The Gold Country Witch

Witch versus Shaman… what’s the difference?

As a professional witch, many people have asked me over the years why call myself a witch? “Why not just call yourself a shaman? Witch is so polarizing and has such negative connotations. Shaman is healing.”

There are many reasons for this. But first and foremost, it’s simply not relevant to what I do. Let me explain.

Shaman is a word that comes from Northern Asia and Siberia, out of the Tungus languages, and was originally used to refer to a holy person more related to what we might call a soothsayer or an Oracle. This was and remains an initiatory tradition passed down from elder to apprentice, generation to generation. For a long time it was a word that was held in the sacred obscurity of these tribal people, until early anthropologists came along with their armchairs and notes.

In a rushed bid to create a glossary and legitimize itself as a study, early anthropologists took a mess of words from various cultures and gave them new meaning to fit a euro-centric, academic view of the world. As anthropologists attempted to stretch and force these terms to fit new meaning, their original intent and cultural origin was lost to the public. It became especially popular from the 1960s onward as the spiritual revolution of that era began. It has since become a catch-all title for anyone and everyone associated with healing or magical arts.

Among these words was also the word, “witch”. A term already long demonized and warped. Witchcraft in early anthropology unsurprisingly became associated with practices of “black magic” and nefarious dealings, while shaman became the word related to earth-based, animistic healing practices. Neither term was accurate or used with respect to their origins.

Since then, both terms have evolved and expanded and become almost unrecognizable to their origins, encompassing an entire globe of practices and traditions, unrelated to their roots. Every healer is a “shaman”. Every magical practice is “witchcraft”. And very few know the origins of those words or their meaning. Folks don’t know what they don’t know. But, this is about *my* personal choice…

As a woman of indigenous Californian/Mexican, Western European and Mediterranean descent, “shaman” is a word that is both foreign and unrelated to my practices, my family and my traditions. While I love seeing the commonalities and similar practices and values between animist cultures, it would not only be incorrect, it would be disrespectful for me to co-opt a term stolen by white men and incorrectly assigned to the world at large. I don’t want to play a part in redefining or obscuring its meaning or the people whom still live on the margins and are oppressed by their governments. Some of whom have asked that the term no longer be appropriated and misused. That would be the opposite of my values.

I call myself a witch, a curandera, a medicine worker, a rootworker… even a bruja (despite the negative catholic influence on this term) because that is what is true and relevant to my practices, my people and my traditions. I call myself an Auntie, a priestess and a leader because these are the titles others have bestowed on me, and I accept them with honor. I choose my terms intentionally and I have chosen not to refer to myself as “shaman” with respect towards the indigenous people who birthed that lineage. I am not an initiate as a shaman in their lineage. Therefore, I am not a shaman.

But most importantly, I do not change what I call myself to make others comfortable with what I do, or to make myself more “marketable”. Their colonial attitudes are not my burden to carry and not my duty to appease. But I am here to help decolonize and deconstruct those beliefs that keep you from rediscovering your own magic, removing the obscuring thoughts and words that keep you from what your ancestors fought and bled to keep. Obscuring who we are, is the work of the colonizer. Let the voice of your own ancestors sing loudly through you.

When I release my attachment to someone else’s culture and heritage, I honor my own by coming home to it again and again.

You are invited to discover your witch within ✨🪶🌞🌙✨
Have you always felt a magnetic pull to the magical and mysterious? Do find yourself reveling in the tingling sensation of energetic connection? Do you believe in magic?
If your answer is yes to any of these, many of your ancestors would agree with you. The draw to magic and earth medicine is innate, a deep and powerful memory of our connection to The Source. And it is real. Whether you call it energy, life-force, spirit… it is the root of witchery and all it’s magic that weaves us together in an eternal dance.
But at times it may feel like we have forgotten the steps to that ancient dance and lost the tempo of that rhythm. But the keys that reveal the journey home are as close to you as the cells in your bones.
Join me for a thirteen week journey back to the heart of living witchcraft. This course will offer knowledge, insight and practice in the foundational elements of witchery and earth medicine based in my years of study and practice as a professional witch and community priestess.
My journey has been illuminated by the constant yearning to find a path that honors and makes a home for all of my ancestors as a mixed race woman. In my studies I have found these traditions and practices to be at the heart of many, in some cases all of our collective heritage, making them a potent and profound foundation to build a personal practice on.
I am so excited to be sharing this magic and medicine with you, and I hope you will join me on this journey.
Whether you are just starting your journey or a seasoned pilgrim of the path, this course offers a strong foundation to build and strengthen your personal practice.
Find o u t more and r e s e r v e your spot at the l i n k in my b i o ✨🌙🌞✨

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O my heart….

14,000 years old bison sculptures found in Le Tuc d'Audoubert cave. Ariege, France.

We had a chat and they wanted me to tell you… Love notes from nature💌✨ 🥰♥️🌎💐🌿🌞🌛

Mother of Dreams ✨🌿🌕🌿✨a wildcrafting workshop
Mugwort is one of the most celebrated and long revered herbs in witchery. It’s varieties grow throughout Europe and Asia, and California has our own special native, Artemesia douglasiana. Mugwort has many powerful traits and qualities both magically and medicinally. Also known as dream plant, mugwort is especially associated with dreams… particularly dreaming of and with the ancestors. As a California/Baja native, this plant is especially sacred for me, and has been part of my peoples medicine for generations. I am very proud and honored to be sharing this sacred and special kin with community.

Please join me for a very special workshop, where I will be sharing the medicine, magic and proper method of harvesting our dear friend, Mugwort. This time of year is ideal for gathering this medicine, as it is at its most potent, just as the sun is at its strongest. We will be gathering early in the morning, as this is the best and most respectful time for the plant to be harvested to honor it’s healing and life cycle. There will be a very short hike with a briefly inclined trail and some short, off trail trekking to reach our special friend. This workshop is limited to six guests so as to observe the Honorable Harvest, allowing the patches to remain healthy and flourishing. Following a brief workshop and community harvesting, we will finish with a small honoring ritual in the park, connecting with this sacred medicine, and share a potluck brunch. A portion of all proceeds will be donated to the as the keepers and protectors of this sacred land.

If you would like to claim your spot, RSVP by sending me a message or email. I look forward to sharing my people’s medicine with my community.

Mother of Dreams
Mugwort Wildcrafting Workshop
Sunday, July 9, 8 am
meeting at Richard Marriott Park in Pocket, Sacramento

22-33 sliding scale

SACRAMENTO Workshops are back! Come make magic with me in the Delta Mystic space at The Rosewood Room!

New Moon Ritual Workshops ✨🌑✨
Celebrating the dark cycle of the moon with seasonal interactive rituals led by Community Priestess, Alisa. Experience the magic of ritual while learning through intentional participation and community.
*Open to adults and teens accompanied by an adult*
💲22-33 sliding scale

Spellcrafting Workshops ✨🎨✨
A magical crafting workshop with seasonally themed witchy projects, led by Alisa Rose and guests. Learn and explore practical, fun magic with simple crafts and witchy wisdom.
*open to all ages, children and teens must be accompanied by an adult* pricing varies

Sip N’ Spell Witch’s Night Out ✨🍹🕯️✨
Explore your inner witch with a magical night out. Sip on tasty cocktails and mocktails, and explore your inner creative sorcery with seasonally themed witch crafts.
*Grown Up Night Out exclusive*
Prices vary

Want to claim your spot early? Shoot me a D M and get an early bird di sc ou nt

Everyone is creative! I firmly believe that. We all have our own unique form of creative expression with a totally one-of-a-kind expression born from our experiences, knowledge, struggles, spiritual wisdom and connection to spirit.
Being able to manifest our ideas and visions is one of our most profound powers as physical beings. And our level of cultural development is evidence of that. We have the ability to see things not just as they are but how they could be… and are then able to crystallize them into something new.
In spiritual communities, you will often hear leaders and teachers forsake the mind and body as baggage that weighs you down on your spiritual journey. But it is when our body, mind and spirit work together in unison as one that we can achieve our highest forms of magic and true whole self.
My job depends on a constant and steady flow of creative energies. Im sharing a short list of some herbs and plants I like to incorporate in my creative work and spells that have been powerful and profound allies. I’ve also included a simple candle spell using some of these herbs that can help empower your unique creative spirit and invoke a focused and easeful flow in your craft.
May the abundant blessings of creative energy be upon you! 🙌🏽✨🌞🌈🌻♥️ Así sea 🤲🏽

Anyone else like adding garden petals to their food? 🌸🧚‍♂️this was a blend of California poppy, calendula and Dianthus making for some lovely money drawing magic

🥰💕☕️✌️

What an incredible concept!!

Meet the Forgotten Creator of the Most Iconic Tarot Deck Arthur Waite gets most of the credit for the Rider-Waite Tarot, but it was actually the creative genius of illustrator and mystic Pamela Colman Smith who brought the cards to life.

Dia de Mu***os, Day of the Dead, the beautiful honoring of our ancestors is nearing, and as I do every year, I am sharing my reflection on Mexican Dia de Mu***os.

Leading up to the days of remembrance and celebration, I will share some of my previous DDM posts to help followers of this page better understand and prepare for these holy days. You are invited to look at previous years’ DDM posts for information I might not share this year.

I share this reflection because observance of Dia de Mu***os which is held throughout Mexico, is being increasingly adopted by people of other ethnicities and backgrounds who lacking a ritual of their own, have found in our Dia de Mu***os a heart-home where they can honor their ancestors and other loved ones who have crossed over.

While we are happy to share our beautiful ritual, Dia de Mu***os must be treated with respect, reverence, lightness of spirit, and an understanding that Dia de Mu***os is not Halloween, but a remembering and sacred witnessing of the joys and sorrows of our ancestors, and a celebration of the strength of spirit of we, their descendants, to preserve the soul of this pre-European contact tradition.

As a result of the European/Spanish invasion, forced conversion to Christianity (Catholicism in particular), and ongoing colonization of what today is known as Mexico, Dia de Mu***os now takes place on November 1 and 2, having merged with the Catholic All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day.

Typically, November 1 is to honor children and infants, known as Día de los Angelitos (Day of the Little Angels). November 2nd honors adults and is known as Día de Mu***os.

Indigenous peoples in Mexico (and in other countries in what is now the Americas where Indigenous people’s traditional territory extends beyond contemporary borders, such as our Maya relatives) have been holding these celebrations for 3,000 years. In 2003 UNESCO proclaimed Mexico’s Dia de Mu***os Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Before Mexico’s invasion by Spaniards, these holy days for the Mexika (Aztec) took place in the month that approximates today’s August/September. They were celebrated for an entire month: the first half of the month as Miccailhuitontli, the feast of deceased children, and the latter half as Huey Miccailhuitontli, or Feast to the Greatly Revered Deceased (adults). Some say the festivities were dedicated to Mictecacihuatl known as the "Lady of the Dead" and that she corresponds to the modern-day Catrina, today's iconic character created in 1910 by famous Mexican printmaker and illustrator José Guadalupe Posada. Although it is possible that Mictlancihuatl was his inspiration, no one really knows, and La Catrina has her own interesting story as a truth-teller and social justice warrior.

It's important to note that there are regional differences as to how it is celebrated and that how it is observed is influenced by a family's religion or tribe-specific history and customs. For example, Yaquis begin their culture-specific Animam Mikwame Taiwae, Dia de Mu***os, observances on October 1st.

In my circle of family, friends, and community, we prepare for weeks to properly host relatives who have walked on before us: our tatas, nanas, tias and tios and other relatives who will return to this realm to visit us during Dia de Mu***os. As you begin your own preparations, please source your Day of the Dead items from Mexican artists, bakers, and artisans. If you are responsible for putting together a Dia de Mu***os educational program or special event, please consult with and employ Mexican/ Indigenous people rather than someone who is not part of our culture and community -- and consider giving back to our community in tangible ways as a way of showing your appreciation for us sharing our culture, food, music, and spiritual traditions.

For many, Day of the Dead celebrations begins on October 31st, which is the night Mexicans remember deceased children, while the night from the 1st to the 2nd is dedicated to the adult dead. A pathway of brilliant marigold flowers will guide them to our home to enjoy some time with us, within whose hearts they yet live. They'll be knocking at midnight, looking at their photos on our altar, smelling the aroma of their favorite food, and cleansing themselves with the smoke of copal incense.

We build ofrendas (altars) to their memory at home and sometimes in public places. Some altares are simple and some are elaborate. Often we hold vigils at the cemetery taking our time to lovingly clean headstones, place candles and bouquets of cempaxochitl (Aztec marigolds) on graves; toys for children, delicious pan de mu**to, tamales, drinks, and incense burners filled with fragrant copal. It is not uncommon for us to take lawn chairs to the cemetery and sit for hours, sometimes all night, recounting favorite anecdotes and memories of special days gone by. We might hire a small Norteño or mariachi to play favorite songs that our beloveds enjoyed when alive. It's both a sad and joyful time as we pray, sing, laugh, and reminisce.

In the days leading up to Dia de Mu***os I will be posting photographs, videos, and articles on Mexican Dia de los Mu***os and hope that what is shared helps you celebrate the life of your loved ones while at the same time respectfully preserving and honoring this important tradition that is the religious and cultural legacy of the ancestors of Mexihca, Maya, Tlaxcaltec, Chichimec, and other Native peoples of what is today known as Mexico, as well as Indigenous traditional territories that today may overlap adjoining countries.

With respect, I ask that you please keep in mind that Mexican Dia de Mu***os is rooted in culture-specific spiritual/religous observances. I realize that there are other countries (e.g., Chinese and Celtic, among others) that observe what may appear, on the surface, to be a similar custom. Still, those observances do not have the same origin and unique expression as ours. Used out of that context, as in dressing up as La Catrina for a summer or winter solstice celebration or other non-Dia De Mu**to event, could be considered disrespectful, especially when done by someone who is not a member of the Mexican / Indigenous community. By this, I mean taking one or more elements of this cultural-spiritual ritual and using them in a different context than for which it was intended.

When changes are made arbitrarily to a tradition, or worse, it is misappropriated, those changes begin to erode its power and its beauty. The same power and beauty that first drew you to it. Help protect this sacred observance.

As neither forthcoming posts nor this one are meant to be scholarly articles, please understand that not every detail or aspect of Dia de Mu***os is addressed. I encourage you to empower yourself by researching your family stories and delving more deeply into the origins and history of Dia de Mu***os.

Con respeto y aprecio,
Maestra Grace Sesma
Curanderismo, the Healing Art of Mexico

Artist: Rick Ortega, https://rickortegaart.com

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5 Lies You May Believe About Voodoo and Santeria It happens everywhere but particularly regarding the subject of religion, stereotype and myth abound. Let's "see" what we can find when we look at the most popular stereotypes surrounding the traditions of Voodoo and Santeria (La Regla Lucumi.)

❤️🌎🌍🌏❤️
RealNativeBotanicals.com