Be Witched

Halloween has nothing in particular to do with being a mystic, psychic, medium, channeler, druid, witch or grocery store clerk. I throw in the final example as someone whose services we all use. The others are used as well. People typically have no idea that one of us is working with or for them simply because most of us don’t advertise.

The majority of the Western world is nervous about us. More than that, people are fearful about the things they think we do when, in fact, we don’t. It’s nice when a famous psychic, medium or other gets written up in a newspaper or online. Or when they’re on the radio or television.

In return for your fear and nervousness about us, we’re uncomfortable with the outside world intruding on our lives.

Whatever we are, whatever anyone wishes to label us, some things never cease to strike me as off putting. Regardless of the fact that I don’t like it, I long ago adjusted myself to being called a psychic rather than a mystic.

Hearing another person’s tone of voice when they call me a witch can really grate on my nerves. This isn’t the Middle Ages. Nor are we living a production of Macbeth.

I have been to Salem, Massachusetts, many times. Primarily because it’s where the Peabody Essex Museum, with one of the country’s finest permanent Chinese exhibits, is located. I am a great lover of Chinese history and arts.

I have done spiritual work in Salem. I’ve worked in a lot of other places, too.

Sometimes I’m physically where I work. Sometimes I am hundreds or even thousands of miles from the location.

I am not a witch of the Salem variety. Nor am I like the many people in the Salem area since the original witches were tried and hung in the seventeenth century. I am not one of those who join groups more interested in the dark arts than in doing good.

How foolish.

We’re here. Those whom you may call witches. We’re not Macbeth’s hags nor are we the Sanderson sisters.

Long before I had a language for it, I realized that my ancestors had brought this spirituality with them when they had moved out of northern India and Mesopotamia. Through centuries good and bad, across friendly and murderous terrains, they brought their spirituality with them as they settled across the Middle East and Europe.

My particular ancestors, unlike others’, pushed on past the Bosporus Strait. Some settled in Eastern and Central Europe. Some in Southern Europe and North Africa. My ancestors went to the barren lands of Northwestern Europe.

It’s a mistake to think that Christianity killed off the druids. Long before the first Greek and Roman Christians pushed into the Celtic countries, there were the Norse, Saxons and goodness knows who else. Druids were feared for the same reason anyone who has knowledge that cannot be controlled is feared.

Druids were the spiritual and temporal leaders of their people. They led the warriors. They remembered the ancient medicines. They taught the young.

My ancient ancestors were, in many ways, like those who led Christian Europe up until the last few hundred years.

Whether druid or Christian, what was passed down from ancient times remains. Not because of a religion, but because of the underlying spirituality.

Robes do not make a person. But their heart? Their deeds? Whether they aim to do good and avoid evil — that makes a person.

At this time of year I am reminded of two things I gained from the Spanish in New Mexico. One was the foolish fear of me so many developed when they learned that I am a bruja. A witch.

The other was their enduring veneration for the Día de los Muertos. That, after all, is why any sort of Halloween exists. We’re here to pay our respects to our ancestors. To those who came before us.

In a world of ought’s — where we’ve learned what we ought to do — this is something we get to do. This is a gift. Our ancestors gave us so many good gifts. It never ceases to amaze me when I think of the mere fraction of hardships I know my ancestors endured so that I might be living in this brave new country.

I, for one, retain an enduring sense of awe and wonder that so many people undertook such horrible hardships so that we are here.

What a lucky little witch I am!