00:01:35.020My first circle was around the kitchen table at my great Aunt Bea's house,
00:01:39.660and it took the form of a near-decade-long Euchre tournament.
00:01:43.520Euchre is a card game with four players, two teams of two.
00:01:47.460Witchily, you and your partner score points, treats, by winning tricks.
00:01:52.220So around this table, with my mother, Aunt Bea, and a fourth, sometimes my grandmother, sometimes Aunt Dorothy or Aunt Janet, I learned to play Euchre and so much more.
00:02:06.280Over the shuffling deck, I picked up family history, family jokes, and my Aunt Bea's words of wisdom about the game.
00:02:13.640As I matured, I discovered that these lessons were always translatable, transferable to every aspect of my daily life.
00:02:23.700I learned that fate deals your hand, but how you play the game is up to you.
00:02:29.600Scorpio is an idealist, so let's take that energy and use it to imagine a functional, balanced, and harmonious society.
00:06:23.840Though these things can certainly heighten the atmosphere
00:06:26.740A circle is any place, in any form, wherein witches, women, and or other marginalized people gather to safely exist, to listen, and to be seen, hear stories, tell stories, share our gifts and burdens, bear witness to trauma and steal its power, bear witness to joy and watch it multiply.
00:06:52.840A circle can be a quilting bee or sewing circle, a book club or group therapy.
00:07:01.120A circle can be a grid on a laptop screen of loving faces in various states of pixelation,
00:07:07.440like our coven's new moon zooms. Totally healing and delightful.
00:07:13.620A Sunday brunch with your pals at which you piece together the hazy adventures of the previous night
00:07:19.080can be a circle. And this circle is perhaps witch's most powerful tool. It doesn't have
00:07:25.500to be framed as magical because it is inherently magical. It's how we change the world, bit
00:07:33.420by bit, together. It is gathering in honesty, vulnerability, cooperation and collaboration,
00:07:42.280the halving of problems and the doubling of dreams, the solving of some mysteries and
00:07:48.180the discovery of others, a perpetual motion machine in which we both produce and absorb energy,
00:07:56.400an infinite urberus, a ring of power and protection, a warm embrace, arms looped around
00:08:04.600and around each other. We, both as missing witches and in our personal lives, have held several
00:08:12.500circles, some with close friends to celebrate or mourn or to conjure prosperity, others with
00:08:19.760groups of strangers to venerate our ancestors or gather perspectives, seeking clarity on a certain
00:08:25.660issue or theme. Though they take many forms, the only integral quality of circles is that when we
00:08:33.580enter, we release judgment. Scorpio energy may feel controlling, but we can channel that drive
00:08:42.620into controlling our narrative, willfully leaving our egos outside. The fear that others will judge
00:08:50.740or rank us is so powerful, it is often paralyzing. The circle allows us to slowly stretch out of our
00:08:59.520atrophied mindsets. The compulsion to judge and rank others is so powerful that it must be
00:09:08.220constantly, consciously resisted. The circle is that resistance. As author Judy Grain told me,
00:09:16.540our bonding is what makes a revolution happen. A circle is a training ground where we are free
00:09:25.180to brag and boast, knowing that our self-praise will elicit encouragement and agreement rather
00:09:32.200than a competitive glare or dismissive one-upmanship. In circle, we are free to weep
00:09:38.760and grieve. Without worrying, we'll come off as weak. In circle, we are free to rage,
00:09:45.360to vent our anger without being labeled bitch. In circle, we are free to express our needs and
00:09:53.280desires, knowing the circle won't paint us as needy or desperate. In circle, there's room for
00:10:00.580disagreement, correction. It's how we learn to question our self-perception and worldview.
00:10:07.500When I inevitably made rookie mistakes at the Euchre table, Aunt B would explain what I'd done
00:10:12.760and what made it a bad move. I was allowed to make mistakes because the score didn't really matter.
00:10:19.420I honed my strategy with loving guidance.
00:10:22.880But I also knew that Aunt Dorothy never wanted to be my partner.
00:10:31.860Keep this in mind as you form your own circles.
00:10:34.700For many, compassion is blocked by a sense of competition.
00:10:40.320It takes practice to stop keeping score.
00:10:43.480It takes practice to recognize that it's not up to us to determine the value of other people's choices, or worse, the things about themselves they can't control.
00:10:54.980It takes practice not only to speak, but also to be silent.
00:10:59.840Neither avoid nor solve, but simply bear witness.
00:11:05.340I remember silently holding my grandmother's hand at my grandfather's funeral.
00:11:10.900staring at my feet as they dangled from the pew.
00:11:14.440The attendees lined up to deliver their brief condolences and platitudes,