Hill in St Peter Port. In an 80 year period from 1560 to 1640, 44 people were burnt at the stake and 35 were banished from the island for life. It is said these methods drove many of the witches even further underground and meant the island's sorciers stopped writing down their art.
Is it any wonder that those who were witches in previous lives might stay small and quiet to stay safe? That they might have a fear of speaking their truth and denying the innate healing qualities that they possess?
The trauma lies deep in our DNA, passed down through our ancestors. Even now our children are taught to fear the ‘wicked’ witch, that witches are evil.
But witches are not evil. Witches are those who claim their Earth-blessed birthrights of spirituality and magic, who connect with the cycles of nature, worship the planet, who use herbal remedies for healing and believe in the power of positive energy and intent to create positive change. They are generally intuitive, creative and work with the forces of good, the elements, the moon and the stars to help others and the planet.
Witches are not the ones we should fear. Instead, it might well be the men wielding the torches.
Love Emma x