Good morning witches
I think out of the 3 sides of the witches triangle, (To know, To keep secret, To Dare) this is the hardest one out of the lot to learn to master. For someone who was taught from an early age to compile and not to rock the boat to suddenly understand that I had a right to speak out and to dare to ask those questions was one of the hardest things to learn. It went against everything that I knew and understood about life. But before I get to far ahead on that side of things let’s look at what it means in terms of your craft.
In terms of the Spiritual world, if like me you came up through the Spiritualist church who preach a lot about love and light and the fluffy to suddenly find that your path is leading you down the “darkness” of the witch is a bit of a shock to the system. But when you’ve done some home work and find out the in Northern Europe at least the term “witch” is often applied to the poor single mother who has to fight for every last scrap of food, every coin that is thrown her way from the rich merchants who pass her in the street (here I’m thinking of the witch trail of Bideford in 1682) then don’t we have a duty to carry on the work of our ancestors in pointing out the blindingly obvious to those who hold power?
What took a long time to sink in to my head is that I hold the power. I remember the first spell I ever properly cast. Not sure if it would work (it did…..just) not sure if I was doing it right and if my intention was right. The jitters of a first time spell caster. One thing I have learned is that I’m no Wiccan. As I was reminded by a Facebook post the other day, Wicca is religion, witchcraft is a practice and the two are very different. So I don’t always keep the the “Do no harm” and the three fold rule as I see and acknowledged the grey in life and in nature. I dare to acknowledge that not everything is black or white, in every life the grey is a bigger part than most people would acknowledge. Part of my craft, and the part I’m woking on developing more at the present time is daring to challenge. Challenge myself in what I believe, challenge myself in what I see and understand in the world, challenge myself in what I’m going to do about it.
As witches we have the power and knowledge to be able to change those things around us that no longer work for us. Be that by spell casting, showdown work or by tweaking the mundane so life is better for us. But the first step of fore filling that role is to dare to do it. You have to have the inner power to look at situations, to dare yourself to be honest and open even to yourself that something isn’t right. You have to dare yourself to be open to the Goddess and her work to show you the right way forward even if that takes you well aware from the fire side of your comfort zone and you have to dare to make the changes. Dolly Parton sings about this in her song “change it” she points out that nothing en’t gonna change if you don’t change it. Only you have the power to be able to do that.
A lot of the time, your words and actions will fall on death ears and won’t be acknowledged – none as blind as those who don’t want to see, and those don’t want to change things because of fear or misplaced love. But as the witch it’s your job to protect your own personal sovereignty and change and to challenge those things that no longer serve you.
How far you want to take that is up to you. But there is nothing stopping you from trying to change the world if that’s what you feel strongly about. We all have a duty to care for this planet and if it’s Global warming that gets you hot under the collar then do something about it. In your personal life, make the changes that mean you’re more “green” and hound the hell out of your local political representation.
I personally think that if something rises your bloody pressure to the point that you feel that you need to do something, then dare to do it. Hound your local member of parliament, Senate, Assembly or what ever it is that is meant to represent you. Write, call, email, join protest groups. The worst thing you can do as a witch is to sit on your wand and join the realms of “not my problem”
To dare is a call to action, be that mental (dare to change you thought patterns), physically (get involved to change things), Spiritually (get your BoS out and see if you can come up with some spells that will help). Dare to be the witch you’ve been called to be.