As a child, the best part of visiting my grandmother was going to the local crystal shop. My younger sisters and I would walk through the aisles of crystals — lepidolite, celestite, you name it — and graze our hands over their rocky surfaces. My grandmother, walking behind us, would ask, “Which one are you drawn to? Which one calls to you?” I would close my eyes, focus and feel the crystal pull me toward it. “That one.”
I grew up in a family of witches. Even though we spurned witch hats and a cottage in the forest for UGG boots in SoCal suburbs, we did hold onto the tradition of practicing crystal healing, spells and meditation.
Most of the time, when I open up to friends and let them know, “Yo, I’m a witch,” they laugh and act like I’m making a weird joke. Just the other day, after coming out to my good friend Hayley, she responded, “You’re bluffing! Where’s your cauldron? This is how the Salem Witch Trials went down.” It wasn’t until later that night, after some food (and drugs) for thought, that she looked at me and said, “Oh my God, you are a witch.” Thanks for the update, I guess.
Instead of having a bat mitzvah, quinceañera or some other right of passage, I came into my womanhood — or witchhood, rather — through attuning to the Reiki energy channel in a ritual my grandmother performed with me. This coming-of-age ritual happened when I was 19 years old. I went over to my grandmother’s house, where she taught meditation and clairvoyance classes, and sat in the center of her cozy townhome living room that was decorated with large singing bowls, sculptures and beautiful crystals. For about 30 minutes, my grandmother circled around me, waving her hand in mysterious movements. With my eyes closed, I could hear her breathing, and while she moved around me, I focused on my third-eye center, trying to hold my attention inward. We took a short break for a snack and then did a second round of attuning. Once the ceremony was finished, I was given a folder filled with instructions on how to channel in to the Reiki energy channel and properly heal others solely through my energy.
It’s traditions like this that are difficult for me to explain to others. Meditation groups, chi gong in salt rooms and Reiki healing are so normal to my sisters and I that I sometimes forget that they’re considered “strange” to others. I believe it’s all the fictional stories that we have come to associate with the word “witch,” from Harry Potter to the Blair Witch Project.
I understand why some hesitate to accept witchhood as a legitimate spiritual practice. Personally, I did not openly call myself (or anyone) in my family a witch until just a few years ago, when my teenage stigmas of being anything other than “normal” slowly dissipated. What I do know is that after years of energy healing, speaking to crystals and practicing spells with my sisters, being a witch gives me great joy, and I would never quit my practice just to conform to somebody else’s idea of reality or religion.
