During reflection, that evening after the last Ayahuasca ceremony, I had found myself wondering if I had been the guest of dishonor amidst a coven of “bad” witches. I thought about their solid colored sashes in varying colors. It made me think of martial arts and how the color of the participants’ belts signifies their level of skill. I wondered if this was like that. And maybe, instead of martial arts, it was spiritual arts, specifically the art of spiritual warfare.
I previously talked about how I didn’t seek out Ayahuasca.
Rather, I was invited to a retreat by someone who called herself my friend. She was part of a larger friend group and yes, we were all in a group chat. It wasn’t long before Frenemy #1, as I call her, named our group chat. Witches With A Purpose, she titled it. It never occurred to me to ask what was our purpose. I just assumed it was a spiritually cliche heading.
Initially, these females of varying ages, portrayed their level of witchery as the stereotypical obsession with rocks, stones, marijuana, the beauty of the full moon and most importantly, Halloween aesthetics. In other words, they seemed harmless. I especially didn’t relate to their Halloween obsession, though. I just couldn’t get into it. We weren’t allowed to celebrate Haloween in my father’s house. It was the Devil’s holiday. However, in the name of kindness, we were allowed to give candy to any trick-or-treaters who showed up at our door.
I was in maybe the fifth grade when I decided to sneak out and go trick-or-treating anyway.
But I knew I was only going to one house. I made my own costume and disguise in the privacy of my bedroom before climbing out the half-window in the unfinished basement and knocking at the front door of my own home. My dog, Rusty, whose fur matched my hair, didn’t recognize me as he barked furiously.
My mother peered around me and up the dark driveway as she asked, “You aren’t alone are you? Where’s your mother?” Once I got my candy, I started laughing triumphantly while repeatedly telling my mama, “It’s me! It’s me!” I never got in trouble because everyone was too busy being amazed that I had masked my identity so well. And after that very memorable Devil’s Holiday, I just didn’t care that much anymore about Halloween.
Since then, I have often wondered why, in my family, it was me that first tested the forbidden waters.
And why was it me that went out the deepest and stayed out the longest? I wondered if my childhood Halloween trick had been a way to express the suppressed evil within me. I remembered how once, in a lighthearted way, I expressed this fear of being bad to a co-worker who had been trying desperately to be my friend.
I had said it in response to her words about how wonderful and kind I was. I found her constant praise to be deeply uncomfortable. And even though I had known about love bombing for a very long time by then, I didn’t recognize it. I had learned to see it only in men. That wannabe friend had then turned to another co-worker and said, “Can you believe she thinks she’s bad?”
I also remember how I once heard frenemy number one talking about me during one of the Ayahuasca ceremonies. She was in training as a Shaman apprentice. Within earshot, a key participant said something about me to her as he passed by on his way back from the bathroom. She had responded by calling me a “bad ass.” And he had replied, “I know. That’s why I’m worried.”
I have long pondered this conversation. Did they mean for me to hear it?
Or, were they just not aware of my ability to be simultaneously conscious in two places? Later, after that last ceremony, I found myself questioning if I too was actually a bad witch and not a good witch after all. And how was I going to process all of this now that I understood good and evil as it pertains to the illusion of duality? I didn’t know then that my questions would soon be answered during the dark night of my soul.
