Midsummer Musings

My introduction to horror films started at a young age thanks to being raised by inattentive adults. My cousins and I, probably around ages 4-7, were put to sleep with Freddy Krueger in the background, slicing up slumbering teens. I often saw his hand of blades in the shadows that danced on my bedroom walls. The outline of his hat.

I was terribly scared of the dark from as early as I can remember. In sweltering, humid summers, I hid with the covers over my head. Wishing myself to fall asleep quickly so I could awaken in the light, safe from whatever lurks in the dark. While Freddy stalked his victims in their sleep, he never entered my dreams. I felt safety in slumber.

My mother rented The Exorcist for my 6th grade birthday party. That movie had me terrified for the next 6 months. I was convinced my bed was going to start shaking. I was the perfect target for a demonic possession. A passive Christian. The kind who only prayed and believed enough to prevent them from going to hell, fingers crossed. I didn’t really have faith or feel god in my life. I had only learned prayers to please my mother after I had told her I heard a voice calling my name when I was 7. Around the same time Freddy’s shadow danced on my walls. The devil was going to get me sooner or later.

These childhood notions have carried over into adulthood. At age 42, I am still scared of the dark. I still see shadows dance in my room. Scary movies can impact me for many months. Even though I know it is irrational and silly, that little anxious creepy feeling still sits in my belly. It is why I was drawn into protection magic first. Through protection rituals and studying witchcraft, I have been able to subside many of these fears. I am working on building the confidence to squash them all.

Studying witchcraft on your own is daunting. The world wide web is filled with many non-credible sources, capitalistic opportunists, and contradicting information. Like most witches, I feel I have always been a container for magic, but my formal self-education started in early 2022. I do not recommend Reddit or social media as a primary source! For me, I found my witch teachers through my love of drag queens. I discovered Madame Pamita on Delta Work’s podcast Very Delta. Jinkx Monsoon introduced me to Pam Grossman and Missing Witches. They have helped me put terms to concepts and validated that what I was thinking and feeling was not wrong.

Devouring the Missing Witches podcast has been one of my best educational tools. Risa Dickens and Amy Torok deep dive in the history of witchcraft and magic, without ignoring the ugly, gruesome, and unpleasant. They acknowledge the indigenous people whose land we live upon and culture we have appropriated. They helped me discover the book Witches, Midwives, & Nurses by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English. This book intrigued and angered me as a nurse and cisgender woman. Reading about the persecution of women, branded the title witch and then murdered by the patriarchy, by capitalism, by organized Christians. I am transmuting this anger into working with my irrational fears.

While scary movies will linger in my mind, giving me the creeps before I fall asleep, I still love them. I still watch them, but only during the day! I am trying to get over this fear of the dark. I had a past life reading in which I was told I was imprisoned and died in a dark cell. This reading linked to so many of my dreams and I think I will have to dedicate a post to how I weaved it all together. Learning that all the evil associated with witches is just bullshit spewed by patriarchal Christians has started to diminish my dis-ease with the dark and spooky.

Of course it is the woman who is cursed, who is evil, who is easily possessed. The mothers in both The Conjuring and Haunting of Hill House attempt to kill their children after becoming possessed by evil spirits. Is this a patriarchal, simplified way to explain the mayhem of motherhood? It must be a demon. Not the tidal wave of hormones, loss of independence, forfeiture of body and self contributing to an overwhelming sense of dread that life is never going to be the same and you have no fucking clue what you are doing.

The patriarchy would rather demonize women, making it socially unacceptable to express the full extent of what it means to be a mother, a woman. As someone who experienced postpartum depression, it fucking sucked at times. How many women throughout history suffered in silence due to fear of persecution? Fear of being labeled delusional, psychotic, or possessed? We still do this to woman to this day. I am in graduate school for my nurse practitioner. Below is a screenshot from the program we use to search for diagnostic codes. The first time I searched for “menopause,” I was appalled that the actual ICD-10 code I needed was not even in the top 7, but these psychiatric codes were there like an expected occurrence.

This is what control looks like. This is what it looks like to disempower people. This is othering. And I am fucking done with it. I am done feeling powerless, scared, and alienated. I will not let the patriarchy make me feel less than. Part of taking back my power is getting over my fear of horror movies and the dark.

Recently, I watched The Witch, Midsommar, and Hereditary. These movies are haunting, creepy, and disturbing. I loved them. Studying witchcraft has helped me dissect the spooky elements. My neurodivergent brain needs these facts or else my fantastical thinking will run wild. The scene in The Witch, when the Witch rises in front of the huge full moon, covered in blood it made my heart race, but not in fear. Minus the infanticide, it was a badass moment. A few years ago, this would have felt disturbing and lingered around my brain, especially when I am alone late at night.

I started writing this post right before the Summer Solstice, originally intended to discuss how the light is ending and we will are entering the dark part of the year. My thoughts are tangential as Mercury has shifted from curious Gemini to intuitive Cancer during this time period, trying to intellectualize my feelings. A pattern that I have repeated throughout my life. My Aquarian Sun thinking too much and my Scorpio Rising wanting to go deeper. Organizing and filing emotions into neatly bundled categories that are easier to handle. Working with my birth chart has helped me learn how to handle these bundles, channel my creativity, and strive to be my most favorite, fearless self.