A daily dose of witchiness

My May has been interesting so far.

I kinda took an unannounced hiatus here for a bit—I cancelled my Beltane gathering at the start of the month, and I’ve delayed the launch of my first matriarchy session. Partly that was due to personal health reasons (rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia BOTH decided to flare starting some time in February, and may not yet be finished despite 24 days of prednisone and my usual RA treatments, etc.).

Partly, it was due to me spending time first thing each morning in the merry month of May spending some time investigating what a matriarchy might entail, and asking my tarot deck what it thinks.

But what exactly is a matriarchy?

I’m glad I asked.

A matriarchy is a society where women (or people with the same values as matriarchal women) are in power in society. In a matriarchy, the women in power tend to do what is best for society, not what is personally best for themselves. The protection of children, the elderly, and those who are at risk for a variety of reasons (LGBTQIA+ status, illness, disability, etc.) is a key tenet in a matriarchy. Thus, things like food, healthcare, education, and the like are better-funded and are prioritized in a matriarchy, over the ideas of “productivity” and “success” put forth in today’s patriarchy.

In a matriarchy, all people are autonomous (nobody is property), and all people are properly mothered. We have shelter, safety, enough to eat. We have the ability to make our own decisions about our bodies. We have access to medical care that actually studies women when it develops policies, procedures, and new treatments.

Those of us who had mothers who worked for the patriarchy or were nothing more than lost little girls who got big need to envision what healthy parenting would look like.

It should go without saying, but it is NOT the patriarchy, which is based in white male supremacy and a hierarchy with a few wealthy white men at the top and everyone else underneath. When you hear Elon Musk wanting to be the first trillionaire or multi-trillionaire, it’s because he thinks that it’s money that puts anyone at the top of the pyramid, so he figures he will be best if he’s got the most money. But truly, what the patriarchy values most is power—and money is one of the key tools of power, but domination of others is important to patriarchal success.

One thing that a matriarchy is not is “a patriarchy with women in charge.” It is, of course, what many men believe a matriarchy would entail, and they assume (wrongly, of course) that if women become the ones in charge, we will treat men the way that men have treated women for centuries.

They really, truly don’t want that.

They are frightened of being mistreated the way women have been. They are also angry at losing any of their perceived power.

It may be as close as some of them ever come to acknowledging how harmful their treatment of girls and women has been.

What my cards have been saying about matriarchy

I’ve been using the Weiser Tarot, a re-colored, more inclusive version of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck for this project, and let me tell you, the deck and the spirit of the matriarchy have OPINIONS. I will share some of those with you

Today is Day 13, and out of 13 days, I have received TEN major arcana as the card of the day. I check the cards at the top and bottom of the deck after the daily card (or cards) make themselves known, to see what additional guidance the deck is offering. There have been 9 majors on the top or bottom of the deck, along with 8 court cards (page, knight, queen or king).

If you are not familiar with the tarot, there are 4 suits in the “minor arcana”, which form a total of 56 cards (all 52 cards of the regular card deck, plus one additional face card per suit that is the “page” (assuming that the “Jack” in a regular deck is the Knight). Each of the suits corresponds to a particular element (earth, air, fire, water), and give guidance about everyday life.

There are an additional 22 cards (numbered, somewhat oddly though it makes complete sense) as zero through twenty-one. These are the “major arcana” cards, which tend to involve karmic or “bigger than everyday life” ideas and influences.

Having 2/3 of the daily cards (so far) be major arcana tells me that the creation of the matriarchy is a Big Deal. It is important, it is part of a movement, it is essentially a Zeitgeist whose time has come.

Today’s card was the Death card, which is another of the major arcana. I was specifically speaking to my maternal ancestors on my mother’s side, asking their thoughts on establishing a matriarchy. On my altar is a teacup that belonged to a great-great grandmother who lived in Yorkshire, and this Yorkshire rose horse brass that my grandmother gave my mother once upon a time after she made a trip to Yorkshire to visit her cousins.

My maternal ancestors say change is coming. And soon. They literally see “the death of a king” being a necessary prerequisite, but they see it happening. A new dawn is coming. And in case I wondered if this message was from my Yorkshire ancestors, check out the flower on the flag death is carrying.

I ask different questions on different days, not usually aimed specifically at my ancestors.

One of the things that has come up more than once is the idea that racism needs to go, once and for all. The decisions to split black and white women during suffrage, and to stop Reconstruction in the United States and allow the creation of Jim Crow laws were disastrous mistakes, and once we move forward, we ALL need to be able to move forward. People who espouse white supremacy in any way need to be removed from whatever “polite society” we create, and crawl back into their holes and stay there.

Yes, it’s important that respect be given to people from all backgrounds, but that does not mean that all ideas or beliefs are deserving of respect. For instance, you might disagree with me on this, in which case I invite you to go away and find someone to be racist with. Hate has no home here.

Another thing the cards have said is that we need to be taking whatever small, daily actions we can NOW that reflect matriarchy. Maybe that is pushing back when someone says something misogynistic or that supports pedophilia, because as women, we ALL know we were seen as sex objects long before we were teens.

Not long ago, a man took one look at my grandbaby and said to her parents “she’s so beautiful - you are going to need a chastity belt for her in a few years. Boys are gonna line up to date her.”

SIR. That’s gross. Go stand in the corner.

That baby was only 9 months old, and already being sexualized. Also, think really hard about what it means that boys are going to line up to take a turn with her, which would require her to have a padlock over her genitals to prevent harm.

She is busy learning how to walk and talk, looking at the world as an adventure, and already grown men are making it about sex and wanting to put her in a cage. Fuck all the way off with that bullshit.

So maybe it’s telling men (and some women) that their comments to children are inappropriate. Or maybe it’s reporting a groper to HR instead of brushing it off, again. Or maybe it’s taking a small step toward a new friend or activity that helps you feel empowered or supports matriarchy and feminine autonomy. Or maybe it is taking a break, without apologizing to anyone for the fact that you need a few minutes (or more) to yourself.

Look for more posts to come . . . I have 13 days of notes so far and could probably write at least 20 essays about what the cards have already brought up for me.

In the meantime, start to be the matriarch you’d like to see in this world.