Roe Wade and Witches

But today we need to talk about Roe Wade and Witches.

As you no doubt know, Roe V. Wade has been overturned by the United States Supreme Court. This means that instead of having abortion and a women’s right to choose whether or not she has an abortion protected by the Federal Government, it will now be decided on a state by state basis.

A number of states including the one that I live in, have trigger laws that were set up right after Roe V. Wade was decided the first time in the Supreme Court and the first federal laws came on board protecting a woman’s right to have an abortion. These laws will effectively ban all abortions in the states where they are enacted.

Other states already have laws at the ready that will legally protect abortions without any conditions whatsoever.

The states will be divided over yet another issue that most Americans have complicated, nuanced, and similar feelings about.

Funny how the places we fall apart from each other always get the headlines and not the places where we find one another.

Now y’all know that by and large I eschew politics in our community. Not because I don’t care, but because politics is everywhere and in everything and I firmly believe that we need some spaces where our political differences (and samenesses) are NOT the things that are centered.

And.

At the same time, I have an inbox full of women asking me what to do in the face of this event. These are friends, students, colleagues, and clients. To them I owe a response.

In the fifth module of Spinning Gold we work with the stories of Medea and La Llorona. These are ancient stories, told on different sides of the world, about infanticide. Both mothers have children that they love…terribly, completely. Both mothers find themselves in untenable, impossible, situations. Their lives are in danger. Their childrens’ lives are endangered. Both mothers choose to take the lives of their children. Both mothers then experience the aftermath of that choice. These stories are tough. They are not for the faint of heart. They weren’t back when they were first told and they are not now. We work with these stories for a number of reasons, but one of them is to see clearly that a Sacred Artist, a magic-maker, a Witch, has one of two ways to react to impossible, incomprehensible situations.

You can curse.

Or, you can cure.

That’s it, bottom line. You can dress it up in a lot of different ways but at the end of the day we orient ourselves in a manner that curses or cures Roe Wade and Witches.

Curses or cures institutions.

Curses or cures laws.

Curses or cures allies.

Curses or cures opponents.

Curses or cures ourselves.

That’s it. Those are your choices.

I’m not here to tell you which one is wrong and which one is right…I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to, and I don’t. I’m definitely not here to tell you that there is a never a time and a place when cursing is not justified…I know first hand that’s not true.

But it is part of my job to remind you all that there is one of two ways into what comes next, and that which way you choose is especially important because you are here, reading this, which means that you have more power and more impact than you probably realize.

Curse or cure.

Choose with care.