Black Witch

The Establishment (AfroPunk) Version

This is my first post after the AfroPunk festival, thank you everyone who said hi to me and recognized me! That was totally awesome! I’m very glad you guys like my writing, it’s very nice to know I have support from jump street. I had a great time, it was my first Afro Punk. I missed P.O.S. and a couple other several acts on the next day because I was too broke for an overnight stay tho. I do plan on going next year and being more prepared. I really had fun nonetheless! I also had delicious okonomiyaki (they don’t have those in Baltimore) but I didn’t snap up a new cell charm – I am an avid collector of cell phone charms, especially when I’m outta town or at special events. I hope everyone had fun at AfroPunk like I did there! I took maaad pictures! It was nice meeting you all and putting faces to names. I really am happy to have gone and can’t wait for next year! Now, it took me a while to churn this piece out, it was harder than I thought. I haven’t had to tell my story in a while so please do bear with any possible weirdness.

What got me into Paganism? Music. P.O.D. (Payable On Death) was very instrumental to me going into a new religion – which is rather odd because they’re a fairly Christian group. When I started listening to P.O.D., it made me take a closer look at my own faith since that’s what they talked about most. They weren’t bopping me over the head with “Be Christian or your life is over”, but I did start looking more and more into Christianity until it just dawned on me finally that this wasn’t my bag. I didn’t think that Christianity was a stupid religion; it just wasn’t the religion for me. I felt it didn’t make any sense to stay in a religion I’m not happy in to appease a god. I’m supposed to be happy suffering? Erm, no. I think I could do a better job serving the divine if I were happier doing it. To be anything otherwise would just create a hateful complex that I don’t need.

When I was Christian, I never felt a thing besides depressed, angry, numb and really confused. Even then, the Christian faith seemed really foreign to me. I’ve read a decent amount of the Bible, been to church, been anointed, been saved about three times, chatted with others who were deep in the faith – I got nothing. It just didn’t fit for me and nothing was going to make that fact change. To be honest, I kinda was growing angry at God and Christ because it seemed like they never really cared for those who needed it most, just doing what they wanted to do at complete random. It just annoyed me more and more that everyone’s answer to my problems was putting my faith in some invisible guy that no one can call down, see, hear or talk to when they need him most. Whether their prayers would be answered and how much seemed the luck of the draw. I grew up quite poor and in one of the roughest parts of Baltimore so I saw a lot of faithful people but I also saw a lot of screwed over people all the same. These were people that were very much worthy of mercy, far more deserving than I ever could, still getting the shaft – what kind of faithfulness is that? Also, during that time, my life was taking quite the spiral downward and I felt suicidal, among other very nasty feelings. I figured that if this guy in the sky hasn’t helped me then, He’s not going to help me now.

I guess all this would make me sound like I’m on the fast track to being an atheist but I don’t think I ever could. I’ve always believed in the metaphysical; spirits, deities and weird happenings included. I do believe in a god (and a goddess!), I just didn’t like how Christianity went about theirs. I never meshed well with the Christian religion or the Christian culture, it seemed humans were just hapless beings caught between the constant tug-o-war between God and the Devil. One thing about Paganism that attracted me was the fact you have to take responsibility for yourself and your actions, no blaming a supernatural being such as a god or a devil driving you to do whatever it is you did. Paganism is fairly heavy on self-reliance and personal responsibility. It gives not so much of a lean on the divine – they’ll help but they won’t fix your problems for you – so there’s a better feeling of having a grasp on your own life rather than waiting for some invisible superman to come and save you from yourself or feeling helpless at the whims of a schizo god. I think that’s what I needed honestly, not to feel like I have to rely on someone upstairs for every little thing. That’s how I have seen it, another Pagan may disagree. Regardless of religion, using God as a crutch is pretty universal, and Paganism is pretty individualistic so some may use a deity often and some may not. I don’t.

As Paganism is a nature-based belief system (no, I don’t pray to trees), the face of divinity is actually up to the practitioner. That’s right, we can use the Christian pantheon just like we can use the Greek pantheon, the diverse African pantheons, Shinto pantheon, you name it, we can pray to it. The universe is a great force in itself, the many faces of divinity are what man created to better understand the world around him. Pagans see divinity as a great universal energy that is divided into a male/female duality and the different Gods and Goddesses are the various faces of that duality. I’m a total mythology nerd so it works in my favor. It’s considered good practice to pick a pantheon you best resonate with and to refrain from mixing Gods and Goddesses from different cultures – mainly in spellwork – because it could produce icky results since they don’t merge well. I choose the Christian pantheon because it is what I am most comfortable with (remember, I didn’t like how Christianity went about working with their deity, not I didn’t like the deity itself – much. With less severe reliance on God, I felt better about Him) but I do refer to other Gods and Goddesses if the occasion calls for it like a thunder god or a goddess of mercy. I really like using the African and Shinto pantheons when I can. Or if I don’t feel like messing about with Gods, Goddesses – which I often don’t – and their rules of contact, I use spirits. I don’t pray to trees but I do believe they have a spiritual force, as does the air, fire, etc. More often than not I see myself using lower-tiered spirits such as elementals (spirits of the elements or nature) than Gods. I mostly use Gods for bigger things such as important spells or something that’s going to need a lot more power than from a sprite and those are far and few in between.

I didn’t get into Witchcraft with 100% noble means tho. I actually wanted to jinx my bullies. Yep, you read correctly, I wanted to jinx my bullies. I got tired of being picked on. I used to hang out in my local library all the time and I would see the books of Witchcraft but steer totally clear of them just like everyone else until one day I simply got sick of being messed with. I was scared of course but I thought the same thought everyone else had of Witchcraft: that it was full of hexing and jinxes. I went to the Young Adult section and picked up Where to Park your Broomstick by Lauren Manoy.

I thought it would be a book that would teach me to get back at my bullies but was I definitely wrong. It told me that wasn’t what being a Witch was about, harming people as an act of revenge or being spiteful. There’s the main rule of “An’ it harm none, do what thou will” and the Rule of Three: whatever you do comes back to you threefold. Nixes jinxing right there. She employs the idea that being a Witch is about being in tune with yourself and nature, not being some wicked and self-centered little thing. Also in being a Witch, you learn diplomacy since you’re really stepping outside of the norms and reacting constantly with venom gets you nowhere. I learned to deal with my bullies in other ways and I finally found something I could believe in.

I learned that to be Pagan and a Witch is to be open-minded and not hateful. I’m not saying people never piss me off but I am saying that it would be against my beliefs to be some terrible person. I’m not learning from my situation and to be honest, I’m not exactly deserving of peace and quiet if I’m going to act as bad as the person is to me without any initial attempt of remedy. However, I’m no doormat. One thing I like about my religion is that it’s very self-involved so you’re constantly improving yourself instead of waiting for someone else in unusual clothes to direct you. They can help, but they’re not the ones pulling the weight.

Though music helped expedited me into Paganism, I always had a pull to witchcraft, even when I was a young child. Growing up I could see spirits, predict the future, mess with electronics and communicate with the weather, to name a few talents. At first I just assumed everyone could do this so that’s why it never was brought up. But then I was starting to get the feeling I wasn’t like other kids and maybe I should keep my mouth shut about this. I was raised in the usual Black Christian family so I was taught that unless you were a prophet, any supernatural stuff a person could do automatically meant they were in league with Satan, no questions asked.

Meep.

I never opened up to my family about my religion or what I can do. My mom thinks anyone who claims to be psychic as crazy or in league with the devil. I remember asking her about how she felt on psychics and it boiled down to this: She responded people like that could not possibly exist because they would be naturally evil basically. They would be hitting the lotto like mad with precognition, stealing luxury cars using telekinesis to get the keys, the world would simply look like the third X-Men movie.
Then she told me about the story of King Solomon, explaining how even if being psychic wasn’t possible, if it were, it would only be from having an allegiance with Satan. I asked about prophets and how come they weren’t bad but could do practically the same thing. I was given the ol’ story of how they were working for God so that’s why they couldn’t work with the Devil. Didn’t really make much sense then and still doesn’t now because there’s a lot of inconsistencies but I figured it would be best to simply keep all questions to myself and be scared witless for about ten years or so. For the rest of my family, it’s either they don’t know or just found out through my personal blog.

Y’see, I’m not really close to my family. Family is very important in Paganism but I’m just not close to mine. I’m way too different and my family’s not so I keep two personas about usually – one my family sees and one the world sees. Was bound to happen anyways, it doesn’t bother me that much anymore.

I am very happy to have changed my religion. It has made me a much chipper person and my life is much more fulfilling than when I was a Christian but it’s not like I don’t have any problems anymore. Firstly, life generally is rough no matter who you are. Secondly, I’m in a religion that’s none of the top three and often the scapegoat for anything crazy. We’re lumped in with the psycho killers, baby eaters (who does that?), Satanists and other folks who honestly lost their marbles a long while ago. Basically since 16 or 17 I’ve had to defend my religious views and the fact that I’m a Witch against a myriad of people from frightful nut jobs to the religiously (namely, Christian) concerned. I must say, it does leave me pretty cranky sometimes. It’s like I have to walk around with a dry erase board on some days. Then I have to explain that nooooo, I’m not a Wiccan. I’m a Witch. There’s a difference (that I covered in my first post). It does make me a bit more of a stickler but eh, there’s no way am I going to be super nice and without a bad side of any sort. I’m a nice person generally but I don’t wear halos for hats. I’m realistic, in other words.

I’ve been told that “I’m in a phase”, “I’ll be returning to Christianity”, one person even prayed right in front of me, wishing for Jesus to disturb my sleep and my waking moments until I would return to Christianity. I don’t think that’s what the Bible itself preaches but tell these people that. I have dealt with people practically dashing across the street, give backhanded complements about my faith, and try to use me as an example of what a person who has left Christianity looks like – constantly trying to depict my life in utter shambles (basically how my life looked when I was Christian) now that “I had abandoned Christ”. Jesus, what an annoyance.

I’m very happy being Pagan and I super doubt I’ll return back to Christianity but the hardest part of converting was I had to listen to myself first and forget everyone else. I learned that no matter what you do in life, let it mean something to you and you’ll have no regrets.

Alrighty then, now that I’ve shared a fair bit of my background story (outta the broom closet will have to be its own post) and am now a regular columnist, time for some mayhem! I plan to have weekly posts so you can either keep up with me here or with my wordpress version of Black Witch, which has an RSS feed and email subscriber. I just added a Twitter for my external blog so people can have up-to-date posting both here at AfroPunk and there. I haven’t much of a clue of how to use it but I’m learning. It’s strictly for quick BW updates so if you wanna contact me, email or comment. If you really wanna keep up with me, go to my personal blog. And don’t worry AfroPunk maintainers, I’m not stealing folks, just putting the external blog to good use, AP’ers ain’t the only ones lookin at it. Among the weekly posts will be two special monthly posts, “Ask a Witch” and “The Arts”.

“Ask a Witch” is where you can ask me whatever question you like (excluding divination of course, I’m just a columnist here – unless you have red bean mochi or okonomiyaki. Otherwise you’re gonna have to wait for special opportunities to arise), I’ll pick the three best and answer them here. You can ask anything about me, about yourself or whatever have you here in the comments, email me or use the “Ask a Witch” form that’s on this site, just scroll down a little and keep your eye on the right column. If you don’t want the question to be public just say so when you email me or fill out the form. I’ll try to answer all private questions as quickly as possible and within a week.

“The Arts” posts are about mainly music and books. These posts will talk about musical talent that I think could use a bit of boasting and books I think are pretty spiffy reads. If there is anything else that are part of the fine arts or the literary arts such as festivals or concerts, I will be putting them here too.

See you next week! I’ll be updating every Friday and the installments are at the end of the month.

The Establishment (AfroPunk) Version

Y’see, I’m a Witch. A Black Witch but not in the way of practicing black magick but I’m an African American who also happens to be a Witch. I guess it would be better calling myself an African-American Witch to keep heart attacks at a low but it’s such a lengthy name! Ah well. I’m Pagan as well, meaning that I follow a nature-based belief system. I’m not Wiccan tho. I’ll explain the differences (and why ‘magick’ is spelled with a ‘k’) a little farther down but I gotta chat about myself for a little bit.

 Yeppers, I’m a Witch. Yes, I do cast spells. No, I don’t jinx or hex. Yes, I do practice various forms of divination such as palm reading, tarot cards and natal charts. No, I’m not Ms. Cleo (I am half Jamaican at least. All she has is that phony accent.) and I never charge because I don’t believe in that.* I have been practicing Witchcraft actively and being Pagan since I was about 15/16, so nearly ten years of magick but I’ve been doing divination since I was 17. There’s a reason why I differentiate Pagan from Witch because one is a belief system and the other is a livelihood. You don’t have to be Pagan to be a Witch. You can be a Christian Witch, which is what I started out as while feeling out my path.* However, since I get the same reaction for being a Pagan and a Witch as well as an awful lot of Witches are Pagans (but not all), I may use them interchangeably. If you’re confused, just comment and let me know, it can be baffling.

Now, to talk about the spelling of the word “magick”. Though magick has many different spellings that all lead to the same phonetic pronunciation, ‘magick’ is the spelling often used in reference to spellwork. Magic spelled without a ‘k’ usually is a reference to stage magic such as what David Blaine does.

The difference between Pagans, Witches and Wiccans. Paganism is a nature-based belief system. Wicca is a religion within Paganism. Witchcraft is mainly a craft, not a religion so you can be a Witch in any religion. By that note, not every Wiccan is a Witch, not every Witch is Pagan, not every Pagan is Wiccan, understood?

Regardless of race, every time I tell people that I’m a Witch or that I’m Pagan, I get a variety of reactions. They may be numerous but rather typical at this point. I categorize them like this: Shocked, Over-Quizzical, Over-Skeptical, Scared, Confused for a Genie and Handbag Friend. This is how they’re filed:

~ Shocked: These people are stunned that a) I’m not Christian despite being raised in a Christian family and b) for a Pagan, I’m awfully level-minded. Apparently Pagans are supposed to be wacked out space cadets kissing trees and thinking you can cure cancer with happy thoughts and pixie dust. Uh huuuuuh. I can be a bit loopy myself but mainly when I’m sleep deprived or with the flu. Otherwise, I like to have my religion and magick with a side of logic. I was raised in a family chock full of doctors and analytical thinkers, it wouldn’t make sense to chuck out science completely. Besides, to be a good Witch you need science, especially if you’re messing about with potions.

~ Over-Quizzical: I know that most people mean well and are so full of wonder meeting their first (out of the broom closet) Witch but they ask too many stupid questions! Meeting someone who is different from you and you’ve heard so much about means a silly question or two may get asked. I don’t mind them usually and they’re very fun to answer but a waterfall of stupid pouring out their mouth is not amusing. Stupid like “Does Hogwarts exist?” (No.) “Can you really turn me into a frog?” (If I could, you’d already be croaking) “Do you have a cat? Is she black? Does she talk?” (Yes, I have a cat. No, she’s white and dark grey. The most talking she does is meowing loudly to demand food and attention.)”Is The Craft/Harry Potter/Charmed real?” (Nope. Entertaining with a big bowl of ice cream on a Friday night, tho.) I like questions; I just don’t like an onslaught of idiocy.

~ Over-Skeptical: I’ll be the first to say it, doubt is healthy. I had a good amount of it when I started magick and so did some of my witchy idols like Lauren Manoy (I looooove her!) Doubt is secure to have when practicing magick so you know you’re not fooling yourself when it comes to if something works vs. if something doesn’t. Over-skeptical people who have their heads a little too far up science’s derriere to see any sense are like the Over-Quizzical if the OQ spent their whole life following scientists like rock stars and had opinions copied and pasted from science journals. Always they give me a barrage of questions, usually along the lines of “Prove it! Prove it NOW!” Sheesh, so demanding. I like science myself and it’s a good way to keep a person in metaphysics rooted but only if you understand that science know a lot of things but it doesn’t know everything. I can’t snap my fingers and make a plane appear, no, and I’m not going to predict what going to happen to you tomorrow because I’m not a walking party trick. I have learned over the years that you could levitate a whole car in front of them and they still won’t be convinced. You just can’t reason with these people and it’s a headache to start. I just let them go because they don’t wanna be proven wrong, I don’t think, they just want to feel superior because they know science or whatever. I’ll chat with people willingly about magick, telekinesis and all that good stuff but not if their mind is clamped shut with a hermetic seal. They kinda remind me of Riley from the Boondocks: “I keep my mind sealed shut so nothing can get in.” Right about that.

~ Scared: This would be Shocked with a touch of religious mania. They shout, they jump, they hide and my my my, do they call on God like a group of angels will swoop down SWAT team style and whisk them away from evil clutches, bwha ha ha ha!…If only I had a white Persian cat and a high back swivel chair…anywhoodle! These people were very much taught that Pagans and Witches are godless devil worshippers that eat babies and have no other purpose in the world than to ruin your precious, God-fearing life – and your little dog too! Ok, before I have way too much fun with the jokes, why on earth would I waste my time on people I don’t know nor give two craps about? I have my own life to worry over and what’s the point of hexing? So I can waste my time, money and energy on them? It would just be easier photoshopping someone’s face onto some scandalous pictures and posting them throughout Facebook and to their boss. In addition, Satanism and Paganism is not the same thing.* We’re opposites practically! Pagans and Witches aren’t bad people. We’re just people.

~ Confused for a genie: Now that you have a psychic Witch for a friend, the world is yours! – Not quite. I haven’t gotten many of these as of late but usually they are the late night calls for a spell because they think someone hexed them…for the billionth time. Or maybe could I make it rain money? Can I foresee the dream guy/girl in their future? I don’t mind doing card readings and such for those who ask and for friends but I don’t exist merely to be someone’s personal wizard. I have a life, y’know. When people do ask for spell stuff, I pretty much play 40 questions with them to see if it’s a legit problem or (more often than not) a normal dilemma that just needed attention like any other problem.* Most issues don’t need spells, just some thought. And time.

~ Handbag Friend!: I’m not introduced by name, I’m “the Witch” or that fact comes riiiiiight after my name. They make a big deal to everyone that I practice witchcraft and they’re more interested by it than I am and I’m the Witch. It must be exciting to have such an unusual friend that’s capable of cool stuff like parkour or martial arts but chill with showing me around! There’s more to me than a spellbook. Way more than that. I like people knowing that I am who I am but that kind of attention isn’t needed. Think of it like a friend who only touted you around an all-White place because you’re the only Black person there and they always talk about how you’re so Black all the time, maybe even get some facts wrong like, “Oh s/he like fried chicken and s/he even know Obama! Isn’t he, like, your fifth cousin on your dad side?” Annoying ain’t it?

What convinced me to be a Pagan Witch? Goodness, that’s a story fit for a B-rate movie. There was drama, horror, no romance, and suspense.* It’s a whole post by itself and possibly will be the next post here – as well as discussing coming out of the broom closet – but the short version is…well. It’s no noble story and definitely not the stuff that fantasy movies are made of I guess.

That’s my bit about me. I couldn’t shove everything the people of AfroPunk asked me to or they would have a tome to print…and I would be mostly out of material at that. Hopefully everyone likes this blog enough to keep it going and I’ll cover more in the future!

*= another post for another time

Derived from AfroPunk (With improved grammar >.>)