Halloween Witch
angel copyright 6-26-99
Petals and Thorns
Each year they parade her about,
the traditional Halloween Witch.
Misshapen green face, stringy scraps of hair,
a toothless mouth beneath her deformed nose.
Gnarled knobby fingers twisted into a claw
protracting from a bent and twisted torso
that lurches about on wobbly legs.
Most think this abject image to be the creation
of a prejudiced mind or merely a Halloween caraicature.
I disagree.
I believe this to be how Witches were really seen.
Consider that most Witches:
were women, were abducted in the night,
and smuggled into dungeons or prisons under the
secrecy of darkness to be presented by light of day
as a confessed Witch.
Few if any saw a frightened normal looking woman
being dragged into a secret room filled with
instruments of torture, to be questioned until she
confessed to anything suggested to her and to give names or whatever would stop the questions.
Crowds saw the aberration denounced to the world
as a self-proclaimed Witch.
As the Witch was paraded through town
en route to be burned, hanged, drowned, stoned
or disposed of in various other forms of Christian Love,
all created to free and save her soul from her depraved body,
the jeering crowds viewed the results of hours of torture:
The face bruised and broken by countless blows
bore a hue of sickly green.
The once warm and loving smile gone–replaced
by a grimace of broken teeth and torn gums that
leers beneath a battered disfigured nose.
The disheveled hair conceals bleedy gaps of torn scapl
from whence cruel hands had torn away the lovely tresses.
Broken twisted hands clutched the wagon for support,
fractured fingers with nails torn away locked like groping claws
to steady her broken body.
All semblance of humanity gone.
This was truly a demon–a Bride of Satan…a Witch.
I revere this Halloween Crone and hold her sacred above all.
I honor her courage and listen to her warnings of the dark side of man.
Each year, I shed tears of respect when the mundane
exhibit their symbol of “Christian” Love.
– – – – – – –
Did she look like this before being tortured?
Torture, whether of witches or of “enemy combatants”, is evil.
As we go about this weekend some of us will consider this a sacred time. October 31, Halloween to some and Samhain to others, is the New Year for a lot of Pagans. Each day I will try to post a different perspective….
Never again the Burning Times
Blessed Be
Thanks, SallyCat. Lovely. Did you write the poem?
And a word for black cats too, who suffer — and who, sadly, are discriminated against at shelters and languish without a home.
They post this annually…I thought it would be great to share it here.
Black cats…and cats in general…another diary entirely on the elimination of ‘witches’ cats, increase in rats, increase in plague….vicious cycle.
I love Carnacki’s site…and his book…and diaries. Some of my favorite books involve witches, vampires, and werewolves…among other characters.
Sometimes it’s nice to put a different perspective out at the same time as the usual ghost and witch stories of Halloween.
Tips?
Comments?
Another “war on terror”……do they just keep playing this theme over and over and over again and keep inventing phoney “villains” so they can kill and torture and mutilate innocent people? Same shit different century.
out there and only “you” can save them from them and suddenly you own the masses. Kill a few to own a lot!
a witch hunt is a witch hunt is a witch hunt.
Salem kinda sorta started out due to .. politics. Men wanted more land. You were a woman had some land… oh like Rebecca Nurse and voila – You were a witch.
Salem
Joe MacCarthy
Patriot Acts
it’s all the same shit isn’t it?
364 days of the year, we are Goddesses… beautiful women… Halloween comes along and Danni and I always turn to the “dark side” 🙂
A perfectly said summary….
I am a witch and my daughter is a witch. Tomorrow night we will hold our Samhain ritual to honor my father and my friends will honor their brother, both of whom passed away this year. We will have a silent feast, so that we speak the language of our past ones.
Being a witch has some drawbacks. I have learned to choose employers who are liberal and open minded. My daughter had a difficult experience with her school this year, but I think I resolved it. I live in Oakland, CA, so being pagan or a practicing witch is not too over the top, but is still considered really weird. I have been surprised by how many people here, in the land of the liberals, are ignorant of or hostile to Pagans.
I don’t like to point to the witch burnings and say how persecuted we are. I think that time is over and we need to put it behind us. Yet, every now and then, I see some idiot blaming Pagans for the evil in the world and I wonder…
Evangelicals love to claim that they are persecuted, but it is such a crock. They have no idea. They equate religious representation, or more precisely, the lack thereof, as persecution. That is silly. They can believe whatever they want, they just cannot legislate it, or make others follow their path. On the other hand, to say that not allowing religion is somehow favoring the atheists is also ludicrous. They are succeeding in painting atheism as a religion, which is, of course, ironic.
I am a witch who does not believe in deities, but I do believe in science. Some of my rituals are based on science. For example, several years ago, scientists hypothesized dark matter. My group decided to do a ritual to manifest dark matter. A month to the day after we did the ritual to manifest dark matter, the media came out with story that scientists had found a planetary system that proved the existence of dark matter. I believe that magic works better with science. A mystic without religion… How weird is that?!?
Yet, I am far more moral minded than Bush or Cheney or Dobson could ever hope to be. I really believe that we should treat all life with respect and dignity, I do not spank or whip my child, nor do I send her off to death for a lie. I do not know a single bloodthirsty witch. I do not manipulate people out of their limited money. I do not send young people to their death for profit and prestige. I take responsibility for my mistakes at work and at home. Every witch I know is a far more moral person than Bush or Falwell or Dobson.
Happy Samhain to all our witches and mystics. May you all look through to the veil.
I agree – the Bay Area is reasonably liberal about Pagans. Being just across the bay from you in Marin, I find that it is still easier to be very discreet about my beliefs. Sunday we will have a quiet remembrance dinner and candle lighting. Monday I will be dressed in a formal black suit for work – as close as I get to being open except for my jewelry.
I don’t know that I am witch…too much of a novice… but believing firmly in the Wiccan Rede and many other practices. So to the world I simply declare that I am a Pagan.
Perhaps sometime we can meet…it’s always nice to meet others with similar beliefs.
Blessed Be Sister
It is easier to be discreet, and I am. However, since I am raising my daughter as a Pagan, it sometimes becomes necessary to get a day off for Yule or other holidays. Religion is a topic that is openly discussed in schools as well. So when the topic comes up, she has no qualms about stating that she is a Pagan.
I use the term “witch” very loosely and pretty interchangeably with Pagan and Wiccan. It is not necessary to do witchcraft to be a witch. It is more like a reclaiming of the word to help cast off its negative connotations that the Christians have given it. So, if you like the word, go ahead and use it, novice or not!
I hope we do meet sometime. It is indeed nice to meet people you can be open with.
I’m setting aside some meditation time this Samhain, looking to chart my course for the next year.
I generally think of myself as Wiccan, but because I’ve gone through instruction but not a formal initiation the Wiccans don’t like to claim me. As silly as it may seem, you can indeed find fundamentalist Pagans.
You’re exactly right that the radical evangelical Christians consider themselves to be persecuted any time they’re discouraged from shoving their religion down everyone else’s throats. Persecution to them means that they’re not free to persecute others.
I also agree that there’s plenty of magic in science. And vice versa.
There are fundamentalist Wiccans! They are really funny with their arguments amongst themselves about what a “real” witch/pagan/wiccan is. We call them the Witch Wars. :>)
Don’t worry about them. Follow your own path and call yourself whatever you like.
I agree about pagans and morality. I think morality is a difficult concept as it is largely a societal construct; I prefer to talk of personal ethics. I think that many pagans/heathens/witches have a clearer idea about what is moral or ethical because they spend more time exploring their ethical boundaries.
There is no ‘fire and brimstone’ preacher to tell us what to think or how to behave, there is no book of rules or rights and wrongs. Each of us, if we are serious about this path, has to spend time in contemplation and exploration to discover our own way to live.
Please note that I am not saying that Christians, Muslims, Hindi or anyone else doesn’t do this. I know christians and Muslims who think and discuss deeply to explore what their faith means in day to day life. However, we all know that the problems tend to come from those who don’t like to think, or to be made uncomfortable by self-examination.
A sad and beautiful poem, and a good observation, the war on terror, the red scare, the burning times…it just seems to keep replaying.
I live near Salem MA. It is the stragest phenomena where everyone celebrates all witch related stuff when really it was this hysteria where people were killed often in really brutal ways like being crushed by boulders by some accusatory young people.
Halloween?
Columbus Day.
Thanksgiving.
Christmas.
our internal propaganda here in america is truly a marvel.
Thanks for this perspective, SallyCat. I’d never thought of that, and it makes terrible sense.
I am not Wiccan, my spirituality is individual and my path that which is right for me. I loosely identify as Pagan because it functions as a sort of shorthand when I need to explain myself briefly. As an Englishwoman I identify more as Heathen – because that is closer to my northern european roots (but the term is less understood than Pagan); I don’t particularly follow a celtic path because much of my path has been about delving further into my English history, heritage, and ancestry. I also don’t particularly identify as a witch – I feel closer to the ‘Cunning women’ who were healer,herbalist, midwife and layer out of the dead in english villages – many of whom were, of course, tortured and hung as witches.
Although I dont follow a celtic calendar and path, this is still a time of reflection, of honouring those who have passed, a time of the thinning of the veil.
Hope you might enjoy one of mine for the time of year:
View From The Crossroads
When the pain and the rope didn’t matter any more, I could see
how knowledge and sight had brought me here, not dancing
naked at night, for I am too fond of comfort to chill, skyclad,
under a cold moon and nightshade oil is foul stuff that stings.
Charges were laid of curses, of curdled milk and sick
cows, of consorting with he they won’t name. I don’t see
any sense in spoiling milk I may have to buy, and I’ve never
met a man I’d lie for, so one that’s half goat won’t bend me.
Herb-lore and healing are a way to live for a plain woman,
a way to breathe and a way to hold the gates of comings
and goings. We see that the greatest begin face down
in a woman’s shit, the holy still puke and grizzle as babes.
In the end, my crime is this: that I know the long bones
of a great man are the same to wash and lay out as those
under a pauper’s flesh, and that I see the pox on the priest’s
pizzle, the stains of sin under the rich man’s cloth.
© Angela France
Thanks for sharing that wonderful piece Boudicca. I shall be saving that piece to share with others for other years.
We are all the same and that is what scares those that want to control the most.
I truly believe that the spiritual path is strongest when it comes from a quiet and serene place from within each of us. Heathen is a strong belief system. It is difficult enough to be discreet as a Pagan without trying to explain Heathen to those who choose not to see.
May you have a blessed Samhain.
I’ve always loved the term Heathen. I would use it more, but in the states, it is often misunderstood. As a white girl with long ties to the Celtic world, I do find that Celtics resound with me. I am looking forward to being a crone and the village mystic/healer. :>)
View from the Crossroads is a wonderful poem. Thank you so much for sharing.
Witches are attune to nature, they are excellent lovers. Like any group of humans, their are good and bad. Find a good witch; male or female, and enjoy the experience.
Witches do make better lovers. It is because we look into ourselves and test our boundaries. We do not view sexuality as sinful, but a gift and one that is full of joy. In that light, kinks become things to play with, but always being mindful of potential emotional responses. The sharing of pleasure is a magical experience and is treated as such by a witch.
Scorpions 🙂
I’ve really enjoyed your posts this afternoon. Thank you so much!
Scorpios are well known as sexually open. Scorpios take everything to the extreme, which is why they are known as your best friend or your worst enemy. They are willing to open up sexually and put their soul into it, but if you hurt them, they will sting you hard. Never, ever cross a Scorpio!! :>)
I was afraid I went too far today. Thank you DJ for your encouragement. It means a lot to me.
that I’ll have to sit back and re-read later on so I can absorb it all.
I’m a Scorpio as well as a radically “Unreasonable Woman”… so I sorta fall into the edgeland here as some states and groups would consider those two beautiful attributes as “burnable”. The fact I’m a Californian Liberal, to my Mom’s family, not only makes me a Bin Laden lover, but a witch as well – most likely. But they tell my daughter that I’m going to hell because, and get this, because I don’t believe in hell.
I was worried that my daughter’s Halloween photo may have seemed disrespectful here… but we all have a big space in our hearts on this subject. And for our own indy reasons. And some reasons that yet can’t be totally explained.
Politically speaking… it was just another way for the church and powerful people to once again torture, rape, and get rid of women and to profit from it.
I saw a bumpersticker that read something like: The last time religion and politics were mixed – People were burned at the stake.
A female scorpio witch…. Looks like I am one piece of work… I find scorpio women quite ammusing. I have a fondness for Aries women as well….. EtJ
Working totally with trust of ourselves and trust of our partners relationships are truly different as Pagans or Witches.
We really do practice “and it harm none, do as you will” in everything including sex. Much freedom and joy from such practice. ;^)
Hello Kamakhya,
Thanks for the response… I am quite interested in witchcraft… Any interesting websites or books that you can recommend. Enjoy your experiences, Garey
Hi EtJ – I tried to email and got a Yahoo failure notice….
Any assistance so I can send some links
Thank you for this “perspective”. This is tuly a new insight into the past for me. Something that I had never really even thought about.
Wayne is from Danvers, which is the Original Salem Village. He lived just a few steps from the Salem Meeting House. It’s a sad place.. there’s a memorial there now.
Danni – she’s always a witch or voodoo child or ghoul.
Today she won the community costume contest. 10 whole bucks!! 🙂
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y193/azulism/zombilina.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y193/azulism/halloween007.jpg
She looks great, I mean very ghoulish…
Danni really was overwhelmed when we saw the Salem meeting house, gallows, Nurses grave. (Same day we almost got arrested at Danvers Insane Asylum)… The memorial there… I wish I could find the text…
Anyways, Danni, like me, has always knowns that they witch hysteria was just another betrayal of women and a ruse for a select few to gain political leverage or power.
Give Danni and Wesley big hugs for me and Mr. Cat!
In future years if she dresses as a witch…she’ll probably understand the poem…and do us all proud.
Looking forward to seeing you all soon….
She’s pretty somber when it comes to the history of Salem Village. Her dad and her share that and foster more learning.
http://www.salemwitchmuseum.com/tour/images/site3.jpg
(I have a photo of that and of Wes and DanDan at the various memorials.) We didn’t go to the cheesy tourist stuff, Wayne took them on the “real tour”..)
The bottom of the sign the marking of where the Salem village meeting house reads… and I think it works for today as well…
“In 1992 a memorial was erected here to honor the witchcraft victims
and to remind us that we must forever confront intolerance and “witch hunts” with integrity, clear vision and courage.”
That poem woke up my feelings from this exchange on dKos, which momentarily allowed me while writing to shed tears for the first time for my father’s mother.
Words hurt.
We each try to walk and talk our spiritual beliefs as Pagans or witches. We understand the hatred and bigotry within the words. But we can not shrink from them. We try to stand proud of our beliefs, perhaps not openly displaying them in confrontational ways.
“And it harm none” applies equally to acts and words. Your grandmother hurt others with her words and hurt you. As children we do not understand the whys. As adults we try to be better.
Wiccans and other Pagans are reclaiming the word “Witch” – a healer and wise one…male or female.
Words heal.
My site attracts a few pagans and witches so I posted a link to here.
I don’t think about links to your site since it’s on my blogspot….I just click there each day to see what new mischief you’ve got!
If you make the SF trip sometime I’ll get some similar types together if you want to do the Vampire tour….with natives no less!
Some excellent SciFi / Fantasy / Mystery writers are doing exceptional work on respecting the ancient and renewed beliefs of Witches. Thanks for being one of those writers.
but I adore Vampire movies. I remember when I was five and I loved Dark Shadows, I would watch it with my mother but I began having horrible nightmares so she tried to cut me off. No way, I knew what time it came on everyday and I would throw a huge a fit until she gave in and turned it on. Everytime Underworld is on and there isn’t anything else to watch I just watch it all over again, there aren’t too many times I guess that Tracy can watch it. One of the things that I love about Halloween is having all the vampire flicks on! My mother’s favorite holiday was Holloween and of course on her last one she was a really good vampire, and she was a scorpio too hmmmm.
For pagans, witches, or anyone interested – you are welcome to visit Watersmeet Inn