Since Halloween this year, I've been fascinated with witches, accused witches, and witch trials. It is a unique part of history that so acutely highlights the oppression of women by the patriarchy but in a horrifying 1600s kind of way. I have been listening to a podcast about the women tortured, killed, and accused of being witches. Often times these women were accused of being witches for speaking their minds, having status/land/money/power, being healers by practicing medicine or being midwives, and sometimes simply for existing as a woman. It was women of power or knowledge or healing or simply women existing that were a threat to the power of patriarchy and they became the women accused of being witches. For their threats to the patriarchy, these women were often tortured for weeks to months on end, publicly humiliated, strangled, hanged, or burned, and denied proper burials.
When listening to the stories of witch trials, and of the hatred of women, I couldn't help but find similarities between the women of the witch trials and Mother God/Heavenly Mother. Clearly, Heavenly Mother is a God and has therefore never been strangled, burned, and unceremoniously buried like the accused witches of the dark and oppressive time we call the Renaissance. Still, in the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mother God is also hated. She has been hidden, forbidden, downplayed, and destroyed as much as possible by the male leadership of the church. Her existence, as Mother God, as Creator, as Healer, as Powerful, as Wise, is seen by the patriarchal hierarchy of the church as a threat to the worship of the Man-God and the worship of men as God. Mother God being recognized as a full God in her own right, and acknowledged and worshipped in all her power and glory has been seriously oppressed because the patriarchy views the mere existence of women as a threat to the power of men.
I feel there are many similarities between the oppression of women as witches and the oppression of Mother God. They were both seen as a threat to the patriarchy. They were both hated for their power, wisdom, healing, and mere existence. They were both stripped of any power or dignity in their home communities (for accused witches, their neighbors; for Mother God, her daughters). Witches were murdered and burned, and their memories turned to ash. Mother God has been silenced and gagged, her memory confined to the dark and quiet corners of history
While listening to an episode about the witch trials recently, I had the thought "My Mother is a witch," and thus an idea was born. Below is a poem titled "My Mother is a Witch" about the similarities and comparisons of God the Mother and witches.
"My Mother is a Witch":
In shadows veiled, a tale untold
Of a Mother divine, lost to history old.
She, a Goddess, with celestial grace,
Yet masked and silenced in this patriarchal space.
My Mother is a witch, men say,
"There's no room for her here, she must not stay,"
Her power echoes in the quiet night,
Yet in Sunday's service, She's hidden from sight.
Just like the witches of days gone by,
Often powerful healers, elders so wise,
Accused and shunned for the strength they bore,
My Mother's magical wisdom men vehemently ignore.
My Heavenly Mother, away She has been swept,
By men who claim they they know what's best.
And in the hallowed halls Her whispers can just be made
Under the patriarchal thumping of men's loud charade.
In sacred chapels, Her name unsaid,
Yet in my heart, Her power is spread.
She, the suppressed, all but burned at the stake,
A silenced deity, Her majesty and power deemed fake.
Much like Her witch-accused daughters not long past,
Accused of being witches, then burnt while tied to a mast.
Their mere existence threatened the dominion of men,
So silenced they were again and again and again.
My Mother is a witch, and yet, divine,
Her love and wisdom, a celestial sign.
Out from the night, Her wisdom soars,
A Goddess, A Mother, a Witch, and so much more.
In shadows cast by oppressive might,
I stand with Her in the darkness of the night
Longing for truth and justice, my soul bubbles
For all my Mother has been through, all Her daughters toils and troubles
(poem written with the assistance of AI)