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"I had, and have, no tolerance for those individuals-- especially psychiatrists and psychologists-- who oppose using medications for psychiatric illnesses; those clinicians who somehow draw a distinction between the suffering and treatability of "medical illnesses" such as Hodgkins disease or breast cancer, and psychiatric illnesses such as depression, manic-depression, or schizophrenia. I believe, without a doubt, that manic-depressive illness is a medical illness; I also believe that, with rare exception, it is malpractice to treat it without medication." --Kay Redfield Jamison, from "An Unquiet Mind"


"In Eastern philosophy black is understood to represent the formless state of matter, as pure energy, which is called emptiness. Devotions to the Black Mother in Eastern traditions involve meditations that cut away the delusion of dualism, which is the root cause of all suffering-- the mistaken belief that sees an independently arising self as separate from others. Wisdom lies in the realization that all that exists is unified as part of the same primal matter, and there is no difference between self and others. Life is in a constant state of flux, arising out of itself as infinite numbers of forms and falling back into itself as emptiness, the formless energy. The black, empty void is the primordial foundation of all manifested forms, the ground of potentiality for everything that exists... The wisdom of Black Mother Night, spanning Greek, Eastern, and Egyptian traditions, is that the preexisting nature of all life is a universally connected matrix of living energy whose first expression is as love. When we are ignorant of her truth, we experience a fear of the void and become involved in outer activity to escape the emptiness that terrifies us. We see this fear in those who cannot bear to have empty space or time in their lives or who have a fear of being alone.

"And so, first of all, we call forth Nyx [The Goddess of the Night] to reclaim our awareness that our original essential nature arises out of formless potentiality embodied by the night."

--Demetra George, from Mysteries of the Dark Moon: The Healing Power of the Dark Goddess.

I'm wearing my Kali pendant today!

The Return of the Goddess (To Me)

This video is called "Clementine Cannibal Talks About Being a Witch." A link to another one of her videos which is about the return of the Goddess is below.

The beginning of the following text is an email I wrote to Clementine about identifying as a witch. I know this post is a lot of Clementine Cannibal, but I'm still working to find my own voice as a witch, to figure out if I even am a witch by the perimeters I outline below, so I'll be using other people's words a lot until I'm better able to articulate this on my own.

I was raised, and to some extent still identify as, Catholic. But I have dabbled in Wicca [a form of witchcraft]. But it’s interesting, because the Catholic Mother Mary, to me, is a big manifestation of the Goddess. It’s no secret that the early Catholic church "recruited" the visage of Mother Mary to get pagan converts. But in my spiritual journey, Goddesses from other belief systems, like the Greek Hekate, the Hindu Kali, and the Buddhist Quan Yin have come to me. While I admit it’s a form of cultural appropriation, these faces of the Goddess have taught me things.

Also:
I believe that the Goddess has returned, because I've been waking up. I quit smoking cigarettes over 3 months ago, I made a firm decision to stop ruminating over the past, and I've stopped shaving my armpits without worrying that it's a contradiction that I still shave my legs and pluck my eyebrows. (My husband loves the pit hair!) For more about the return of the Goddess, please see Clementine's video The Return of the Goddess or Demetra George's book Mysteries of the Dark Moon: The Healing Power of the Dark Goddess.

I think the main reason I haven't been identifying as a witch is that I'm not into ritual magic. The best rituals I've ever done were more like exercises in art therapy, wherein the artistic process transforms psychologically and spiritually, than they were casting spells. Sometimes I think taking a walk on a balmy summer night is magical enough! (Note: partially since I am now identifying as a witch and not Wiccan, I don't think I need to perform formal ritual magic to be a witch.) Some other ways I am a witch are that I really connect with the world and nature on a spiritual level through my art, I feel a really strong connection to the cycles of the moon embodying the cycle of life, death, and rebirth (as we also see in the seasons, and in contradiction to the predominant thinking of time as linear instead of cyclical) and as far as Christianity goes I feel a very strong connection to Mother Mary as a face of the Goddess.