archives, feminism

To Woo a Witch: Five Questions for the Tempted and Love-Struck.

 

Yes, lover. Please don’t trouble yourself by rambling on and on about your devotion and desire.

I know this story too well, and there’s nothing new you can share with me about longing and lust. Witches dream in the language of dark romance, you see. We grow weary of red, cartoon hearts and over-sugared tradition, but our bitterness alone should not sway you.

You’re in quite the predicament, aren’t you? In love with a woman who is in love with the wilds. Tell me, has she told you any of her secrets yet? Has she shared with you her collection of bones or showed you where she keeps the moon-blood?

I know you’ve been in her bed, but have you been inside her hidden rooms where candle wax covers the floor, where horned statuary sits on altars and herb bundles wrapped in black silk hang from the ceiling like sweet-smelling bats?

No? Oh, no matter. Has she whispered poetic incantations to you about love and loss, birth and death? Has she brewed you a strong and steaming drink to cure what ails you, or invited you into her browning garden?

Still no? I’m clicking my tongue and shaking my head for you, lover. I fear you might be doomed then, but there’s a genuineness about your eyes that I appreciate. I’ll share with you what I know, but my wisdom is not for the faint of heart. Take a sip of this. Lean in close, and listen up:

  1. First ask yourself this, lover: Has she given you any sign whatsoever that she desires this tryst to bloom beyond the bedroom? She has shown you none of her cunning tools. She has not spoken a word to you about her sorcery. Can you be truly be trusted not just with her light-of-day beauty but with the fearsome and fearful hunted Witch side-eyeing you from her red and raw heart-center, peering out with black-mirror eyes from between her rib-bones and wondering if you’re worth it?
  2. Now, ask yourself: Are you willing to be in a relationship with a shape-shifter? She will never pretend for you, and, surely, you will tire of her wild ways. Yes, one moment she may be over-running with a soft, gushing joy that washes over you like pure, concentrated erotic innocence, but can you love her when she wants nothing more than to be alone with the spirits of the dead?
  3. Will you pretend for her? If so, best get out now. The minute you suddenly start quoting Crowley or feigning interest in an art she has given her life to learn, the very instant you begin waxing poetic about metaphysics or spouting the well-known New Ageisms covered with shadow and magick, she will know. She will know, and she will run. Are you ready to show up as perfectly flawed as she will show up for you? Are you ready to disagree without dismissing who she knows herself to be?
  4. Take a breath, lover. This one might hurt. Can you handle coming in second? There will be times when her body is there, but she is psychically drifting through the mists of a haunted forest. Her words are distant. She is staring long and dreamily from the window, engaged in some deep communion with the dark moon. She might love you more than she loves any other living creature, but she loves the wilds more.
  5. You’re still here. I’ll take that as a good sign, brave-heart. I have one more, and I don’t want you to answer me right away. Carry this last one with you, and sleep on it. Here goes: Is it her you love, or are you starved for the dark feminine medicine she embodies under her soft skin? Do you want to be with her, with all the raised scars and rough edges such a sorceress possesses, or do you just need to wander in the woods for a while? Ask yourself, my new friend, is she just a sorely needed dose of magick, mysticism, and mayhem — we all need those from time to time, or do you love a wounded, sovereign woman with much wisdom to share and well-deserving of your truest devotion?

She does not want to be your savior, I assure you, nor does she wish to be rescued. I feel for you, lover. I do. Your willingness to ponder these questions makes me wonder if you’re not destined for a long-burning and timely twin-soul connection. Should she wave you on your way though, do not be dismayed. You are better to have known such a flame-tending woman, if only for a short time.

Wily are the ways of the Witch, lover, and she may just remember your eyes from this lifetime when you meet in the next. Time is a shadowy spiral dance, and love is the electric webbing from which the grand design of our world is spun. Best befriend the dark, lover, if you are to come home to the wilds, if you are to woo a Witch who wants to be wooed.

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Danielle Dulsky

Danielle Dulsky

Danielle Dulsky is a heathen visionary, Aquarian mischief-maker, and word-witch. Author of 'Seasons of Moon and Flame: The Wild Dreamer’s Epic Journey of Becoming', 'The Holy Wild: A Heathen Bible for the Untamed Woman' and 'Woman Most Wild' (New World Library 2020, 2018, 2017), Danielle teaches internationally and has facilitated embodiment trainings, wild circles, communal spell-work, and seasonal rituals since 2007. She is the founder of The Hag School and the lead teacher for the school’s Flame-Tender Facilitator Training and online coven, The Hag Ways Collective, an E-RYT 500 and YACEP, a Fire-Keeper for Ord Brighideach, and a dedicant to Irish-Celtic spirituality. She believes in the power of wild collectives and sudden circles of curious dreamers, cunning witches, and rebellious artists as well as the importance of ancestral healing, embodiment, and animism in fracturing the longstanding systems supporting environmental unconsciousness and social injustice. Parent to two beloved wildings and partner to a potter, Danielle fills her world with nature, family, art-making, poetry, and intentional awe.
Danielle Dulsky