Witch: Unleashed. Untamed. Unapologetic.

by Lisa Lister

The challenge – specifically for women, whose story has been censored, silenced, repressed and burned over the last 3,000 years – is to question EVERYTHING.

It started in 1484 with Pope Innocent VIII. Based on the Bible statement ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ (Exodus 22:18), which outlines and describes the ‘supposed’ activities of witches, he gave the Church authority to find witches and kill them, denying them all rights to a fair trial.

‘The most sadistic tortures ever invented were inflicted on the bodies of accused women, which provided an ideal laboratory for the development of pain and torture.’

We put ourselves on trial every time we look in the mirror – and before the trial begins, we already know that we’re guilty.

The charge of the witch is to save ourselves.

Know your roots: know where you came from – your familial and ancestral roots, and how they’ve shaped you, your beliefs and how you show up in the world.

‘White people can’t heal until they come to terms with the witch persecutions. The brutal murder of women in European history has separated those of us with that heritage from our indigenous roots.’

Dive into the stories of women who inspire you and captivate you – real and fictional, historical and present-day – and get geeky about them. Go read about them, watch movies about them and read their works. Explore the mysteries of who they are, who you are, who we are and what we’re made of.

My personal coven is ever changing but right now includes Anaïs Nin, Florence Welch, Mary Magdalene, Joan Jett, Meggan Watterson, Sybil Leek, Audrey Hepburn, Lady Gaga, Sarah Durham Wilson, Kali Ma, Frida Kahlo, Rizzo from the movie Grease and Dr Christiane Northrup.

The witch is she who looks inward for knowledge, not out. It’s she who trusts and respects herself, and she who is whole. (Remembering that whole doesn’t mean having it all figured out, far from it).

Serpent: In Celtic mythology, Brigid was associated with a hibernating serpent that emerged from its lair at Imbolc. Traditionally, serpents were associated with creativity and inspiration – as well as the powerful Kundalini energy of the Eastern Mysteries.

You may find, like I did writing this book, that when you try to share your knowledge, you have trouble putting it into words. It’s not because you can’t write or speak, but because the realizations you experience when you try to share are so profound that they sound too simple and unimpressive when you try to express them.

This is about building a relationship of total love, appreciation and trust with yourself, your body and your psyche.

This reconnection with the Self and remembrance of your magic takes time, dedication, and lifelong commitment to the incredible, awesome, complicated and delicious messiness that is you.

I remembered that the onset of Patriarchy didn’t kill the Goddess. She simply lay dormant underground in the darkness, growing roots. Really strong bloody roots, because she’s cyclic; and she knew that with every Great Forgetting, where women and their power are put in the dark, there had to come a Great Remembering.

She tells stories and creates art. She collects poems and songs. She remembers stories that have been forgotten.

We feel guilty for not keeping up with men, so we keep working and never resting.

Garnet is also a good stone to help with depression, as it brings joy and hope, and helps to lessen any anger you direct at yourself. It also cleanses the chakras of negative energy, re-energizing them in the process.

Wearing hematite helps you to feel balanced, calm and centred. This stone also helps you to find your own unique talents and release self-imposed limitations.

lapis lazuli is a gemstone of total awareness that connects you to a higher truth. It helps to foster verbal expression, opening and balancing your throat chakra.

Malachite also helps you to release negative experiences so you can heal and refuel on hope. It’s inspiring, purifying and compassionate, and attracts love by opening your heart.

tiger’s eye encourages optimism and trust in the future. It brings brightness and light into all situations and shines insight onto all problems.

(And by ‘slut’? I mean, any woman who enjoys sex more than the man calling her it does.)

We don’t want to be so confident that we come off as arrogant or a diva. We don’t want to be so powerful that we offend someone, or – and this is the trickiest of them all – end up with more power than we can handle.

Instead, it will probably feel a lot like (and this is most definitely my personal experience) you’re a massive fuck-up. It will feel like failure. It will feel really bloody messy.

for women who have been tamed, censored and told as young girls to ‘keep quiet, don’t be seen and definitely don’t cry’, the unravelling, the spilling over and the being ‘seen’ as emotional and messy is a REALLY big ask.

We worry that we’re being seen as ‘too much’, while at the same time struggling with feeling like we’re ‘not enough’. We’re scared to come undone, because how will we ever put it all back together again?

But to love yourself fiercely – to self-source in a world where women are taught that they don’t matter enough to be top of their own list of priorities – is actually really bloody radical.

Let’s silence the voices that say we’re drawing far too much attention to ourselves, that we’re taking up too much space, or that we’ll be abandoned because we shine too fucking bright. Let’s live a life undone.

To be awake to what’s REALLY going on here – a world in crisis, a world that’s being destroyed by an unhealthy, masculine ego, a world where women have been stripped of their power, their rights and their agency – is to be a witch, burning.