Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Mawiyah Kai EL-Jamah Bomani, author of the new Conjuring the Calabash.
Whenever folks come to the realization that I am a witch and they themselves are not in the market for cozying up to witches, they do one of two things. Either they take on the role of what can only be compared to a vampire slayer, minus the wooden stake thrust into my black heart, but with all of the gasping and crucifix prophesying kicked up I’d say to the zillionth power. Or, they quietly excuse themselves from my life forever—goddess blessings and good riddance. Now the old me would have given all the flucks she had on deck and even a few borrowed from relatives. These days, since paying off my house note, since emptying my nest of four children, and since being three years away from retirement, it is like thanking Goddess that all the flucks I have left can fit securely in the palm of one hand. This means I have fewer flucks left to store under lock and key. I have downsized my fluck 401k and it only contains the bare fluck minimum.
There is a witch in room 112. She is cute but brazen and a bit slutty when she wants to be. Since perimenopause has sashayed into her life, just between you and me, she wears white in and out of season. You know that pisses people off, which is why I always remind them to just let it out. Go on, for fluck’s sake, say it; you know you want to. How about we chant it together? How dare you wear white after Easter? You scandalous witch.
At work, I am the witch in room 112, the woman who refuses to roll out of bed, forsaking her 3 a.m. yoga and her morning cup of Cuban coffee simply to pray to Jesus that the children’s test scores increase so that a building full of manic-depressant teachers can get monetary kickbacks. All jokes aside, being a public witch has freed my soul immensely. Not only do I get to skip the standardized test score prayer circle, but I am also excused from the Pledge of Allegiance and from judging the Halloween pumpkin art contest, where pumpkins are carved to depict scenes from biblical parables—like Jezebel being thrown to her death from a window for painting her eyes and adorning her head. To add an even greater insult to bloody injury, the pumpkins’ innards reveal Jezebel’s corpse trampled under the hooves of horses. I know it’s hard to believe, but I live in the buckle of the Bible belt, and even Halloween leans into a chance to play Jesus dress up.
I know that screaming from the rafters, “I am a flucking witch, so deal with it” is not for everyone. That’s why I don’t advocate that every witch around the world jump free from the broom closet. I get that we have to protect our sanity and our financial status as much as possible. We live in a world of narcissistic, patriarchal, sociopathic evangelical proselytizers. These folks are blatantly stewing in a pot boiling over, fueled by hatred. I know that at fifty-one years around the sun, I am fortunate to have been born into and married into families that respect and advocate for my right to choose whether or not I want a sky mama or daddy or both or none. That’s the same choice I have extended to my own children
As a teacher privileged enough to have taught K-12 and then adult education, I have run across a few kindred spirits. It happened; you had to be there as a Wiccan, a Buddhist, a Hoodoo, a Satanist, and a Light Worker giggled, gossiped, and became enraged about the politics of not only America but of school systems upholding critical race theory as if Indiana Jones had unearthed a CRT artifact buried deep within the ark of the covenant. Critical Race Theory (CRT) is the artifact that will save the fate of America. I am calling B.S. on that. We’d spend a few hours after work banishing stagnant energy from our auras. We each took turns protecting each other’s doorways and used baneful magick to rid our schedule of our tyrannical boss. As each person grew closer to retirement or transferring to new positions, more drawn-out rituals were to be had to ensure that the power of the collective forever protected the individuals still remaining behind.
Walking into the building each morning, I can still feel the residual Spirits of my Sistah witches whispering, “The witch in room 112 is here now and forever, protected, loved, and grounded in the essence of salvation. Don’t fluck with her mood, or you’ll be more than sorry. You risk expulsion from humanity!”
Our thanks to Mawiyah for her guest post! For more from Mawiyah Kai EL-Jamah Bomani, read her article “Hoodoo for Little Fingers.”
