The Witch in me
I’ve had the most magical evening.
It’s 31st October 2023 - Halloween, or Samhain as I now like to refer to it.
3 generations of women (and girls) sat on my newly renovated, yet to be furnished living room floor - in circle, sipping ceremonial cacao around an altar, adorned with a pumpkin, candles, crystals, incense, and photographs of people (and pets) who we have loved and lost.
Last year at this time, I wrote a piece called ‘The Witch In Me’, which never left my drafts folder. It said:
These past 2 Octobers I have really found myself diving deeper into Autumn, the colours, the energy, the witchyness of it. I’ve always declared myself as a Summer girl (and I definitely feel happiest in the warm sun, in light flowy clothes and bare feet) but there is something calling me deep into the darkness, into the crossover of Autumn. I’ve been following my menstrual cycles for the past 3 years and that has led me to witness and appreciate all cycles, and seasons more.
As we approach All Hallows Eve/Samhain - names that somehow feel more aligned to me now than ‘Halloween’, which feels gimicky, I am enjoying the darker, deeper side of me that wants to really honour rituals and ceremony and sacred practices. I’m already into my own practices and mini rituals but there is something about this time of year that is giving me a power - the permission to really go with my desire to be, well, witchy. The Witch in me feels naughty, and exciting, and wise, and so connected to nature.
As I learn more and more about the history of women, of our power and innate connection with the divine - as the creative beings we are, whether we create and/or birth babies or not, I feel closer to something. Something I can’t name but something that feels like it’s in my blood. Something that has deep history. I love nature, she feels like my connection to a higher power than my own flesh on this planet, and so I’m learning to morph and mould like her, to shift and change, and I’ve realised that actually, all seasons are beautiful. Just as all my own seasons are beautiful.
At the moment I have this deep desire to be outside around a fire - a calling to be with a group of women, dancing, naked, in our full power, completely at one with life. I feel like there is something magical going on that I can’t grab hold of but that I’m trying to tune into. I see it very clearly in my mind’s eye and I feel it in my body - I want to jump into the image but I don’t quite know where or how yet.
This is not a version of womanhood or motherhood that I know, or have been modelled, or even get to witness regularly. It’s also not a way that my husband lives. So it can feel lonely as I creep inquisitively down each forest path, but it is certainly a way of being that I intend to share with my daughter. I look forward to honouring her first bleed with ceremony and celebration (and allowing the mourning of her baby years), just as we as a family honoured the removal of her Amber teething necklace the night before she started school - a ceremony that my husband actually really valued, to my surprise. I am excited to acknowledge these rights of passage, these transitions. Within me, and around me.
I like it here. This space feels right, natural, like home, although unfamiliar, but there is a deep longing to walk deeper into the woods.
When I’m not doing this stuff - sitting with my crystals, incense burning, noticing nature, drinking Cacao, connecting with that ‘force’, and I’m doing the ‘norm’, like life admin, buying school uniform, or anything that makes me feel like I’m conforming to a way society has set out for me, I feel off, disconnected and like I’m just ‘doing’ what I’m meant to be doing. So I seek to weave this way of being into my life more and more, and I’m learning more and more everyday and it feels like I’m always getting closer. To what? I don’t know, but I know I’m here to explore this and share it with you, and my daughter and whoever feels called to listen.
Writing this feels good. I’m taking a deep breath. It feels like a public declaration of my intrigue and desire.
My Witch doesn’t have a pointy hat, long fingernails and a wort on her nose, my Witch - me - has a strong beating heart, a body she loves, feet that squelch in the earth, food and herbs that nourish her and heal her, creativity and desire, movement and freedom, light and dark, and love: love for herself, love for the Earth, love for her people, love for life, and she wants to explore it all.
I’m ready.
As I sit here now, a year later, having just hosted an impromptu Samhain Celebration, which I hope to make a new tradition, I feel exactly what that me wanted to feel.
Reading it back has made me realise that over the last year I have been on a deep journey home to myself. I knew it was happening, so much so that I birthed my first online programme BECOMING WILD during that time, to guide other Mothers along their own rebirthing journey. I dove deeper and deeper into all those desires I had back then. Rituals and ceremony have become a very normal part of my day to day life now.
But tonight, this felt so familiar.
I felt like I’d been here before.
Yes I’ve hosted many Circles in my work now, (I’ve even danced around the fire with other Mamas, banging my drum - fully dressed so far) but this type of gathering to celebrate and honour what was previously just a commercial holiday (much like Christmas) - no teachings, no money exchange, just being in community with my 67 year old neighbour, my 6 year old daughter, and others in between, just felt so normal. I felt like I’d arrived home.
Since that frist writing, I’ve done a lot more research and learning about the history of women, the Witch wound, the Mother wound, I even teach about it in my programme. So now this is me.
That yearning I had last year actually manifested this year. I sat in ceremony with my daughter and friends, honouring the dead, the darkness and what it meant to be a woman thousands of years ago and pondering how it will be for our sons, daughters and grandchildren.
It was truly magical.
I have very much arrived home.
I know there is more growth and expansion and yearnings, there always is, but right now I feel so content - happy in my skin, in this body I was given, here on this Earth, in this lifetime.
I’ve arrived back where I was meant to be (or maybe I’ve been here before, or maybe my ancestors are showing me how it was).
May I always continue to follow my true path.
May I continue to guide others towards their true path.
And may I sit in Circle with incredible women (and men) for many Samhains to come.
So mote it be.
Emma x
BECOMING WILD is an online embodiment programme for Mothers - helping you to find yourself, heal from your wounds, unleash your inner wild woman and connect deeply with your intuition. To learn more visit https://www.emmadeery.com/becomingwild
The day my Vegan child asked for cow's milk!
Definitely an Oat milk babyccino, Age 2.
I had prepared myself that raising a vegan child meant that at some stage I may have to accept that she’d want to experiment with not being Vegan. I was raised a dairy-loving, meat eater, but chose to become vegan at the age of 35 (8 years ago). I made the choice to raise my child vegan, but vowed to honour her right to choose, should she want to, whenever she was old enough (and informed enough) to do so.
What I hadn’t prepared for was that when she was 5 years old she would come to me, out of the blue, and say ‘Mummy I want some cow’s milk’!
That is what happened this week.
Not completely out of the blue I guess, we had some cow’s milk in the fridge as we had builders in, so she could see it every time she opened the fridge (I respect each individual’s choice - I won’t cook animals in our house but if someone is visiting and wants to bring their own dairy milk, I will accommodate it).
But she was serious. She actually wanted to try some. I was shocked, this was way earlier than I’d hoped!! I explained that it was the builders’ milk. I reminded her that it’s really the milk for baby cows and not humans, but some humans still choose to drink it. I gently reminded her what happens to the Mummy cow in order for her to keep producing milk. I reminded her how my nipples get a little sore when she has her morning boobies and how sore it must be for the Mummy cows to continually have their nipples pulled and tugged.
She paused.
And then said. ‘I know. But at school everyone gets to have cow’s milk except me’. Cue dagger through my heart - the very thing the vegan Mama doesn’t want to hear, her vegan daughter feels left out! School is new, she’s just started the second half of her first term and actually there are a handful of vegans or dairy free children in her class, so I know she’s not the odd one out. Plus I provide plant milk for her, so she’s always getting milk at milk time, but… it’s different. The school is actually really great with vegan inclusivity and provides vegan meal options everyday. But this is the start of peer influences, isn’t it? Fitting in. Finding your place.
So here I am stuck in between my morals and my values. I don’t agree with drinking cow’s milk AND I respect my child and want her to make her own choices (when it is safe to do so). I told her I needed a minute to think.
My body felt hot and rigid. My brain went to blame - if everyone else was just vegan we wouldn’t be in this predicament! But we’re not all the same, and that's OK - another value I teach her.
So I take a minute, or ten! I breathe, slow and deep, so I can respond from a calm and compassionate place instead of an angry place, which is where I’ve immediately gone to in my body.
‘Have you decided Mummy’? She was pretty certain.
‘OK. I don’t agree with drinking cow’s milk - I believe it’s not good for the animals, it’s not good for your body and it’s not good for our planet. But I also understand that you want to try it. So I’m making it your choice. (I wouldn’t do this with heroin - let’s just keep perspective for a minute. Her safety comes first!). So I want you to take a minute to think about it and if you are really sure you want to try it, I’ll have another think.
Pause.
‘I do want to try it’.
BREATHE Mama…
Take another minute…
‘OK’. Against every fibre of my being I poured my pure little ‘Vegan since conception’ baby (she suddenly seemed so young) the tiniest bit of cow’s milk and handed it over.
Gulp
Pause
‘Yummy’
Oh God! She likes it! Fuck!! Does she actually? Breathe.
‘It’s nice’
‘OK. All done?’ said with a smile. And I take the empty cup away.
I then take myself away upstairs to have a cry on the bed. I feel sad and gutted. I know this is what I had to do, but I wish I hadn’t had to. Not at least until she REALLY gets it. Or maybe she does? I don’t know. I feel proud of myself for giving her the choice, but I feel sad that I’ve even been in this predicament and that her little vegan body now has cow’s milk in it.
My irrational mind spirals for a minute - what if she has an allergic reaction? What if she wants it forevermore now? I’ll have to revoke her right to choose - I’m not giving her cow’s milk all the time (or even on occasion) - this was a one off, an experiment! Then she’ll think I’m picking and choosing, I’m a push over. I don’t stand by my word. Fuck! agggghhhhhhhh!
Then I hear her little footsteps come up the stairs and I wipe away my tears. Normally I highlight the importance of our children knowing that we get sad too and that all emotions are welcome and that adults are not these ‘know it all, got it sorted’, perfect humans - we’re all just learning. But on this occasion I didn’t want her to see my tears. This was my issue. This was my internal tug of war. I didn’t want her to think I was sad or cross at her for drinking, or wanting to drink the cow’s milk (although if I’m truly honest, inside I was disappointed). I smiled and explained I was just taking a minute to understand my feelings. And we went back downstairs.
A moment later she hugged me and cried.
‘Oh darling, why are you sad’?
‘I’m sad because I made you sad by drinking the cow’s milk’
There is no fooling them.
‘It’s OK sweetheart. It’s OK for Mummy to feel sad. It was your choice. I’m just trying to understand all the feelings it’s creating in me. I’m not sad or cross at you. I love you’
‘I love you too Mama’
And then she carried on playing.
I did a little dance/shake release and carried on making lunch.
She hasn’t asked for cow’s milk since.
What I’ve learned/been reminded of:
Parenting is hard!!!
Parenting against the ‘norm’ can feel isolating and frustrating.
My child is likely going to want to try meat one day and that’s going to feel even harder - I might let her Dad handle that one!
Always breathe first.
Always take a minute.
Feel all you feel.
Dance or shake it off
There are so many unexpected things in motherhood that just throw us off when we're not expecting it!
Add more vegan books to the Christmas list 🤣
Are you raising a little vegan?
Tell me your experiences.
Emma x
Want to join my community of like-minded, conscious Mamas, rebirthing themselves in Motherhood, AND get a cheeky little Healthy Vegan Brownie Recipe on the side? Click Here x