Witch Wounding and the Spiral Path
For most of my adult life, I lived adjacent to myself.
Not in a dramatic or tragic way. From the outside, my life looked full, capable, even impressive. I ran businesses. I held responsibility. I kept things moving. I was trusted with other people’s visions and livelihoods — a historic movie theatre, a construction company, complex operations that required steadiness, organization, and care.
And I was good at it.
Those roles touched parts of me that genuinely matter: stewardship, problem-solving, community, structure. I don’t dismiss them. They shaped me. They taught me how to hold weight, how to think long-term, how to lead quietly and effectively.
But something in me was always… off to the side.
My creativity — not as a hobby, but as a way of being — had been decentralized from my life. Intuition lived in the margins. Curiosity was something I indulged privately, quietly, often apologetically. The deeper threads — the mythic, the symbolic, the ancestral, the magical — were present, but not centered.
It felt like living in a well-furnished house while keeping one entire wing locked.
The cost of circling
I don’t think I lacked courage. And I don’t think I lacked skill or vision.
What I lacked was a sense of permission — not from the world, but from inside my own body.
For years, I circled the work that actually animates me. I studied it. I practiced it quietly. I read, researched, experimented, tended gardens, foraged berries, made food with intention, noticed patterns, listened deeply. I trusted my instincts in private spaces, but hesitated to claim them publicly.
Part of that was practical. Responsibility narrows focus. When you are holding systems together — payrolls, schedules, safety regulations, deadlines — there is not always room for the ineffable.
And part of it was relational.
Many women will recognize this without needing it spelled out: when your knowing is subtly dismissed, when your interests are framed as impractical or indulgent, when the things that light you up are tolerated rather than respected, you learn to shrink them. Not consciously. Not dramatically. Just… enough to keep the peace.
Over time, that shrinking becomes habitual.
The Witch Wound isn’t just history
When people hear the phrase Witch Wound, they often imagine something distant and historical — trials, burnings, persecution long past.
But the Witch Wound is not only about what happened to (predominantly) women centuries ago. It’s about what happens inside women when insight, intuition, spiritual authority, or creative power are treated as suspect.
It lives in the hesitation to speak plainly.
In the instinct to soften truth.
In the reflex to over-credential, over-explain, or hide behind productivity.
In the belief that being visibly devoted to one’s inner knowing is dangerous — socially, relationally, economically.
You don’t have to identify as a witch to carry it.
You don’t have to work magically to feel its effects.
Any woman who has learned to second-guess her own perception will recognize the terrain.
Creativity as a way of living
For me, returning to myself didn’t arrive as a single revelation. It came through ordinary, embodied acts:
Putting my hands in the soil again.
Re-Learning the language of plants and seasons.
Foraging and understanding plant history, not as aesthetic symbols but as living allies.
Preparing food slowly, deliberately, remembering that nourishment is also a form of communication.
These practices aren’t separate from intuition — they train it.
They teach patience. Attention. Relationship. They restore a sense of belonging to cycles larger than productivity metrics or quarterly goals.
And slowly, as I allowed these ways of knowing back into the center of my life, something else shifted: my voice.
Visibility brings the wound to the surface
Here’s the part that often surprises people: the Witch Wound doesn’t always show up when you’re learning or practicing privately.
It shows up when you’re seen.
When you teach.
When you publish.
When you speak publicly.
When you say, without apology, this is what I know.
Podcasting, writing, spiritual leadership, creative work — these aren’t just outputs. They are acts of visibility. And visibility has always been where women’s authority gets contested.
This is why so many women feel a strange mix of longing and resistance around sharing their work. It’s not laziness. It’s not imposter syndrome in the shallow sense.
It’s memory — personal, cultural, ancestral — asking, Is it safe now?
Standing in the threshold
This year, something in me stopped negotiating.
Not because the fear vanished, but because the cost of staying peripheral finally outweighed it.
I’m no longer interested in decentralizing the very things I’m here to explore and embody. The mythic, the intuitive, the historical, the creative — these aren’t side interests. They are the framework.
This threshold — between knowing and speaking, between circling and stepping — is the space I’ll be working in during my upcoming workshop with Obsidian Academy. Not as a performance, and not as a promise of arrival, but as an honest exploration of voice, visibility, and the long shadows many women carry around being fully seen.
For you, if this resonates
I want to leave you with something you can carry on your own. If you want to explore the witch wound in your own life, use these journal prompts as a starting point:
Where in your life have you learned to keep your knowing private?
What part of you has been “useful” but not fully expressed?
If you stopped negotiating with yourself, what might move to the center?
You don’t need to answer these quickly. In fact, it’s better if you don’t.
Let them work on you the way seasons work on land — gradually, without force.
If you feel called to continue
If this reflection meets you at the right moment, there are a few ways to go deeper:
I’ll be teaching a live workshop with Obsidian Academy exploring voice, intuition, and the Witch Wound as it relates to creative and spiritual visibility on February 3, 2026. Enroll at www.monicabodirsky.com
I have an upcoming column in the next cycle of Raven Tongue Magazine - which will unfold across Autumn 2026 through Summer 2027 for ongoing study, reflection, and practice. Visit www.raventongue.com for subscription information.
A self-paced Witch Wound course will be available in the digital shop once it’s complete.
All of these are invitations — not obligations. The work begins wherever you are willing to listen.