It’s the October full moon and what a beautiful one it has been! I saw her yesterday morning on my drive in to work. Big Yellow and sitting on the horizon.
Fall has wrapped around us like a warm sweater.
It is the Season of the Witch !
So lets dive into the powerful and often misunderstood archetype of the witch.
In this episode, we’re exploring the fear and misconceptions surrounding witchcraft and feminine power.
We’ll discuss the historical and cultural context of the witch, the reclamation of the term in modern feminist movements, and how the fear of feminine power has shaped these narratives.
Through this discussion, we’ll also unpack the concept of the feminine shadow, the societal fears around female agency and sexuality, and offer a transformative ritual to help you embrace your power.
Let’s turn those negative connotations on their head and step into our light.
Happy Halloween season, my coven!
- 00:00 Introduction and Halloween Excitement
- 00:45 Housekeeping and Episode Topic
- 00:49 Understanding Witchcraft and Feminine Shadow
- 04:27 Cultural Perceptions of Witches
- 06:52 Patriarchal Control and Feminine Power
- 17:01 Ritual for Embracing Feminine Power
- 22:04 Conclusion and Community Engagement
transcript
Hello, my coven, and happy October. I'm just gonna tell you, I finally, I'm in a place where I'm going to have trick or treaters, so I've been decorating. I'm super excited. You will find that the Instagram feed is gonna be. Filling up with posts about our little haunted house. I do love Halloween. I know that's so like stereotypical as someone who practices witchcraft, but I do love it and I'm so excited for it.
I just had to tell you my loves. Okay. Do I have housekeeping for this episode? I don't have housekeeping. This episode, our topic today is witchcraft and the fear around it. And the feminine shadow. I wanted to take this on because we are in that time of year where everyone is talking about witchcraft and talking about spooky and talking about Woo, and I love it.
I wanted to give you a topic though that's grounded and delicious and gives you more than a Google search. Let's talk about. The feminine shadow. 'cause that's what witches really embody, right? When we talk about witchcraft, and it is something that women are reclaiming, it's a title we're reclaiming. I reclaim it.
I know that you and my cove know this, but I really feel like calling myself a witch is a feminist, rebellious statement. I wanna take that word that has all those negative connotations, and I wanna flip it. I want to put it right in people's face and say, why do you have a reaction to that word? I feel the reaction people have to, the idea of witchcraft is a unconscious culturalization.
That's not the way you say that. Let me.
I feel like that reaction people have when I say yes, I am a witch, and they kind of blink and are startled that I would choose that label is because we have been fed the idea that witches are evil. Since we were little kids, we have been told that feminine power, that agency of women is something to be feared.
The beginning of modern neo paganism included very feminist ideas about power and agency. We see it in the dynamic movement. It's more subtle there. In the original dynamic movement, we also see it in the reclaiming movement, which was born out of that first wave of feminism and that first wave of neo paganism.
Without those movements, we wouldn't be where we are today, right? In this fourth wave feminist movement where you can buy crystals and tarot cards. And women are really looking at their power and their agency and reclaiming power, and that's that feminist shadow, right? I see it when I'm teaching the hesitation in my students, particularly my female students, who.
Are hesitant to use their psychic ability or their manifestation ability, or their actual spell work is what I label it when we're using our intention and some crystals and some vision boards. I label that spell work, that manifestation work. I put the label of spell work on it, but they're hesitant to do that for their own good.
In this podcast episode, I wanna unpack some of that and talk with you guys about that. Okay. The feminine shadow and power. So let's unpack the imagery of the witch. Okay, so we have your cartoon witch. She's green. She has that wild hat. That actually reminds me a lot of the pilgrims. Right. Sometimes she's gnarled and and arthritic and she has a stick and she's got like this long, crazy hair, right?
So this kind of hag imagery, and I think it's really fun to unpack the idea that a gnarled arthritic cane walking with a limp woman. Needs to be slain by our bravest night in most fairytales. If we take the story down to its bare bones, what is so scary about a grandma with arthritis? Why is she so deeply feared that we must send.
A white horse and a knight in Full Armor, who's been training his whole life to run her down and murder her. It's so crazy. This deep fear of feminine power and really that hag in the woods. What is she doing that's so wrong? She's rejecting society and male power is what she's doing. Let's look at the stories in the stories she's feared because she's making potions, she's casting spells.
In reality, though, we have a grandma with herbal knowledge living at the edge of the woods. Some of these women were midwives. That's what you'll find in Google, right? That some of these women were midwives, and so we could see why the patriarchy would not like that, because they would have had the type of herbs that could stop a pregnancy.
They would also have the kinds of poisons that you could use to potentially harm a man. 'cause we're talking about a time when women didn't have agency over their lives. So it would be very, very, very fearful for there to be a woman in the woods that could help your wife leave you or that could help your wife.
Still the child in her belly. It's terrifying. But it does come back to patriarchal control of women, and we're seeing that now in today's society too. This patriarchal control of women is coming back and it's really terrifying and I find it really interesting that at the same time that. The patriarchy is clawing back women, women's rights.
We have this fourth wave feminism embracing older ways and embracing rhythmic living. We have all kinds of information coming out about being in tune with your cycles, being in tune with the moon, being in tune with the rhythm of life that women need downtime. We're letting go of this shame around our monthly cycles, and we're talking about what it's like to live with things like endometriosis and having a nine to five job and going to work on days when you are in so much pain that you can barely think.
We're talking about the brain fog that happens when our hormones shift and we go into menopause and into our Crohn phase of life. These are topics that some women in my mother's generation couldn't talk about with their own husbands. The men they shared their house and their life and their bed with.
It's easy to understand with all this shame around natural processes, our bodies go through that we would feel even more shame around other shadow aspects of femininity, like our desire and our sexuality. That's a piece of this witchcraft archetype as well. There's this other. Cultural vision of the witch as a temptress and a sorceress as an evil woman, luring men and then eating their souls, right?
It's that whole succubus idea of a sex demon witch, or the idea that witches are women who. Having intercourse with demons, right? The sexuality of women is all wrapped up in this idea of witchcraft, and there's so much to unpack in that it goes way beyond the scope of this little episode, but I wanted to talk about it a little because that shame and fear.
Around female sexuality isn't really connected to femininity. It's a projection of male fear. It's the projection onto this archetype of the witch, right? Like that shame doesn't even belong to us as women, but we have picked it up and carried it. And I wanna give you guys an example of this, how the.
Narrative written from that masculine patriarchal point of view has twisted the image of characters and feminine power. And I'm going to use the example from our theory and legend. I'm going to use Morgan Lafe, our theory and legend. We have King Arthur, we have the sword and the stone. We have Merlin, we have magic, we have sorceress, we have all these things, right?
Very popular legends. Let's remember. In this legend, throughout all the stories we have, Merlin Magician teaches Arthur, right? He's a wise counsel. He's this dude that everyone kind of likes and, and yeah, Merlin, very chill guy. There is a counterpart to and in the traditional art theory and legends from the Celtic side of things.
It's Morgan Lefay. Morgan Lefay is the half-sister of Arthur. She's a very powerful healer. She's in tune with magic. She has the second sight. She's very psychic in some of the legends. She's trained by the lady of the Lake herself. There's a lot of stuff. Some people will say that Morgan Lefay, that powerful feminine archetype comes a lot from the goddess worship in old Celtic religions, right?
We've got the Triple Goddess, we've got bridged, we've got all of that in the Celtic Isles, and we have the Arthurian legends coming out of there. And she could have even been like an idea of the Morgan herself, right? As they do share a name. Now, fast forward into like the medieval renaissance when we have Christian influence and monks and only very learned people are writing and they're putting down legends.
This vision of Morgan Lafa changes. They stop writing her. As a wise woman, they stop writing her as a healer. They, they stop writing her as one of the people who helps Camelot, and they start writing her as an untrustworthy woman that she is trying to bring down Arthur, that she's trying to manipulate Arthur.
She becomes a negative person or a gray area that she can't be trusted. And so it's so interesting because it depends on the point of view. So when they were writing her originally, she was a positive force. Then she became negative, suspicious, all these negative connotations that go with women who are powerful.
Now in, in this day and age, we have her coming back and being seen as she was originally written. And what's interesting, and I think highlights this idea of fear of feminine power that we're talking about today is through all of those renditions. Merlin is not written as untrustworthy. Merlin keeps his white cloak on.
He's always a good magician. He's never an evil magician who would lie to Arthur. He's always wise and kind, sometimes a little aloof and mysterious, but he's never portrayed as evil. So I think that is why we can say that magic isn't the problem. If it was the Christian viewpoint that magic and all magic is evil, then Merlin would also get the negative connotations that Morgan Lafe did because he stays as wise counsel.
We know that this is a projection of fear of powerful women. So how do we. Move from this place of shame into this place of embodying our feminine power and living a life that serves us and using our beautiful connection with nature and being in flow to serve our life. How do we heal the shame? How do we step into the power?
Well, my coven, I have little tips and little tricks for you as I always do, because I want you to heal. I want you to grow. I want you to step into that power. I love the imagery of the witch as a fearless person. Who goes into the darkness, right? There's a lot of imagery around witches in the dark forest and witches in the night, and I feel like there is OC cult wisdom, hidden wisdom in this imagery.
The witch is not afraid of the dark places. And we know that shadow work, healing shame is all about going to those hurt places, those uncomfortable places with deep, deep compassion, deep self-compassion. That's the key, right? We look at why are we afraid of our power? What have we been told? Our shadow aspects, those pieces of shame we carry.
I was taught by my shamanic teachers that we, we push away those pieces of ourselves that we feel shame about, that we were told are bad and they sit in the shadow. And we're afraid to claim them because we don't want to be rejected. We reject the peace of ourselves for fear of ying unlovable because it exists.
Deep stuff. My love, the power of the witch archetype is that she brings light. To the darkness. She carries the spark with her and she is full of compassion. Let's look at some of the symbology around the cauldron. I wanna just flip all of the imagery on its head and get you to think about the cauldron of the witch, that bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.
What we can brew in that cauldron. It's all about transformation, right? That's one of the powers of the witch archetype. It's transformation. We're taking raw ingredients. We're stirring them together, we're mixing them up. We're transforming. There's so many neat little stories around the transformation of the witch, how she has the power to move from one shape to another, and if we really wanna think about that.
That means that this archetype has the power to rebirth itself, to transform, to shed old habits and old skins and be renewed. So with those two ideas in mind, I wanna offer you a little ritual. You can do this moon or this month. Or actually any time you find this podcast, because maybe this is a moment where you can take this tiny ritual and you can use it on your own healing path, doing your own shadow work.
And this is just a small ritual. It's a powerful ritual, but it's just a small piece of the kind of healing and work that happens when we. Really get into working with our shadow and really claiming our wholeness. It's a starting point, a stepping stone, something you can build up and add into the rest of the work you're doing.
All you really need is a pen and a piece of paper. I do recommend that if you are into ritual, that you set up a ritual space, you call in a circle. You get a beautiful offering. You acknowledge your goddesses and if you're new to the earbud coven, I have all kinds of episodes On this tab, I have episodes on calling in a Circle episodes, introducing you to Elemental Magic, search the archive.
But otherwise my loves. Set your ritual space up, get a pen and a paper, and I'd like you to think about feminine power. Like really, what does feminine power look like to you? What does it look like for you to feel powerful? And I want you to do some breath work. Just breathing in the idea of power, nice and easy and slow, and breathe it into your belly.
Listen to what color it is, feel how it feels in your body. Just be in a place of feeling power. Be mindful of anything that comes up for you. Just spend a little bit of time quieting your mind, thinking about feminine power, thinking about being empowered. Think about embodying power agency sovereignty, a clear voice.
Being listened to. What do all those things feel like when you breathe them into your body? Then I want you to shift and think about anything that is standing in your way from feeling that feeling of power, and I'd like you to write down or draw or make a symbol that represents what you think is standing in your way.
What is it? Shame What? What is the shame? Like is it a belief system? What does it look like? Is it a fear of being too much or too loud or too bossy? Think about those things. Write them down. And now I want you to remember that the witch, this is her time. This is October. We're in spooky season, baby. This is her time.
And I want you to take whatever is standing in the way of you feeling empowered in your life. And I want you to imagine you're putting all of that into a big, vast, bubbly, witchy cauldron. And then do something to solidify that. Maybe you're gonna take your paper and crumple it. Maybe you're gonna rip the paper up.
Maybe you're gonna burn the paper, whatever. It's your spell baby. But put it in that cauldron in your mind. Imagine that feeling of not being allowed to have your power. Whatever belief is keeping you from claiming it, put it in the cauldron and trust that it'll be transformed this Halloween season.
Through the power of the witch archetype because she is very powerful. That's why she's feared. You don't need to fear her. She's your ally, my love, and you can transform anything you want to. So there's a little spell you can do. You can ju it any way you want. Make it your own. It's just a little framework, but I feel like it's a fun one for this time of year because it's got that idea of the witch and she's everywhere.
So like I always tell you, tap in to the rhythm and the flow that's around you. You can. You can swim upstream and do hard magic, or you can go with the flow with the energies of the season and work the wheel of the year to your advantage. I want you to create the most beautiful life for yourself. I want you to feel empowered.
My coven. And yeah, my cups of coffee are done. I think I'm done recording for today. I've been great hanging out in your earbuds. The conversation doesn't need to end. I would love to hear how this spell worked for you. I would love to hear your ideas around feminine power. I'd love to hear your ideas around shadow work.
You can find the witching half hour or so Facebook. We have an earbud coven there. We also have Instagram witching half hour or so. If you're listening on YouTube, you can comment on the YouTube feed, you can comment on your Spotify feed. I get those as well. So great hanging out with you. Please continue to share the podcast.
It's a totally independent podcast. So. I rely on you, my beautiful coven to help spread and grow our coven. Thank you so much for all of the listens and the blessed day.
Jodi Anne 
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