How to Become a Phoenix

published by Pussy Magic, special Hallow's Eve issue

October 31, 2018

They say this is the evening when realms are broken, the line between living and dead is crossed, and magic is ripe in the air like peaches ready for picking.

This is the evening your soul comes alive. You reach deep inside, ask yourself what you need most and seek it from the spirits who will come to visit. You worship this All Hallow’s Eve, when reality seems slimmest – the most fragile; breakable and shimmering. Your witch-sisters of the past can be heard shrieking with laughter. Though they have been burned at the stake and drowned in lakes, they whisper secrets of how they were never conquered, despite. Despite the cultural calamity, society yearning to destroy what they spent years to create. They listen to the energies in the air like live wires, filled with a burning electricity.

You wonder if their hair became flames as they burned, if they screamed or if they bit their tongues until they tasted raw iron of blood in attempt to give no satisfaction of revealed pain and torment. They became one with the burning fire, the embers already burning in their bellies.

You know they have risen from ashes like the phoenix. Tail feathers bright red with power, harnessing the fire within. Burnt smoke and willow trees dance in the grasp of the wind, carrying these tales. You open your eyes to find this world replaced with that which came before.

Now close your eyes again and feel you are not alone. Open yourself to their presence. Lift your arms to welcome inside this magic created by your ancestors. All the witches of the past who stood tall against the flames, who refused to let the fires of the masses diminish or defeat them.

On this night, when the borders have been broken, you discover yourself and what you have been seeking your whole life. Freedom from the burning flames, and how to become a phoenix.