I’ve been thinking about ways of getting together as a group to feel into the moon phases, explore some Tarot, and connect groups in a healing capacity. And I think I’ve got it—let’s start a coven!

A coven is a gathering of witches. The word “witch” can mean a lot of things, but all it means to me is someone who taps into their own intuitive powers and the powers of the natural world. Being a witch doesn’t have to require initiation, a leader, or any religious doctrine—in some ways, it rebels against all that. It’s a practice of inner connection that doesn’t need an authority figure.

Trauma doesn’t respond to conventional ways of healing, so we need our unconventional grimoires. We cannot plan out and micromanage our healing, but we can cast a spell.

There’s no evidence witchcraft as a specific religion ever really existed, though as a young teen who would light candles and try to cast spells while blasting the angsty strains of Alanis Morissette, I still can’t help but yearn for a ritualistic practice that literally gave women power. Magic wasn’t really what was being hunted, though: it was any form of power that could belong to a woman, especially if it related to her reproductive abilities.