DO YOU KNOW WHAT A WITCH IS?

Once upon a time, there were women who were wise and healing. They helped people, guided them, treated them, and brought healing into their lives. They held up the light of a power born purely from love.

They lived in deep connection with the Universe and higher realms of existence, carrying wisdom, healing, peace, and abundance to others. They understood the power and healing qualities of plants, water, the movements of the Moon, scents, colours, sound, and music.

Then, one day, a patriarchal and oppressive system emerged. In place of wisdom came a spirituality disconnected from the energies of Earth and Sky—a system built upon repetition, dogma, and beliefs that had long lost their deeper meaning.

These beliefs and structures were used to suppress and destroy the power of these women, to gain control and authority over them.

The powers of masculine domination tortured women whose wisdom made them healers. They burned them, took their lives, and threw them into dungeons.

They continued until women became afraid.

Until that fear was written into their bodies, their ancestral memories, and their deepest spiritual records.

The wise women buried their wisdom.

And the world changed.

They were no longer called wise women.

They became known as witches.

Women and men gradually became two distant beings, separated from one another—filled with resentment, yet still deeply dependent upon each other.

And sadly, an unhealthy human order was built upon this separation.

The world became something of a burning ground within a relationship between the feminine and masculine that had lost its balance.

The suppressed feminine, of course, also suppressed the anger that had been etched into its ancestral and spiritual memory.

Yet this hidden anger began to look upon every movement of men with suspicion. It also created the image of the woman as a rival.

Because woman had become angry at the parts of herself that had been suppressed—at her sexuality and even at the very fact of being female.

And this anger is passed on to children.

Girls grow up carrying anger and guilt.

Boys grow up bound to their mothers, sometimes under the disguise of admiration and love.

Men who fear women—who fear the womb—are created.

Girls grow into women who feel dependent upon men, yet do not truly love them.

Because a woman who longs to be loved by a man, yet carries deep anger and dependency, may begin searching for a distorted form of love through her children. Believing she can imprison love, she unknowingly makes her children responsible for fulfilling what is missing within herself.

Suppressed femininity and masculinity continue struggling within this vortex.

But here is the truth:

We cannot truly be loved if we do not know how to love. And we cannot truly love another until we have learned to truly love ourselves.

Within each of us live both a woman and a man.

Whatever aspect of ourselves we choose to express, we do not need to fear the other side. We need to make peace with it and embrace our other half with love and compassion.

If you are a man, you need to love your feminine side.

If you are a woman, you need to love your masculine side.

Otherwise, these feminine and masculine polarities will continue to create a short circuit within us.

The answer is to first accept who we are and then make peace with our other half.

To love it.

To love it deeply.

To become able to love ourselves as whole and complete beings.

A BEAUTIFUL EXERCISE

Find a quiet place and sit alone.

Close your eyes as if you were about to meditate.

If you are a man, imagine yourself as a woman.

What do you feel?

If this feels frightening or uncomfortable, imagine your mother, or a woman who raised and cared for you. Imagine your sister, your closest female friend, or a woman you deeply love.

Does the feminine still feel frightening?

Probably not.

Those women you love—or perhaps even those you struggle to love—are reflections of the woman who lives within you.

Hold them close to your heart.

Hold your own feminine side close to your heart.

Embrace her with compassion.

So that you may love and be loved.

If you are a woman, imagine yourself as a man.

Does that feel frightening?

Or does it make you sad, because you think life might have been easier if you had been born male?

Bring into your imagination a man who raised or cared for you. Your brother, your father, or a male friend you love.

Forgive them.

Forgive yourself, too.

Embrace them.

Imagine holding hands and playing together joyfully, like children.

Embrace your masculine side with compassion.

Love—and allow yourself to be loved.

SomNur van der Kraan