Reclaiming The Witch

The True Meaning of Witch

Most of us grew up seeing witches as the villains in cartoons and fairy tales, she is the grumpy old lady hunched over her cauldron, the jealous woman poisoning the beautiful maiden, the cackling figure flying off on a broomstick. The word witch came with the conditioned connotation of fear, ugliness, and danger.

But in truth, the word witch comes from the Old English wicce or wicca, meaning “wise one.”Witches were wise women, midwives, healers, herbalists and spiritual guides who held deep knowledge of the earth, the body and the cycles of nature. They were cherished and respected in their communities.

The Patriarchal Rewrite

With the rise of Christianity and patriarchal systems, women’s wisdom became dangerous. Independent women, especially those with herbal knowledge or spiritual insight, were labeled as threats. By demonising the word witch, the patriarchy silenced feminine power and rewrote history to make women fear their own magic and gifts.

In a society so ruled by patriarchy, overly focused on logic, science and control, we’ve sterilised ourselves from the living world around us. Yet witches have always known: there is power in seeing the threads that connect everything. The moon and the tides. The weather and the harvest. The herbs that heal, the sun that gives life, the elements that weave us into nature. To reclaim the witch within is to remember this interconnection and to awaken the wisdom we were taught to fear.

Why Reclaiming Matters

Even today, witch is still tossed as an insult at women who are too powerful, too sexual, too intuitive, too free. But reclaiming the word is an act of resistance. When we say, yes, I am a witch, we reconnect with our roots, our cycles and our power. We honour the women who came before us and declare that their wisdom, and ours, will no longer be silenced. I believe there is a witch in every woman, waiting patiently to be woken up. And being a witch doesn’t mean you need to cast spells over a cauldron. It means living from your inner knowing; whether that shows up through herbalism, cooking, tending fire, working with crystals, singing, writing, or simply moving through life with intuition. To awaken the witch within is to remember who you already are.