Meet the Witches
About Phred
Who am I?
Honestly, this question stumps me every damn time. To sum myself up in a few words for public consumption is hard and the rebel in me balks at it, because I am so many things.
My journey to not only find myself but accept who I am has been long and winding.
I spent many years denying the darker aspects of myself, I was told that to be whole I must turn that darkness into light, learn to be more acceptable – less me. So, I put on faces that didn’t belong to me, and didn’t fit quite right, hoping that it would be enough and that I could find my place in this world.
For years and years I wore those faces, waiting for the day they felt like home, and ignored the pleading in my heart to rip them off and stand in my truths, because I believed that if I could just be more like those shiny, happy women I would eventually become one. And who I was, was not what the world wanted or needed.
So I appealed to others using the same words that I had been fed and wondered why they turned to mud in my mouth. I did all the things that the love and light crowd implored me to do – I tried it all and yet the fractures in my spirit didn’t heal, they felt as if they were growing bigger and tearing me apart.
I was angry all the time, my marriage was struggling, my kids were struggling and I looked in the mirror day after day and didn’t know who it was staring back at me. I stayed stuck in this space until a woman that I had known and admired for years put out a simple message on Facebook asking if there were anyone out there struggling and looking for help in healing themselves. I can not even begin to describe the yearning and absolute terror I felt reading her words, and the hours it took me to work up the courage to reach out and say “yes, I need help.”
That woman was Zoe Sol and that day began the unraveling of the person I was into the woman I am now.
Who am I?
I am a walking contradiction and it has been on this journey of unbecoming that I was able to answer the call of my magick and begin exploring my craft, something that is just as full of contradictions as I am -
I am a House Witch that wants nothing more than to create an environment that nurtures and cares for my family and friends. Yet I am also a Witch of the Underworld, called to delve into the dark, gathering my power from a place of shadows and blood.
I am a Kitchen Witch who’s love language is feeding all who enter my home and using tea as a balm for what ails you. Yet I am also a Alchemist who carries the medicine of both Snake and Vulture, eating away at the muck and transmuting it into creative energy.
I am not made for the surface. In my process of unbecoming, the ripping away of the masks of acceptability the call of the deep and the dark has begun to sing in me again.
Acceptance isn't what I'm after anymore, I'm here to be seen.
I want nothing more than to help you through your process of unbecoming and becoming. To witness you as you strip away all the outmoded ideals you have shrouded yourself in. Fuck that – I want to see the glorious mess of contradictions that you are too.
About Zoe Sol
I am not made for subtle. I never have been. When I was a girl I was frequently bullied for being “weird,” “loud” and “annoying.” I made friends with the animals and talked to Fae beings. I put on plays and made up songs in languages I never knew but were somehow more familiar to me than my own. I grew up in a world of magick. But that also opened me to a world of teasing, oppression and alienation. So much so that eventually I did the thing most all us witches do to save ourselves. I went in hiding. I buried those parts of me that were unforgivably strange and mysterious. I exchanged them for normalcy and acceptance. Yet, she was always there. The peculiar child with stars in her hair. Though small and forgotten, she was calling this whole time.And that’s when I lost my mind.
I was queer in a family that rejected me. I had unresolved trauma and undiagnosed anxiety. It was in my early twenties that addiction set in. It was not long before I found myself homeless and desperate. I hitchhiked to Portland, OR where I found shelter in a drug house. That’s where I finally lost my soul.
And one day, I went completely insane. My grip on reality shattered and I was in the midst of a very real war.
I am not subtle. I never have been.
The cops took me away to a holding cell were I saw my demons dancing in the dark. My consciousness split into two paths… one would release me from everything. I call it The Void. It would become a comforting prison of apathy and take me away from this world. The other path would be moving back into the world. But not the same world. A world that would demand healing and facing myself again. A world that would require me to find her, the strange girl that spoke in tongues and communed with the trees. It would require me to dig her up and place her in the sunlight, and look and see what had been done to her. And begin to unravel the mess. And begin to unravel myself.
The second path would require unfathomable strength and a fierce grit. But I am not made for subtle. I am not made for voids or apathy or comforting prisons.
And so I began my journey.
I could impress you with my resume. I could tell you all about how after rehab I went on to train in witchcraft, reiki, hypnosis, and art. I could tell you how I formed bands and became a professional entertainer performing alongside Amanda Palmer, the Black Eyed Peas and more. I could list off my credentials from radio to newspaper and leading public events and rituals. I could use this page to list my accolades in hopes you’ll accept me as worthy in status.
But that’s not what I am here for.
I am here because I want to rip open my soul story. I am here because I have been to hell and back and I know that hell is a prison we create. And if we create it, we can also destroy it.
I am here because I want to build a world where none of us live in hiding. A world where the strange and the magickal exist with out apology.
We have been silent for too long. We the witches, the untamed and keepers of the mystery. This planet is ready for us to step into our power and unleash the wildling within.
I am not made for subtle. And if you are here now, neither are you.
So won’t you join me? And let us tread a new path forward. With our soul as a beacon and the moon as our guide. A path where trees speak and we listen. A place where hooved and winged and fanged unite. A path towards a new world; The Old World. A World of Magick.