Witch Imposter Syndrome
My Evil Eye bracelet broke during sex, need advice
So writes a panicked Reddit-er, to which I say, “Girl, you’re ahead of me.”
You employed a talisman against the Evil Eye. I am a Sicilian-American woman at midlife and am just now researching what this even means.
This is a witch imposter moment, for sure. Yet the flag of Sicily literally has Medusa’s head on it, and what could be witchier than that?
Yet, like many people, I don’t know much about my ancestry as my dad passed away when I was seven. Even when he was alive, he refused to teach me Italian. My Sicilian grandparents were already gone, and he didn’t share any of his cultural heritage. He wanted my brother and I to think of ourselves as Americans. Clean slate. No past. The American Dream of becoming whoever you want to be. That beautiful place where we never arrive called The Future.
Yet I do remember him using the phrase gajones, as in “that takes big gajones.” Perhaps by using Italian he thought he was side-stepping swearing in front of us. Intuitively I knew there was power in that secret word. I’d need big gajones to succeed too.
For my 20’s and the beginning of my 30’s I ran on will power and big gajones. In light of a Tarot system devised by Mary K. Greer, it makes sense.
My soul card is The Magician and my teacher card is the Wheel of Fortune. I’ve been thinking about how Amanda Yates Garcia frames the soul and teacher Tarot cards:
Your soul card is what you’re meant to become in this lifetime. My soul wants to become the best version of The Magician it can, and to add only what I can to this archetype.
Your teacher card can appear as an enemy but is actually here to your aid your evolution through the lessons of your soul card. As you see yourself in relationship with your teacher card, it moves from enemy to dance partner.
The Wheel of Fortune showed up early for me. I was lucky to be born into a family who loved me but extremely unlucky that my dad passed away at the age of fifty one. He had diabetes and heart disease, and died of his third heart attack in 1984. I was lucky that my mother loved me but unlucky that she belonged to a cult called Christian Science. She didn’t believe the body was real, or that sin, disease, or death were real. This was traumatic given what I’d witnessed with my dad’s illness and death. I was lucky to be healthy physically for the most part. But when I became depressed and anorexic at the age of ten, my mother did not get me medical care. And so forth…
In my late teens, 20’s and 30’s, I continued to swing from The Magician to Wheel of Fortune. At 17 years old, I fell in love with a man I met at Walden Pond. I thought our meeting was “fated” since one of my best friends had died in a car crash that year, and her wake was held at Walden. It was one of her favorite places. I had a passionate relationship with my college boyfriend but it led to my first (and only) stay in a mental hospital.
The Magician must learn how to use her tools. I’m still learning how to use witchy tools like a wand. But the wand I’ve been using since I was a kid is a pen. It opened the gates of the underworld many times. I would not be alive today without it.
If you’ve entered the underworld of trauma, and made it out alive, you’re a witch. If you’re an artist of any kind, you’re a witch. The Goddess isn’t a gatekeeper. She’s all of us.
I think I just realised something - I have imposter syndrome, but for writing.
Erica, this post touches on some deeply personal themes. Thank you for sharing.