I’m thrilled right now because I’m at a small gathering of intensely powerful Bad Witches. These women aren’t “powerful” in the sense that they’re CEOs in shoulder pads — but rather they’re jaw-dropping forces of nature who do deep work towards nurturing the full expression of feminine electricity in themselves and others (men included).
Being in their presence is causing me to reflect about what it means to be a bad-ass witch in her full turned-on glory (one of my favorite subjects of reflection) and also to get very, very excited for the upcoming TurnedON Woman’s Summit in San Francisco, California (it happens February 27 – March 1st 2015, and I’ll tell you more about it at the end of this article). So without further ado, here are some tell-tale signs that you’re a blazing cyclone of witch power:
1. You know that your deep pleasure and the world’s deep pleasure are one – and you revel in it.
When I say “pleasure” I’m not talking about the cheap dopamine hit that comes from a fat line of cocaine (er, not that I know anything about that from my days as a teenage delinquent with a fake ID and a bitchy attitude) or the momentary thrill of a new purchase. I’m talking about the cell-saturating satisfaction that comes from teaching an amazing class to a room full of rapt students, or the exaltation of slow-fucking someone you love for three hours straight, or delving into a deep conversation with a new colleague, or holding a dear friend’s baby to your bosom and breathing in that fascinating baby-smell. In other words, I’m talking about the primal pleasure of profound connection.
The women I know who have their witchy power turned on at full blast are women who don’t deny themselves the nourishment of the full range of prickly and joyful sensations that come from real, vital, energy-generating connection.
You may think to yourself, “Oh, every woman I know loves connection!” but is that really true? Because I know tons of otherwise magical ladies (aka basic witches) who do a great job of insulating themselves behind invulnerable walls of always-being-right, always-being-busy, or always-being-a-victim. Basic witches are experts at the art of “settling for good enough.” Why? Because they’re afraid.
Women who let fear keep them small expend tons of energy trying to win approval and appreciation from others – and in the process lose out on the opportunity to let others actually feel and relate to their grand, messy, socially-unacceptable actual selves. Of course there are great and valid historical reasons as to why women have learned this art of keeping themselves small – for a very long time (and still to this day in many places in the world) a powerful, fully-expressed woman is a woman who finds herself getting stoned or locked up or burned at a stake because her sex and her emotion and her pleasure and her vitality and her creative genius are disruptive to the status quo.
2. You’re willing to surrender to the ego-death of receiving everything you want – and get off on it, hard.
I’ve noticed that a primary way that women around me (myself included) keep ourselves feeling miserable is to pretend that it’s just so hard to get what we want. We focus on and exalt our preferences to ridiculous levels, and find all the ways that the world fails to live up to these prissy preferences. When I confuse “what I want” with “what my particular prissy preference happens to be” I am doomed to suffer.
More and more, I learn that the world at just about every moment is deeply invested in giving me what I most want – which is the opportunity to cultivate facets of my being: the opportunity to be grateful, vulnerable, intimate, awake, loving. I also learn that the world is often 100% uninterested in meeting my preferences – my preference to look good, my preference to be socially acceptable and have a man who’s also 100% socially acceptable, my preference to be insulated from the pain and fear of others, my preference to be comfortable and unchallenged.
Basically, the gods hear my preferences and it tickles them so. They buckle over laughing and slap their thighs. Meanwhile, the gods hear my deep desires and they say “FUCK YES HERE YOU GO!”
Tricky thing is, the fulfillment of my deepest desires pretty much ALWAYS CONFLICTS WITH MY PREFERENCES. I’ll just say that again because I really think it’s true across the board for human beings: whatever your deepest, most thickly-rooted, most strange, most lavish and thrilling and real desires are – the world is CONSTANTLY giving them to you, and you are CONSTANTLY saying “this doesn’t match my preference! I don’t want it! it sucks! it’s smelly! I don’t like it!”
No, silly, of course you don’t like it as long as you are identified with your ego. Your ego hates the fulfillment of your most real desires. Because your ego is the perception of lack and alienation. So if you’re getting what your soul really wants, that’s a giant threat to your ego – because the second that your realize that you are actually already getting what your soul really really wants, your ego is de-throned as the boss of you.
Your ego can only keep you acting like an invulnerable, self-centered jack-ass for as long as you’re convinced that you’re living in a world of lack and deprivation. The moment that you wake up and realize that you are marinating in a stew of astounding beauty and fulfillment is the moment that your ego gets relegated to the back seat and the only thing for you to do is celebrate your wealth by giving to others.
The truly bad-ass witches I know with fully turned on power are the ones who have found ways to wake themselves up to the fact that they’re already getting everything they want, and to really get off on that. Because they’re not wasting their energy in envy, self-pity, and approval-seeking they have plenty of it to pour onto others, so everyone around them gets to feel amazing and as an added bonus, these witches become ever-more magnetic and get more of what they want.
3. You genuinely scare other folks and can find it hard to be understood.
Look, you know you scare muggles. And why wouldn’t you? It’s just a fact: your power is magnetic, non-rationally explainable, and fucking scary. Plus, truly eerie stuff happens in your presence all the time.
When a witch gets out of her self-pity party and starts living in her full, turned-on power, a spiraling vortex of synchronicity starts spinning that is truly dazzling and frightening.
Your power is turned on, you get angry and suddenly the wind starts howling and the rain starts whipping. “The morning comes to a stuttering halt / the cool breeze that blows is somebody’s fault” John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats reports nervously in his song “Alpha Incipiens” as he addresses a lady friend. It’s really obvious that Mr. Darnielle directly suspects this lady friend of being the eerie “somebody” whose fault the breeze is, and so it’s apparent that he’s well acquainted at least one very bad-ass witch.
It’s obvious that Mr. Darnielle desperately loves his bad witch, but it’s also obvious (especially if you listen to the whole album, Zopilote Machine) that he’s fucking terrified of her.
I’ve encountered this response more times in my own life than I can count. A guy I’m dating or a woman I’m friends with suddenly becomes suspicious and scared of me just because I’m powerful. It gets really tiring and can be hurtful sometimes.
So what’s a bad witch to do? Well, ideally, get connected with other amazing witches! This is why I’m so excited about the TurnedON Woman summit coming up in a few weeks.
The TurnedON Woman Summit!!!
If your witchy power is turned on at full blast (or you aspire to getting it there) I truly hope I see you at the TurnedON Woman Summit in San Francisco in about a month. The TurnedON Woman Summit is both a course and a convergence. It will happen the weekend of February 27, 28 and March 1st, 2015. It’s basically a gathering of dynamic women from all around the planet (including me and some of my best friends) who are gathering together to dive deep into dissolving the old false cultural programming that binds us and to step up into unleashing power, intuition, deep feminine knowing and wisdom that’s gleaned from and rooted in female sexuality.
If you’re interested in joining me at the TurnedON Woman Summit on the last weekend in February this year, I would love to call you and talk to you about it as I’m looking to find the most amazing witches in the world to come join me. So please fill out your information below as spots are filling up super-fast and it’s likely that the event will sell out.