General – Feminism and Religion

Weaving Magic Together: Reflections on Co-Teaching Witchcraft by Freia Serafina and Amie Ritchie

Welcome, dear reader. It seems you have found yourself at the Witch’s hearth. Imagine–if you can–a cozy cottage, a comfortable rocking chair, a steaming mug of something to drink, and a conversation between two witches who have journeyed together in sisterhood and collaboration over the past year. They are the founders of Witch Workshops, a year-long, community program designed to uplift personal and collective witch wisdom. I hope you’ll stay a while and listen as they reflect, interview-style, on what they’ve learned, what they’ve taught, and what they hope for the future.

Can you give us a sneak peek into one of the workshops?

Amie: Okay, let’s travel back to December 2025… The candles are lit, our bodies are present, we’ve shared reflections around the fire, and it’s time to practice. We unearth and honor the forgotten mothers. I introduce the Cailleachan, and Freia welcomes Skadi to our circle–two ancestral guides from both respective lineages. During our practice, we’ll invite, materialize, and initiate a release. Later this month, our community will share who may be guiding them through this dark side of the year. The monthly challenge will be to rest and rest some more. Last, we’ll offer an intentional closing before the next month begins.

How did Witch Workshops emerge?

Freia: We became fast friends as PhD Students in Women’s Spirituality at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and realized we had more in common than a love for reading and research. We shared a passion for ritual, entrepreneurship, and facilitating community experiences. We thought it would be fun to create a space for witch-curious or established witches to explore, learn, and practice in community. Over the course of many brainstorming sessions, Witch Workshops emerged. It didn’t hurt that we Leo’s share the same birthday and have fond memories of casting spells and mixing potions from a young age!

How did you approach your collaboration?

Freia: Prior to Witch Workshops, I had a very particular view on what witchcraft was, is, and should be. For instance, my witchcraft is heavily influenced by Goddess worship. When it comes to teaching other witches, however, Goddesses may be minimal or even nonexistent. Witchcraft–after all–is a craft; a practice, not necessarily a religious belief. Working with Amie and the Witch Workshops cohort, I was constantly reminded that my way was not the only way; something easy to forget after many years as a solitary practitioner.

As a headstrong Leo, this new flexibility needed constant tending to. Each month, Amie and I would sit and discuss what each theme, sabbat, season, or practice meant to us and what it could mean for others. More often than not, we found common ground across traditions or discovered practices that could complement one another. With deep respect and reverence for the other, our workshops became spaces of exploration, creativity, and empowerment.

What’s been your favourite part about co-facilitating your witchcraft program?

Freia: Each month, we give our community a “challenge” to complete. These challenges could be creating a ritual, writing and performing a spell, working with herbs, and so much more! These challenges help us stay active and grounded in our practice in between our meetings. Over the past few years, the world has felt a bit heavy. It sometimes became easy to forget my own inner magic and power. These challenges woke me up each month! Now, I had something to build towards; something to do. Thanks to our workshops, I have restocked my herbal medicine cabinet, taken myself foraging more regularly, and filled out my book of shadows in new and exciting ways. I feel connected to myself, my ancestors, and the land in an embodied way.

Partaking in these challenges alongside a group of witches who are doing the same made me feel connected and held. Having a space to share ritual workings, spell ideas, and co-build said spells and rituals has been life changing. Knowing that you’re not walking alone on your path is comforting.

Amie: It’s hard to think of favorites as there are so many beautiful elements of our co-facilitation that stand out. One of the most profound experiences for me was learning to receive support and lean on Freia as my partner. I had an unexpected cervical spinal surgery in June which saw me wearing a hard collar for three months and in pain for several more. There were a couple months where I could barely sit at the computer for the length of our workshop, let alone help to create our slideshows and deliver it as usual.

Freia, who has experienced chronic pain herself, was incredibly supportive and understanding of my new situation. She took the lead and never once made me feel I needed to push myself. Being held in that way reinforced not only the strength of our partnership but the joy within it. After our June workshop, I recall Freia saying she really missed my active presence in the space and I know I’d miss hers, too. Though we’re both skilled facilitators alone, it’s far more fun and sustainable collaborating together. I’m entering this next year of the program with full confidence that we can handle whatever is thrown our way with grace, resilience, and care.

How does teaching witchcraft reflect your feminist values or praxis?

Amie: I really value embodied knowledge and ways of knowing that depart from what Minna Salami calls “Europatriarchal knowledge,” which is that linear, rational, top-down approach to knowing. For me, teaching witchcraft in community highlights other ways of knowing like intuition, embodied experience, and learning from the natural world. It’s highly relational. We teach our members to practice from a place of interconnection and relationship – not only with ourselves, but with the unseen, the earth, and each other. Witchcraft is about power with versus power over. For me, teaching that centers relationships over domination is decolonial feminist praxis. I’ll also add that I value joy, especially in these times of polycrisis where grief can feel unbearably heavy. We laugh, joke, and let ourselves be light right alongside the tears, uncertainties, and tensions we meet together.

What do you hope transpired over this first year?

What we hope more than anything is that our members’ inner guides have been activated and tended with care and courage. We hope each member has discovered what witch means to them and feels confident in their practice. We hope they feel more rooted in their magic and that they are an important part of the collective.

Anything more to add?

We can’t bid adieu without prompting a spark of reflection for you, dear reader. What stirs within you when you hear the word “witch”? What about “magic”? What might reclaiming your power, agency, and creativity mean for this year ahead? We’d love to discuss all of that and more at our free workshop on February 7th, Witch: Reclaiming and Renaming. Come sit by the fire with us. http://www.witchworkshops.com.

Well, dear reader. Our steaming mugs are empty. The fire has burned down to embers, and the moon is high in the sky. I hope you enjoyed the conversation between these two witches. Please share your thoughts, reflections, or any experiences of collaboration and witchcraft in the comments below. May our words weave together, creating community for us all. Words are spells, after all!

Author Bios: Amie and Freia joined magical forces to co-found Witch Workshops after becoming friends in CIIS’ Women’s Spirituality PhD Program. Freia Serafina is a ritualist, women’s circle facilitator, award-winning filmmaker and artist, and PhD candidate in Women’s Spirituality. She’s passionate about unearthing hidden Herstories, creating healing-based rituals, and drinking coffee with her two cats. As for Amie, she is a heart-centered, water-loving witch with a passion for ritual, rivers, and more-than-human relationships. As a PhD student in Women’s Spirituality and an integral healing facilitator, Amie is committed to decolonial praxis, writing as ritual, and lifelong (un)learning. She lives with her husband and black cat along a river and thriving ecosystem she calls home. Find out more at http://www.witchworkshops.com.

“Care -a- vans” by Beth Bartlett

“ . . . when people no longer have the space to construct homeplace, . . .”
Minnesotans mobilize – providing home wherever the need arises

On Friday, January 23^rd, seven hundred faith leaders from across the country heeded a call that had been put out just a few days before to come to Minneapolis to train, to observe, and to protest actions by ICE agents in the Twin Cities. Hundreds of them gathered in an interfaith service at Temple Israel. Others joined the National Prayer Call for Minnesota. And still others headed to the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport to engage in nonviolent direct action against the MSP airport authority, and Delta Airlines and Signature Aviation in particular, for their complicity with ICE in transporting those arrested either for deportation or for removal to other detention facilities.

While I was simultaneously livestreaming both the Temple Israel service and the National Prayer, Cal, my son, was among those headed to the airport. In the midst of my concern for his and others’ safety from both the bitter cold – it was -40 below windchill – and from the violence of ICE agents, came the words of Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman offering a prayer for all those engaging in the protests that morning. In that moment, my anxiety eased as I could feel them all being surrounded by the prayer shawl of protection. Then, in a stunning moment of synchronicity, the cantor at Temple Israel sang while a Buddhist priest on the National Prayer Call invoked the blessings of Kuan Yin, goddess of compassion – the compassion that moved the protestors to act, but also that which surrounded the protestors with care. For while thousands engaged in protests that day – 50,000 at the march in sub-zero weather, and thousands more daily participate in protests on the streets and outside the Whipple Building – the ICE detention center in St. Paul, or act as constitutional observers throughout the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota, even more are engaged in daily acts of sustenance and care to support the protestors and those afraid to leave their homes for fear of being detained and disappeared by ICE. These acts of care are at the very heart of the resistance.

Omen by Sara Wright

I was driving down the road when I noticed a dead owl. Sun glare blinded me, but I stopped to identify the bird.

It has been many years since I picked up dead owls on the road – thirty five years in all. I began this practice of bringing home the bodies of these creatures when I first moved to the mountains. Finding so many dead owls in a brief span of five years was frightening, but someone in me knew that I needed to honor these Harbingers of Night. Yet the last thing I wanted was to be identified or aligned with an owl, so my behavior rose out a body that never lies. Visions of my mother’s love of owls clouded my mind. Within months of this mountain move a Navajo Medicine woman informed me that I had Owl as a Familiar. Horrified, I resisted mightily. Yet despite what seemed like a curse, I was still compelled to sculpt owl pots out of clay for five years. The losses I endured during this time changed the course of my life.

I taught myself how to dismember owls. I burned owl remains in my woodstove as a symbol of deep respect and out of fear. I always kept feathers and wings in honor of these mysterious night beings not understanding why.

In these United States: A Gratitude Poem, after all, for 2025, by Marie Cartier

Oh yes, I’m grateful for the Portland frog—that blow up adult sized character with the pink scarf blowing back in the wind facing down a squad of ICE “officers.”

I’m so grateful for all the blow-up adult size characters who showed up at the largest protest for anything, single day protest in the U.S. to shout NO KINGS!! And more—the blow-up Tiger with the sign “Fascists get scratches!” My wife inside a blow-up bear, the California bear! With a sign that said, “Yes on 50!”

And so grateful we won: yes, on 50!

Grateful, grateful, for Indivisible! Spreading like Morning Glory. Glory! Glory! Across all 50 states and feeding people, feeding children, passing out whistles – alerting communities when ICE is nearby, stopping ICE in their tracks when they are places, especially in front of schools… I mean, why are they there? (As Gertude says, “There is no there there.”)

But this is a grateful poem. A rant.

I’m grateful for the blow-up unicorn with the sign, “Honk if you are not on the Epstein list.” Dancing on the curb with the rest of us. I’m grateful for all the cars honking as they went by us and all the food donated to give to people in need—some of those in hiding since last spring when this b.s. started – this f*** bullshit– but this is a grateful poem. A rant.

State of Siege by Beth Bartlett

Moderator’s Note: We are breaking into our hiatus because of the importance of what is happening in Minnesota. FAR is not designed for breaking news but we do look at underlying patterns about what is going on in the world and what we are seeing is patriarchy in action. We think it important to bear witness and to understand the trends of what is occurring. This piece by Beth Bartlett does both.

Author’s Note: I live in Duluth, Minnesota, 150 miles north of the Twin Cities where “Operation Metro Surge” is being conducted by ICE agents. Since first writing this, the invasion and siege against the Twin Cities has increased. The Department of Homeland Security has sent 1000 more ICE agents to Minnesota, making the total over 3000. Constitutional observers and people simply driving through an area or being at gas station or parking lots are being pepper sprayed or detained. ICE agents are smashing car windows and dragging people from their cars. ICE agents have targeted schools and daycare centers. They are going door to door. The brutality they have unleashed is indescribable. No one is safe. But the resistance is strong; the mutual aid efforts even stronger. People are caring for each other. …. And as I write this, ICE agents have arrived in force in my city.

“This city will be wiped out, and upon its ruins history will expire at last. . . .”
–Albert Camus, State of Siege

“Loving the daylight that injustice leaves unscathed. . . I found an ancient beauty, a young sky. . . in the worst years of our madness the memory of this sky never left me. It was this that in the end had saved me from despair.”
–Albert Camus, State of Siege

The scene as I drove to the protest and vigil against yet another of the government’s actions and agents was a bit surreal. Juxtaposed against the violence and state repression lay the backdrop of a strikingly beautiful sunset, the sky streaked with pink and purple, peach and blue, and then ahead of me as I passed the hospital, in glowing neon red, the words ”EMERGENCY/TRAUMA.” Yes. We are facing an emergency in this country and trauma of epic proportions. Violence and beauty, rage and tenderness – both. Among the fellow vigilers — friends, former students, long-time comrades in the struggle. We hugged and cried, lit candles, shared our hopes, our fears, our sorrows. Together in this moment we found community in each other.

FAR is on Hiatus

We are also offering you two videos to watch. The first one is an interview with co-weavers Janet Rudolph and Xochitl Alvizo which was done by Carolyn Boyd for Mago. A transcript is available here. The second one is from Caryn MacGrandle of the Divine Feminine App. It is about making a Divine Feminine Library and the effects of AI.

The Elder Berry Woman, part 4 by Sara Wright

Moderator’s Note: FAR will be on hiatus for the month of January. We wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Before we head into our hiatus we will post a four part serialized story from our long-time contributor Sara Wright. Today is the final installment. It is her personal wisdom story. Enjoy!

A few minutes later we continued our conversation under the rugged roots of a nearby pine. The Berry woman had tucked herself into the cracks of the tree’s bark!

“I saw the Mother Tree in my dream – she’s me, isn’t she?”

“Of course. I hope you noticed that she was very much alive, despite her wounding.”

All I had seen were the holes, the dried blood that poured out of her center. Now I imaged the whole tree in my mind, as if seeing her for the first time. She wore a silvery crown of graceful bare branches, and despite the oval black holes in her body she was elegantly dressed in gray ribbed bark. She wasn’t dying.

“You never saw her before – all you noticed were the holes, not a resplendent tree standing between her two sisters. You have a tendency to focus on what’s wrong and that limits your vision. Some of your favorite woodpeckers made those holes and raised children in them.” Woodpeckers create space for new beginnings…and most holes, even those that weep, do not kill the tree. Note that you have two sister trees and neither have holes. You are not alone!

The Elder Berry Woman, part 3 by Sara Wright

Moderator’s Note: FAR will be on hiatus for the month of January. We wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Before we head into our hiatus we will post a four part serialized story from our long-time contributor Sara Wright. This is part 3 of 4 parts. It is her personal wisdom story. Enjoy!

I thought of the 30 years I had spent celebrating monthly and seasonal changes through earth – based ritual. Every rite had one requirement that included some kind of letting go, surrender, or death of a quality/attitude no longer needed. I had learned that some types of ‘dying’ were part of an ongoing cyclic process requiring endless repetition. But in all these years I had not been able to feel my physical death as part of that round.

“Could it also be that dealing with the fear of death was partly developmental? Maybe I am just moving into this psychic region of influence now? At 70 I am starting to feel that one day, in the not-so-distant future I shall die.”

“What you just said is important. Dealing with dying on a personal level is to some extent developmental. The fact that you are starting to feel death looming as part of your future may seem frightening but is another positive development. You must be able to feel those feelings and one day the child must join you to reach a point of acceptance.”

“I am so tired of stupid fear,” I whisper.

The Elder Berry Woman, part 2 by Sara Wright

Moderator’s Note: FAR will be on hiatus for the month of January. We wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Before we head into our hiatus we will post a four part serialized story from our long-time contributor Sara Wright. It is her personal wisdom story. Today is part 2 of 4. Enjoy!

“I want to trust you Berry Woman, but I can’t let go of my fear.” I feel ashamed admitting the truth.

“You endured the legacy of abandonment, and this has given you great strength, but you have also been cut away from your ability to trust, and the safety of being Earthed. You are like a tree without a taproot, vulnerable to collapse in heavy winds and storms. If you can lean into me just for a moment you will feel a difference. Shut your eyes. Try it.”

I close my eyes. I breathe deeply, sudden images of hearts thrumming, soft skin next to mine… then I feel the warmth of my two little dogs. I am totally relaxed; I trust my dogs implicitly.

“That’s right, start with who you do trust – you are well aware that your dogs have been your most powerful teachers since childhood.”

I get it.

Start with what I have, not with what I don’t. I think about Nature whose benign presence is palpable in all but my most despairing moments. Isn’t this how the Berry Woman came to me? A big part of me must already trust her.

“Let’s leave the trust issue for now and move on to the second problem. You have no faith in your ability to persevere. You are strong but you must say no to the negative voices that undermine you, and to do that you must be able to listen to what they are telling you.”

The Elder Berry Woman, part 1 by Sara Wright

Moderator’s Note: FAR will be on hiatus for the month of January. We wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Before we head into our hiatus we are trying something a little different from what we usually do. For the next four days we will post a four-part serialized story from our long-time contributor Sara Wright. It is her personal wisdom story. Enjoy!

Preface:

I began this story 10 years ago, put it away unfinished, completed it 5 years ago just before Covid struck, and lost it. When did it suddenly surface? On the Eve of All Hallows. Three days ago.

Because the story is autobiographical it deals with my personal issues. However, there are universal elements that people may identify with… this tale attempts to deal with some of the questions and the problems associated with aging, fear of death, and dying. I would greatly appreciate feedback.

The Elder Berry Woman

I turned 70 a month ago, crossing an invisible threshold. With this birthday I reluctantly entered the first year of my ‘elder’ years. “Red Birds” awakened me at dawn. The two cardinals spent the morning hours chirping and hopping around the grapevines outside my bedroom window. I felt deep gratitude for these feathered presences that seemed to understand that this birthday was charged with a heaviness I couldn’t diffuse. My intimate relationship with these birds has been predicated on grief. These cardinals were reaffirming that Nature responds to the longings of the hungry heart.

I have reached the conclusion that aging is a subject that no one wants to touch in case it’s catching. We sprout platitudes. We pretend that age won’t rob us of our abilities or our autonomy. We “forge on” with military precision until we discover that even raking leaves can pull muscles, creating new inroads for pain like I did just last week. Others “soldier on” hiking or scaling mountains when feet, ankles, knees, and hips are starting to complain. Forced snow – shoveling strains back muscles sometimes to the breaking point, as does heavy garden work. In our culture this bull –like ego driven behavior is lauded while bodies weep. “Keep busy” pancaked women chime with false Barbie faces cracking under the strain of deadly smiles. “You’re only as old as you think.”