Summary for other busy witches: Magic has all been about reclaiming power and releasing shame. This has been life changing and I am infinitely grateful for it.

Content advisory: I briefly make an analogy where I compare caring for shame to healing from an injury at the end of the post.

I further traverse the sexy pipeline of democrat→bisexual→trans and autistic AF→witch. It’s a ride, my friends.

Internalizing and owning power destabilizes the very foundation of every power structure I have ever encountered: church, academia, work, marriage, etc.

That’s why I was denied it and so many things for a long time. And, once I began to really come into my own, magic was one of the first things I have claimed.

Now that I have come out to my mother and grandmother as a witch, I can now more openly tell all of you! (Also surprise for both of them, I just said I was into magic. But you know what’s more fun? Including more detail in a blog post than you do in a private conversation!)

I was teasing my good friend Alyx Hanson that it was easier telling my grandmother because I threw them under the bus first by sharing that a good friend of mine does some witchcraft, and as it happened so do I! They broke my fall from grace. And yes this was included with their permission, I’m not a monster (or am I)?

Besides, what are good friends for if not to troll your elderly grandparents? (Love you Grandma <3)

It was all part of my master plan in traversing the pipeline, see? You start with telling your family who you voted for, then you wear lower necklines and shorter shorts, then you come out as a boy, and then after that if your relationship survives showing up that authentically you can get away with almost anything! But I digress.

The way I explained it to my mother is that Christianity externalizes authority and power. I have felt subjugated by it my entire life. They told me how to use my body, mind, time, and soul. And it was to be in service of their agenda. For YEARS I felt like walking out of church every Sunday, but forced myself to stay and told myself I was “in rebellion” for wanting to leave. That phrase always turned my stomach growing up, and now I know why.

This subjugation led to a smorgasbord of different types of abuse (I think my abuse bingo card has multiple rows filled at this point) and an emptiness deep in my soul where my power and agency were supposed to be.

Enter magic. Where internal power is realized, shared in loving community, and continues to grow in wildness as you do.

Also it’s queer AS FUCK and I just get gayer and more fun as I get older.

Photograph taken by the author of a sign that says “geyer signal” with white and orange construction stripes underneath and is surrounded by trees. I feel like getting into magic is certainly a gayer signal!

Magic has opened a whole new world of possibilities. Things that I have struggled with for years have finally began to take shape for me, like grounded confidence and the ability to let go.

I have had a hard time trusting myself, some of my confidence has very much been a “keep trying until it’s convincing” sort of thing. Now it’s becoming more internalized and somatically grounded.

As far as learning to let go, that’s something that has always been hard for me. Whether it’s change, mistakes, old ideas about myself, what have you, a lot tends to stick around. I bought some candles for a ritual Alyx recommended, and let’s just say that I started with four candles that are supposed to burn twelve hours each about a month ago and I have already fully fried two of them (given they were often burning at the same time).

And you know what? It’s actually been working! The continuous practice of loosening my grip, watching the physical melting of the wax, and imagining what life will be like on the other side of releasing something has been incredible.

I didn’t think that was something that could change for me. Thank gods I was wrong.

Alyx has also been an incredible companion on my journey with tarot! They are fucking brilliant and I have loved what I have started to learn about myself, others, and life in general through a spiritual discipline that actually feels good. (They also do spiritual direction and readings, their website is here).

My favorite things that I have begun to learn are that there are infinite ways to love myself, to heal from past trauma and pain, and that when I am open to the universe calling me out (even if I am not lol) she absolutely will. As Alyx likes to say, “You may read the cards, but usually the cards read you.”

The way I think about tarot is each card is like a different mirror or lens, that offers different colors, angles, and perspectives for the given question or query. A lot of themes that have been showing up lately have called my attention to keeping my boundaries, especially between mine and other’s emotions, not giving my autonomy and power away, releasing old ideas, and learning to roll with change.

I was terrified that tarot would just be opportunities for shame to kick me over and over again. This couldn’t be further from reality. It has called me deeper into loving myself, which, in order to do so, I must release my shame.

And as it turns out, shame is the main thing between me and the most broken and powerful parts of myself.

It’s like inflammation around a wound or an injury. It doesn’t always have to be cut out or excised, but instead loved, tended, and mended.

Here is to our mending and loving, and continuing to grow together!

Photograph of the author with a new goat friend, the author making a goofy wide-eyed, eye-brow raised face, and he’s wearing a blue sweatshirt with a black strap across his chest, and a brown goat with a tan muzzle showing off his goofy neck and snout by raising his head as high as possible while standing on a fence. There are several other little goat butts in the background. I asked him what he thought about magic, and he said, “I don’t know, bleats me!”