Witch on a homeward journey. Learning Surrender.
My Journey
For too long, magic and witchcrafts have been derided and attacked as unreal dubious superstition or commodified for entertainment. Simultaneously, we are encouraged to objectify the land and its inhuman spirits to enable colonialism, racialisation, labour extraction and the plunder of nature. Magical and witchy practices which maintained our connection and respectful relations with the inhuman land spirits have been severed in the name of ‘progress,’ ‘science’ and ‘civilisation.’ In the process, mental and physical health problems are talked of and treated as individual pathologies that are divorced from social oppression and the exploitation of inhuman land. Unsurprisingly, this does not work in any sustainable way; some symptoms are treated, but the root cause remains unaddressed. While we often feel pressured to maintain a façade of success, achievement and happiness, in reality many of us get sicker and struggle with our health and wellbeing. We feel empty, meaningless, and more isolated and disconnected than ever.
My healing journey begins in 2015, in exactly such a society of violent disconnect where I had no faith in magic or the existence of inhuman beings and our need of respectful connection with them. Outwardly, I achieved many markers of success and respectability following diverse career paths as a lawyer, academic, tech researcher, public policy advocate, nonprofit worker and organiser, and fashion writer. But I was plagued by autoimmune diseases and battled with depression, mania, sexual and childhood trauma, codependency, suicidal ideation and attempts and lots and lots of guilt, grief, and shame. Established therapeutic practices for physical and mental health were helpful to an extent, but still felt incomplete. Ultimately, it was my initiation on the healing path of unsettling witchcrafts that really helped me and has ever since. So, I am passionate about bringing this practice/knowledge to others who may find themselves in relatable situations, and supporting their healing.
Modern settler societies like ours work in terrible ways to divorce the body from spirit, the mental and psychological from the physical. As a result, we often see a separation of physical, mental, and spiritual health problems. Healing or unsettling means to challenge this separation and re-establish connection. Healing is not a destination or solution, but a pathway we commit to reimagine the possibilities of life and death and to remake ourselves. Unsettling witchcrafts is my bespoke holistic approach to offer support for these physical-mental-spiritual healing journeys.
Join me as we dream, explore and create radically response-able and wondrous ways of living and dying. Let us unsettle ourselves to become accountable ancestors. Plant some seeds for those who come after us. Another world is possible.