The Ancestral Witch I Dreamed Of
She’s Closer Than You’d Think
I don’t remember her face or her hair. I don’t know how tall she was or how wide. I don’t remember the color of her eyes or the shape of her lips. But I knew her. I dreamed of her. Ever since childhood, I knew her. She was part of my ancestry; I just couldn’t find her. In the majestic, mystical tree of life — as above, so below — where she was, I did not know, but I felt she was always watching over me.
She was who made me feel special with all of my differences from the other children. Who made me feel safe. Who made me feel loved. Accepted. Enchanted. She was a ghost who I always thought would manifest. I’d find old photos, locate stories, a history of who she was, and how she lived before she died, leaving me with magick in a mundane world that did not know what to do with me.
She was the ancestral witch.
My sister is the family genealogist. We’re both grown now. I thought for sure my sister would find her — someone’s journal somewhere, some tall tales passed down the family line. But no. The closest we came was Great Grandma Olinger, and as much as I look like her, eerily so, she is not the witch I was looking for.
I gave up looking. In fact, I gave up magick. Too much “real life” happened — enough to convince me that magick could not save me. There was not a spell that kept cancer from claiming my womanhood, to keep my eldest child from running away from home, to ease the poverty, to save marriages. And if magick could not do those things, then what was its value? I had lived a magickal life, raised my children with magick up until my 30th birthday, and then I walked away and didn’t look back.
I did not understand that magick isn’t what it can do for you but the way it can empower you to do for yourself. Magick is not meant to keep you from having life experiences but to strengthen the way you respond to them.
I did not understand.
I was turning 50 when I moved to Nebraska post-divorce. I almost moved back to Las Vegas to be with my siblings and my mom when my son, recently back from Japan and nearing an end to his military career said, “Just come here. Just be with the grandkids. Give yourself a chance at a better life.”
And so I did.
I never got to be near the grandlittles. They were so young when my son’s military life had them traipsing all over and beyond the country. Four years they spent in Japan and the only way those children knew me is because my son was loyal enough to have video chats with me once a week. When they got back from Japan, they stopped at my house in Washington for a rest and a visit before driving to Nebraska, and I came to visit them in October. In that short time, we formed bonds, but nothing like when I came here to live.
Magick is a funny thing and works in peculiar ways. A week after arriving in Nebraska for my new life, I fell and shattered both the shin bones in my right leg while I was playing red light green light with those littles in their front yard. That was just over two years ago. That injury brought us together in ways I never could have imagined. When I couldn’t walk, they wanted to sit with me. When I was able to stand, they wanted to hug me. Always close. Always cuddling.
August of that year, I turned 50. What a mind game that is, yeah? And the strangest, strangest thing happened. I had been lost in the mundane for 20 years, ish. I was writing about spirituality before my divorce, but it was more like factory-style research writing and not anything from the depths of my soul.
I felt empty. I felt powerless.
Mundane.
But on my 50th birthday, a portal opened. My son’s family gave me a cauldron, a coffee station that said, “My broomstick runs on coffee,” kitchen towels with moon phases and tarot cards, and a magickal coloring book, as well as a book on witchcraft — something to rattle my memory.
My sister sent me a witch’s kit — a quite expensive collection of crystal chips, bottles of herbs, oils, crystals, sage, candles, a wand — all the things.
My family craves my magick. How peculiar.
That had the grand littles asking questions.
“Are you a real witch, Grandma?”
“As real as a real witch can be, I suppose.”
The first thing I made with my new witch’s toolkit was a spell jar. Even though I couldn’t walk yet, I needed a job, and I needed money. I made the jar, and three weeks later, I was offered the best job I’ve ever had in my entire life, financially speaking (writing will always rate as THE best).
The kids were fascinated, “Grandma, your spell jar worked!”
It did, indeed.
My next spell? An apartment. I needed a place to live, which followed the job by three months. The littles were gobsmacked.
Then, I began teaching them about crystals. I had picked up a few rings to wear to training for my new job - and a necklace. I got a moonstone for my left hand, a sunstone for my right hand, and kyanite for my neck. I had other crystals in my room, as I’d begun a new collection. The kids loved for me to teach and quiz them on the different crystals and their properties.
They loved my tarot cards.
Hmmm. Peculiar.
In December, I moved into my own apartment and immediately put out my witchy trinkets. That’s when the littles asked me if they could make spell jars, and so we did.
I also taught them about faeries and dragons.
My daughter-law called me one day and said that the littlest of the littles was having nightmares — terrible nightmares about spiders. My granddaughter remembered the dreamcatcher hanging above my bed and told her mom that she needed one. My daughter-in-law offered to buy her one, but my granddaughter refused, “We need to go to Grandma’s house and make one so she can magicked it.”
And so we did. We hand — crafted dreamcatchers. I also used citronella oils, telling her that spiders won’t come near citronella. It’s a “magic potion” to keep spiders away.
And then my family moved away, leaving me lost in a world of mundane without a drop of magic to be found.
Empty.
Depressed.
I have been floundering terribly.
Today, the phone rang. It was the middle grandchild. I haven’t run in two years, but I damn near tripped over myself, running to snatch up my phone.
He started telling me about how he wanted to see a faerie, so I told him the story of how long, long ago, the faeries and humans used to live in peace together. You could walk down the street and see a faerie just as easily as you could a human. Then, the humans got greedy and wanted to steal faerie magick, so the faeries put up a wall of invisibility so that the humans couldn’t see them anymore. The faeries are still right here, but we can’t see them.
“How do you see a faerie, Grandma?”
“Well, first of all, you have to believe. Second of all, you have to have a pure heart and good intentions. Then, you invite them. You can’t capture them, and you can’t try to get anyone else to see them, but you can invite them. You can attract faeries with a small piece of honeycakes, a thimble of milk, and some amethyst crystals. You can also spend time in nature, wich is the faeries’ happy place.”
Then the conversation shifted — I don’t know how, but we started talking about holidays and how witches have their own holidays based on what’s called The Wheel of the Year. I taught him how witches celebrate Ostara while other people have Easter. Some people celebrate Christmas, but others celebrate Yule. There’s even a holiday for the faeries called Litha.
“Do you celebrate those holidays, Grandma?”
Hmm. Clever question.
“I used to, long, long ago, but I haven’t in a long time. I think it’s time I start again, don’t you?”
After we hung up, I went to Amazon and ordered a Wheel of the Year hanging for my wall.
Then I napped.
Soul tired.
Spirit yawn.
When I woke up, I decided that, two years after the fact, I’d open the coloring book they gifted me for my 50th birthday. I colored enchanting pictures.
At the end of the day, I cried. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately, but this was a different kind of tear. This tear was recognition.
Recognition.
Recognition.
I AM the ancestral witch I dreamed of.
I am her.
She is me.
She was always me.
My children and grandchildren all celebrate my magick. Crave it. Need it. I am teaching them the old ways.
Are you a real witch, Grandma?
As real as a witch can be, I suppose.
And I am finding my way home — not in Washington, Nebraska, or Kentucky, but in the roots of my soul.
I’m coming home.
