The Stone Witch — Part V
The Stone Witch, by Christy Higgins, Mixed-media collage on wood box panel 12 1/4” x 21”, 2021. Original artwork and prints available.
I can’t believe we made it through a 5-part series on intergenerational trauma, rage, and shadow work together! I’m glad you’re still here to help me wrap up these daunting, but important topics.
While the Stone Witch may not possess every woman, she is an ancient archetype that holds many of us in bondage to the collective rage, grief, and despair of our ancestors, as well as our individual experiences. And since this archetype is so ancient, it means that neither did I create this monolithic grief and anger that lived in me; rather, by being unaware of her, I became another carrier of the archetype among the innumerable generations of carriers; another channel for that energy to be carried forward into future generations.
I did not have children to pass this ancestral archetypal heritage to, but I’ve allowed it to sabotage many relationships in my life with its misdirected efforts to keep me “safe” (i.e. guarded, closed, disconnected) rather than vulnerable (i.e. open, available, undefended).
As a result, I often felt alone, isolated, or misunderstood yet again. It’s been an uphill battle learning how to deal with my buried sadness, rage, and despair, as it is for many people whose early life experiences left them relationally traumatized. It’s been deep soul work learning to identify that which is truly mine to be responsible for and that which I unconsciously inherited through cultural and familial conditioning and indoctrination. It has been humbling to start taking ownership of a side of myself that I did not want to own, a side that has been unconsciously driving me to hurt people that I love. I’m still unwinding those early life messages that tell me on a deep level that I always need to please others to survive the unpredictability of human behavior.
Difficult as it may be, as carriers of intergenerational trauma, we inherit the task and responsibility of bringing the shadow contents of our psyches (and bodies) back into the fold of our conscious awareness. This not only heals us but also offers healing to our entire family line, and the larger collective family of humanity (we don’t heal in isolation; we heal together). The questions from there are many, such as; how do we heal the trauma looping through our nervous systems, our bodies, and our minds? And how do we keep the echo of trauma from reverberating throughout future generations of our collective family tree?
The Stone Witch is a powerful force to be reckoned with, but that doesn’t mean that we are powerless under her spell. We maintain dominion over ourselves and break the intergenerational pattern by opening our eyes and seeing how she lives within us. As with so many aspects of our negative unconscious behaviors, awareness is the key to freedom.
When we can embrace our shadow side as a normal part of the enculturation process, we can begin step-by-step reclaiming ownership of our whole self—both our light and dark sides—thereby becoming sovereigns of our Self. When we own our shadow we effectively begin withdrawing the projections that we unknowingly hurl onto others, especially those closest to us. This is where I have found art to be an invaluable asset to fulfilling the task of returning to a state of inner wholeness and love, which is our birthright.
What I have learned through creating art is that we can connect energies through art and creative expression, giving us an image with which to interact and symbols through which we can connect with the ethereal realm of our emotions and states of consciousness. My image of the Stone Witch (above) has led me to contemplate this energy within me and has helped to ground me in relationship to this aspect of myself I am trying to understand, accept, and integrate.
This piece has also served as a model for me of how to deal with my “witch wound” creatively. For example, by approaching my artwork with respect and asking the imagery what it’s trying to communicate about me (much like we do in dreamwork), we open up our intuitive channels, enabling us to study ourselves. In this way, we learn to live in alignment with what compels us from within, not from outside of ourselves. We learn to reorient ourselves to our inner compass, which truly is our untapped superpower.
There’s a reason people have historically been afraid of so-called “witches”; these were women of internal power. Guided by strong forces from within, they did not adhere to the rules set down by a patriarchal society that denies women power. Women have access to their own kind of power—the sort that particularly masculine men don’t readily embody—but first, they need to connect with that power from within because our unclaimed power lies in our feminine shadow. That which we retrieve from our shadows becomes a source of strength and power. In this way, the Stone Witch is transformed into a “Good Witch”, “Wonderwoman”, or “She-Ra”—pick your metaphor (or favorite goddess — I have many).
This kind of intuitive relationship with art (whether made by your hands or another’s) can truly be a language of the subconscious. As I’ve said before, I make art to reveal myself to myself, and then to share it with others so that they might also benefit. I’m curious about what my unconscious is trying to show me through my dreams, artwork, journaling, and meditation (as well as in the more shadowy expressions of accidents, illness, and “Freudian slips”). This is how I do my shadow work, and I encourage you to do yours so that you, too, may begin to reclaim your true feminine power. I’m sharing my personal story, my art, and my writing in the hope that others might be led to discover things about themselves as I have. This is the purpose of our need to create, to share, and to mine for the gold in our shadows.
NOTES & RESOURCES:
The Stone Witch - Part I, The Seeker’s Notebook by Christy Higgins
The Stone Witch - Part II, The Seeker’s Notebook by Christy Higgins
The Stone Witch - Part III, The Seeker’s Notebook by Christy Higgins
The Stone Witch - Part IV, The Seeker’s Notebook by Christy Higgins