Witchvox Article

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Posted: October 20th. 1998
Times Viewed: 17,228

Well, this year it started earlier than before and I'm not sure what that means. Usually anytime after October 1 is open season on Witches - as if we don't exist at any other time of the year. During the month leading up to Halloween, we are expected to make ourselves available for interviews, pictures, and all sorts of public appearances, then fade back into the shadows like ghosts until next October.

Most people, aside from the cult-obsessed religious fundies, forget Witches exist until the first chill of Autumn arrives, pumpkins and skeletons appear everywhere, and then their minds turn to things scary and forbidden.

Scary and forbidden, Witches are NOT! I've spent over twenty years trying to get this across to people, through letters to the editors of newspapers, by faithfully allowing reporters to interview me every October, even appearing as a Witch on the front page of Pittsburgh most widely circulated free newspaper. My picture as a Witch looked just like any other average 44 year old woman of medium height and weight, bespectacled and maybe with a bit more reddish hair than usual, but otherwise boringly normal. The reporter wanted me to pose in ritual garb but I refused. I was wearing jeans and a sweater, which is my everyday attire for October. Disappointing perhaps, but I never apologize for looking exactly like myself. If you peer closely at the picture, you might see a small, silver, star-shaped pendant which I also wear every day - the only outside indication of my Witchiness. Ninety-nine per cent of all the other Witches I know look just as nondescript as I do. Reporters hate this and always try to persuade me to do something to appear more exotic, but I never do. Hollywood has had so much fun at our expense that we are constantly living down the stereotype of the slinky, cat-eyed, black-clad, fingers-sparking sorceress - or on the other end of the scale, the green-faced, wartnosed monster in rags and pointed hat.

One October, I cordially welcomed a reporter and photographer into my home. As they entered my humble abode, they launched a volley of jokes about the broom on my porch. If they cared to look, they would have noticed that every other house on my street also had a broom on the porch. Were we all Witches? Once inside, they both fidgeted nervously, and not because they were in the company of a real live Witch. Apparently they were dissatisfied with the simple living room decor. No spider webs, no bats hanging from the ceiling, and no steaming cauldron.

"Can't you light some incense or something?" the writer coached me. "Let's have some atmosphere!" I replied rather sulkily that I don't burn incense in my home all the time, and the incense used in rituals is specially made for sacred purposes. Finally I compromised by lighting a stick of Rain from a three-dollar packet I'd bought at the Mall. The smoke kept blowing the wrong way. The reporter coughed. The photographer shifted his little white umbrella to get spookier lighting and tried to shoot me from under my chin for more shadows. I knew it would look dreadful, like a kid holding a flashlight under their face for scary effects. Suddenly one of my cats jumped up on my lap, drawn by the mysterious feline urge to sit wherever the center of attention is at the moment. Reporter and photographer literally jumped up and down with glee. "A cat! Wow! Get the cat in the picture! Great!" And so the gentle pussywillow gray Petie-Pie was forever immortalized as The Witch's Cat, posing proudly and looking very much the part, with cheap incense smoke swirling around us. It was a surrealistic moment for me.

As least recently the reporters seem to have done a little bit of homework and most of them no longer ask such tiresome questions as "Do you worship the devil?" and worse yet "Do you believe in God?" Most of them appear to have a vague inkling of what Witches "do not", especially now that the World Wide Web is available to help disperse the old misinformation. On a positive note, I've witnessed the level of knowledge on Witchcraft improve by leaps and bounds over the past decade, which is encouraging.

Strange coincidence - the phone just rang and it was a reporter who interviewed me several times before, apparently calling on behalf of one of her colleagues who'd been unsuccessfully trying to track me down. She wanted to know why I didn't want to talk to him, and was very aggressive in her efforts to change my mind. I admitted it was a simple case of burn-out, and referred her to someone else who might be more helpful. Then we shared a laugh about today being October 1st, the beginning of The Season of the Witch. I asked her why reporters never call us at any other time of the year, and we both came to the conclusion that being a Witch in October is like being Black in Black History Month, or Jewish on Yom Kippur.

So this year I'm taking a sabbatical, so to speak, from being The Witch for everyone. This year I will be a Witch only for my Lord and Lady, myself and my fellow Witches, leaving others to deal with this media blitz. Maybe I'll feel more obliging next October, maybe not. In many ways, I feel that I've done my part and now its someone else's turn to be The Witch for them all.

Moonshadow

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