I have spent well over a decade passionately educating others the truth about what it means to hold psychic abilities.

So far removed from the stereotypes in our culture and the media, the word psychic actually is Greek in origin and means “of the soul.”

I have dedicated my life to assisting others in seeing why we are all psychic, and to understanding those abilities and the richness they can bring our lives.

We all have a soul. We all inhabit bodies that are multisensory mechanisms for gathering information all around us. We all have a sixth sense. We are all psychic.

There are many forms psychism takes on: animism, mediumship, working with runes or tarot, dreamwork, and trance healing just for starters. All of those have one thing in common: tapping our built-in extrasensory perception. It differs from intuition, in that it doesn’t rely upon the immediate feedback from our environment in the form of signs and symbols. It instead reveals to us through our third eye information not reliant upon our sensory environment.

The conscious act of rejecting the bad cultural reputation and Christian guilt associated with the word psychic is only one step. Sweeping away the cobwebs of mistruths and subconsciously ingrained shame in our minds and creating the right conditions for our natural abilities to unfold is the due diligence. Motivating forces driven by something much deeper than developing a cool parlor trick or fun party gig is really key. When we are lit with the impulses to engage with this mission, we are already engaging with healing the cultural and generational trauma holding us in silence.

People considered “othered” by society and the church for centuries—psychics, seers, witches, midwives, folk medicine practitioners, herbalists, and astrologists—were done so because of the perceived power they held.

During colonialist New England, Puritans regarded a soul as primarily feminine. To leave one free to explore their own soul instead of surrendering their soul (subtext their devotion and money in the form of taxes) to god (the church) was heretical. The play for domination and control was justified with the precedent of holding those beings to some level of accountability for being unlicensed support professionals offering their work to the poor for free. Nevermind that many of those same gifted healers were handed down profound wisdom, tools, and techniques through the generations.

At some point in my recent past, I made a major realization that I am a witch. Online wiki and Webster dictionary definitions of this term are grossly inadequate and shortsighted. The word witch is a state of being and an orientation, not just a person. Someone who practices witchcraft is harnessing the energies of the natural world for good.

Dedicating myself to ongoing ancestral healing through folk magick, ritual practices, and celtic shamanism for the past four to five years, I spontaneously surfaced memories of myself as a child out in my back yard digging in the dirt, in the sand, making mud pies out of rocks in my driveway and flowers in my mothers garden (much to her dismay). Fast-forward about 40 years, and the astounding realization that I was in fact practicing witchcraft as a child was a tear-inducing revelation. I couldn’t understand why all these years later, I was overwhelmingly drawn to magickal practices of all sorts: card reading, herbs, ritual, rocks, crystals and stones, smoke clearing, and candle divination. Suddenly, it all made sense. Many of those tools have roots in witchcraft.

I fully embraced my newfound passion to developing a relationship with the land, my ancestors, and the natural world. This season of my life is about helping my ancestors heal trauma and wounds, righting my relationship and orientation with the land, honoring those who walked and lived here before me, releasing the embodied lineage of ancestral trauma for future generations. I can see no other way forward for society.

Until we are able to know and face our own stories with honesty, humbleness, and clarity, I don’t know how we can effectively heal the deeply broken systems we try to live and function within.

Consider that claiming our own space as psychics and witches is to reclaim a deep part of our ancestral lineage. We have lost touch with our own pre-colonial heritage. If we look deeply enough, we all have ancestral roots in the ways of honoring nature, building relationship with the land, and watching the stars, the sun, and the moon for guidance. We, as human beings, are each a part of the natural world just by being alive. We are not the center of it, but we are incredibly intelligent beings capable of restoring our rightful paths, honoring our place within nature, and bringing ourselves full circle.

I am a cosmic witch because I channel the movements of the cosmos, planets, and stars in my daily life and in my professional practice. I am a hedge witch because I work alone and don’t adhere to any strict dogma—religious, spiritual, or otherwise. I travel betwixt and between, and merge with the spirit realm. I have developed my own kind of magick, focused primarily on working with the elements, nature, herbs, plants, the directions, and divination in ritual and ceremonial practices. I am a green witch because I draw my tools from the earth in the form of rocks, plants, and other items. I am a word witch because I heal through written word, stories, and healing symbols known as sigils that include words.

Restoring our understanding of the pre-colonial roots of our ancestors to me is one of the most anti-colonial and anti-capitalist actions we can take. It is a form of social activism. To reclaim the ownership of our own soul. To remove our own essence from the grip of a deeply unnurturing capitalistic American society only interested in advancing the path of the individual.

To sort out our own ancestral and generational past is the most powerful step to healing a society one can take.

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