Stop Mincing Words. Let Them Choke.

Or, reclaiming the Queen of Swords to heal the witch wound (PLUS, BOOK CLUB WITH ME!?)

I was doing a tarot spread for myself once a few years ago, and for the card representing my true nature, I pulled the Queen of Swords.

It felt like a slap in the face. I hated this Queen. I didn’t want to be anything like her anymore.

I had spent my whole life growing into and emulating this clever, cutthroat, confrontational Queen. And what had I gotten in return?

As a child I’d been called a know-it-all. Boring. Bossy.

When I got older, a different B-word was used.

My ambition - or perhaps just my spite - pushed me to double down, go to law school, and become an attorney.

After just a few years, I became disillusioned. For too many professional women in corporate America, these jobs still mean repressing any signs of femininity and going all in on our masculine-coded intellectual, analytical, and aggressive side. And I was slowly realizing that doing so would not only never grant me true acceptance or respect from most of the men around me, but it was making me emotionally and physically ill. I was experiencing chronic insomnia, anger issues, constant self-doubt, and a complete lack of presence in my own life. (Which is to say nothing of the sexism and sexual harassment I had to endure on a regular basis as the only female attorney - and sometimes the only woman, period - in the room.)

I slowly came to accept the possibility that I was simply unsuited for the role of Queen of Swords. I was done trying to be “one of the guys.” I was exhausted. To hell with the Queen of Swords, I decreed. I will be nothing like her. I vowed to soften and embrace my femininity. To leave the spaces that made me feel small and worthless and to spend more time in environments that made me feel valuable and expansive as I explored my creative and artistic side. I pursued academia, a vocation of learning, sharing, and collaborative creativity, and I have thrived in a career built around care, community, and competing only with ourselves.

I started to explore my intuition and meditation. Aligning rather than hustling. Attracting rather than chasing. I tapped into my emotions and unleashed my sensitivity. I prioritized compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude, even when people underestimated me, insulted me, or treated me unfairly.

I unlearned so much. I made great progress. I had truly turned over a new leaf!

So when I turned over that tarot card in the “my true nature” position of the tarot spread, I was almost certain that I would see the Empress or the Queen of Wands beaming back at me.

And yet, there she was. The Queen of Swords.

I burst into tears.

A few months ago, I binge-watched A Discovery of Witches on Netflix while nursing a cold. (Highly recommend for academics, Anglophiles, witchy folk, or, if you’re like me, all of the above!) So the next time I was browsing in a bookstore, I was inspired to pick up Heal the Witch Wound: Reclaim Your Magic & Step Into Your Power by Celeste Larsen.

What exactly is the witch wound, you may ask? According to Larsen,

The witch wound is a collective, intergenerational, psychic wound that is rooted in the Burning Times—an era of widespread persecution and violence against suspected witches.

Now, I’ll be honest. Any type of talk resembling “I come from a long line of witches” loses me pretty quickly. As a woman of color with no European roots, I just can’t identify with this. Pre-adolescent me certainly did, wishing more than anything that I had been born a white girl who could have descended from the powerful Celtic witches with fiery red hair pictured in all the Llewellyn volumes my friends and I devoured in the tiny occult section of Borders Books.

These days though, all that language does is remind me that most books on witchcraft are written by white women about white women who descend from white ancestors with European culture, mythology, and traditions. Where does that leave people like me? As a lover of witch lore and mythology and witchcraft as feminism, I kept reading Larsen’s riveting book even though part of me had resigned to the role of deeply fascinated outsider.

And here’s what I was delighted to discover:

While the witch wound certainly manifests in those of us who identify as witches, the witch part of it can also be considered a metaphor that doesn’t literally connect us with witchcraft if that’s not part of our lineage or identity.

Larsen suggests that the most common signs of the witch wound are things like:

• being afraid to speak your mind or be seen for who you are

• struggling to fit in

• harboring guilt and shame

• constantly doubting yourself

• experiencing a deep desire to share your gifts with the world but playing it small because it feels safer

This is about the point where I rushed into the living room with no context and asked my husband, “Hey, who does this sound like?” and reread Larsen’s list.

I don’t come from a line of witches (that I know of). I don’t know about past lives, or that I even believe in them. And I don’t really identify as a witch although I have had the honor of being considered one a few times in my life. But Larsen was describing me to a tee! Perhaps you too?

Much of Larsen’s book is curiously not about witches in the literal sense, although anybody who identifies as a witch is certainly included. Larsen contends that the witch wound can exist in anybody who identifies with the witch archetype, which is slightly yet crucially different.

I’ve explained in past newsletters that when we’re dealing with archetypes in mythology or tarot, we aren’t dealing with literal or concrete definitions, concepts, or people. An archetype is an abstract version of a character or concept that exists in our shared - or collective - unconscious. The witch archetype, then, refers to what that term has become to signify over centuries: the ultimate Other.

In 16th-century Germany, Scotland, elsewhere in Europe, and eventually in Salem, most of the people being persecuted weren’t even witches, whatever that shifting term even meant at any given time. They were healers, spinsters, free thinkers, alleged temptresses or perhaps adulterers, landowners in someone’s way, the elderly, those with disabilities, Jews. Anybody who challenged or subverted the Christian capitalist patriarchy in some way was a potential victim of these witch hunts.

And while the witch hunts were rooted in misogyny and especially targeted women - which is important to honor and state explicitly - others including men, gay and gender non-conforming people, and people with disabilities were also persecuted.

This means that while the witch wound is particularly common and highly activated in women living in a patriarchy, it is just as much an “otherness” wound rather than a specifically “feminine” wound.

I fell in love with Larsen’s archetypal, inclusive, and accessible exploration of how the witch wound might affect us today. It turns out a lot of us could benefit from healing the personal and often unconscious trauma we feel from our inner witch wound. In Larsen’s words,

Healing the witch wound…is about taking steps now to reclaim your power, live a more magical life, and embody your most authentic self. . . . As you progress along this journey, you will . . . work through your limiting beliefs, find empowerment within, and break the cycle of fear, shame, and guilt in your lineage—and in doing so benefit society as a whole.

Which brings us back to the Queen of Swords.

The image of this tarot court card kept coming up for me as I read Heal the Witch Wound, and that’s when I remembered the tarot reading I recounted at the beginning of this newsletter.

Do I actually hate the Queen of Swords, or do I hate the way she is perceived and treated in our misogynistic patriarchy?

Is the Queen of Swords a bossy bitch, or is that what our sexist patriarchy would have us believe in order to cut smart, independent, free-thinking, and articulate women down to size?

Am I actually unsuited or incapable of embodying the Queen of Swords, or does the generations-deep witch wound caused by misogyny and an oppressive patriarchy make it ridiculously scary and difficult for many women to speak up and take up space in this world?

I know many of us in this community refer to ourselves as recovering people-pleasers. We find ourselves habitually doing and saying things we think will please others in order to gain their validation and keep the peace. And whether we’re aware of our people-pleasing motivations or think we’re simply more chill, zen, or considerate than others, Larsen suggests that this behavior could be a trauma response to the witch wound:

When the witch wound is driving these actions, what is really happening is that your wounded inner witch is attempting to find safety by making your words as nonthreatening as possible to the people around you. . . . [I]t is about your own inherited fear of rejection, conflict, and persecution.

It makes perfect sense to me now why drawing this tarot Queen was so triggering for me years ago. Learning about the witch wound has made me realize that I don’t hate her or reject her influence. I just didn’t have the language before to express how uncomfortable and dangerous it feels for me to embody the Queen of Swords sometimes.

And it also makes perfect sense to me why the Queen of Swords kept materializing in my head as I read Celeste Larsen’s Heal the Witch Wound. This tarot Queen represents someone who trusts her thoughts and speaks her mind. Someone who is not afraid to express herself and will stand up for herself at all costs. She advocates for herself and others and refuses to be told she is unqualified or unsuited, even if that means she will be mocked, ridiculed, rejected, ostracized, even hated.

The Queen of Swords insists that we stop holding our tongues to please the patriarchy, the conformers, the maintainers of our society’s misogynistic status quo. “Stop mincing your words,” she says. “Let them choke.”

I can see now that I didn’t hate this Queen at all. I turned my back on her because I wanted to be liked and I wanted to feel safe.

I turned my back on her because my witch wound was too much to deal with at that point in my life, and embodying her was extremely triggering. It still is.

(Writing this tarot newsletter is one big exercise in self-torture some weeks, let me tell you!)

I wasn’t ready to face and heal my witch wound. But I think I am now. And I owe this Queen an apology. I will never turn my back on her again.

How does the concept of the witch wound resonate with you? Have you read Celeste Larsen’s book? Do you want to!? If you want to dive deeper into it and explore how tarot can help us reclaim our magic and step into our power, I would love to read Heal the Witch Wound together in community!

Here’s what I have in mind as well as two poll questions I would love for you to answer to help me figure out how best to plan this tarot book club.