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Growing up, I first became inquisitive about witches on frequent visits to a metaphysical shop just a couple of miles from my home in upstate Recent York. Small and inconspicuous, it was tucked away in a typical semi-rural strip mall together with a convenience store. I often drove there after highschool to tumble down the rabbit hole of interdisciplinary healing. I took within the sounds of singing bowls and wind chimes, the smells of incense, and devoured books on every part from the Yoga Sutras to meditation guides to tomes on astrology, plant medicine, and witchcraft.

Back home, I spread my treasures out on my bedroom’s green carpet in front of my two girl cousins. And we explored different traditions gleaned from that bookstore’s shelves. Together we chanted mantras and intoned spells to call in self-love. We learned in regards to the chakras and wore colours that corresponded with the energy of every. We tied quartz crystals to six-inch pieces of yarn and gave one another “energy readings.” We learned that we could consider and call upon our ancestors for support. All these techniques were gleaned from different traditions found on that bookstore’s shelves. It was a multi-faith, self-study exploration.

We were constructing an altar to our budding spirituality. We were celebrating the mysteries of the world, in search of meaning and agency against the rising tumult of adolescence. And, as girls growing up in a world of patriarchy and other damaging power structures, we were claiming connection to our own power before we lost it. 

In her memoir, Initiated: Memoir of a Witch, Amanda Yates Garcia, aka the Oracle of LA, calls attention to this in search of and questioning. “Left to their very own devices, most teenage girls are natural witches.” That actually gave the impression of us.

By the point I used to be an adult, I’d turned as a substitute toward yoga. There I also found rituals and refuges, ways to hook up with spirituality and feel strong not only in spirit but in body and mind. I discovered in yoga a house. But before yoga claimed me, there was a time once I explored the trail of a witch.

When did everybody grow to be a witch?

An off-the-cuff social media scroll conjures a world of healing, yoga and, alongside this, witches. The hashtag #witchesofinstagram currently has greater than nine million posts on Instagram and #witchtok has greater than 80 billion views on TikTok. Suddenly there are witches in all places, sharing financial advice, offering workshops on self-empowerment, leading others in activism, offering poetry. Even The Recent York Times has inquired, “When Did Everybody Turn out to be a Witch?”

In fact, witchcraft is nothing novel. Historically, witches were typically women who had been accused of dealing in “dark arts.” In medieval and early modern Europe in addition to the colonies across the Atlantic, witch hunts and witch trials led to the persecution and punishment of hundreds of ladies accused of witchcraft. Lots of the accused were later confirmed to be simply midwives, healers, and spiritual practitioners working outside of organized religion. In lots of cases, the term “witch” was applied to any woman who selected another path or practiced earth-based spiritual practices.

The contemporary witch community is diverse and vibrant: there are Latinx brujas and Ukrainian witches and witches born into lineages of moms and grandmothers who forged spells. There’s a recognition of witch traditions in just about all cultures. Today a witch could be someone of any gender and includes practitioners of all stripes. There’s the Hoodwitch, a BlackMexican woman whose Instagram guarantees “on a regular basis magic for the fashionable mystic,” and Edgar Fabian Frias, a nonbinary indigenous Mexican-American visual artist who offers educational and inspirational video talks. 

“Witch” may be a moniker for any empowered woman, or a person, or a nonbinary practitioner who taps into their feminine power, and needs to channel that power as a healing force on the planet. Which may be one reason whey we’re seeing more people discover as witches recently. 

Contrary to what many books and the large screen would lead us to imagine, a witch is sort of often someone working to shift power toward the benevolent, often difficult the established order–and people benefiting from it. For eons, witches have often been those rallying against oppressive systems, including the patriarchy. When inherited structures of power and meaning aren’t working, there’s a longing for various ones. 

“The witch is the last word feminist icon because she is a completely rounded symbol of female oppression and liberation,” writes Pam Grossman in Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic and Power. “The undeniable fact that the resurgence of feminism and the recognition of the witch are ascending at the identical time isn’t any coincidence…The 2 are reflections of one another.” Grossman suggests the best way we react to witches may say something about how we react to feminine power. “Show me your witches, and I’ll show you your feelings about women,” she says. 

One other answer to “why now” could also be under our feet. “Witches, like those drawn to yoga, prioritize a person’s connection to intuition and the Earth,” says Laura Amazzone, an creator, teacher, and scholar specializing within the Goddess traditions. “As Mother Earth struggles, we feel renewed urgency in our very cells to assist rebalance the harmony needed in nature because we’re a part of it.” 

Different techniques, same intention

In her book Yoga for Witches, creator Sarah Robinson explores the connection between these seemingly different, but in some ways similar, practice paths. “Yoga is an embodied spiritual practice—a sort of ritual,” writes Robinson. “Witchcraft…is a spiritual practice that involves intention and focus, but additionally a practice of creation and connection to spiritual and natural realms and cycles.”

“Each yoginis and witches honor unseen energies,” says Laura Amazzone, creator, teacher and scholar specializing within the Goddess traditions. I consider the best way yoga practices engage the “energetic body,” modulating prana through breathwork, postures, meditations, and intentions. And if we glance to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, we examine siddhis, defined as mystical powers which are increased through practice, including clairvoyance and mind-body control. This seems like one other word for “magic.”  

In fact there’s an “on a regular basis magic” to yoga practice as well. To direct energy in yoga, a practitioner might work with postures and breathwork but additionally mantras, essentially repeated words or phrases that help center and focus the mind. “With a mantra you utilize words to craft, shape, dispel, and repel— very like what people consider as a witch’s spell,” Amazzone says.

The interdisciplinary dialogue between the witch and yoga practitioner draws on intention, voice, embodiment, the hope of healing, and resistance to systems of harm. It’s a call for an analogous way of being and living.

Finding empowerment

Initially of the pandemic—feeling overwhelmed, isolated and watching my local yoga studios close—I searched online for healing communities. After happening upon several virtual events led by self-described witches, I signed up for a full Moon ritual on Zoom. I entered the virtual space to search out a sold-out community of diverse participants from internationally. The leader began by setting an intention for sacred space, generally known as casting circle. She then led a discuss grounding ourselves through reference to nature and the rhythm of the seasons before she took us into meditation.

I used to be reminded of the best way a yoga teacher might set an intention or work with mantras to open the practice or shift energy. I considered how, in yoga, a teacher might acknowledge our place within the natural world through a grounding meditation or explanation of the present phase of the Moon. And at the tip, when the pinnacle of the witch circle asked us to banish what not served us, I assumed of how persistently I’d been in a yoga class by which a teacher asked us to release what we not needed as we exhaled.

The techniques were different from what I had experienced in yoga, but for me, it seemed that each practices offered a connection to empowerment inside.

Beyond the physical postures, breathwork, and meditation, a lot of yoga is invisible and energetic. A yoga practitioner is often someone with concern for the wellness of the planet and the self in it, with a desire to live a lifetime of service and intention by considering how they will move each into and beyond the body to be in harmony with—and of help to—others. 

Investigating this crossroads has jogged my memory of what I intuitively felt as a teen—that I hold a sacred power in my mind and body, connected to nature and to others, that doesn’t need an intermediary like a guru to experience. Teachers are guides. The true guru is inside. This reminder is particularly potent given the stories of abuse which have arisen in recent times inside several yoga traditions. 

Learning more in regards to the witch has brought more empowerment into my life as a yoga practitioner. I recently found a sangha of female-identifying yoga practitioners to satisfy with recurrently. Due to them, I’ve been reminded to trust my intuition and query power structures that I’d previously—and unconsciously—bought into despite my best intentions. I feel a renewed sense of my very own practice along the trail of yoga, my very own in search of. We should not a bunch of witches but perhaps we share something of an analogous power. 

In any case, neither a witch nor a yogi is afraid to see into the dark.

About our contributor

Sarah Herrington is a author, poet, and teacher. She is the founding father of OM Schooled kids yoga teacher trainings and Mindful Writing Workshops.