The Healer-Woman Sense: What It Means to Reclaim the Word Witch at Samhain
Tomorrow is Samhain. The veil is at its thinnest.
And I want to say something I don’t always say out loud:
I am a Witch.
Not in the Halloween costume sense — though I have no quarrel with a good hat. In the old sense. The healer-woman sense. Someone who tends to plants and cycles and grief and bodies and the invisible threads between people. Someone who sits with the broken-open and says: this darkness is not wrong. This is the work.
If you are a healer, an artist, a caretaker, a midwife to other people’s transformations — you likely know this feeling. It is in our bones.
And if you ever wondered if you are a witch, if you cast magick — I am here to remind you:
You ARE fucking magick. And the world needs your medicine.
The History They Tried to Erase
The word “witch” comes from the Old English wicce — a practitioner of magic and healing. Long before it became a weapon, it was a description. Healers, herbalists, midwives, and wise women who held the community’s medical knowledge were the original witches.
Between the 15th and 18th centuries, an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 people were executed in European witch trials — and the majority of them were women. Disproportionately: healers, independent women, midwives. Women with knowledge. Women who refused.
This was not superstition. This was the systematic erasure of feminine healing power. And many healers today still carry an unnamable anxiety about being seen — about calling themselves experts in their own knowing. That fear has a history.
Reclaiming the word is a political and spiritual act of healing.
The Healer’s Threshold
In Celtic tradition, Samhain belonged to the wise ones — the druids, the seers, the bean feasa (women of knowledge) — who knew how to tend the threshold between the living and the dead. Their medicine was rooted in cycles, in nature, in the body’s wisdom.
At Fox + Feather, this is what we do every day. We tend the threshold. We sit in the liminal. We hold what is passing and what is becoming. Our art therapy work is, at its heart, threshold work — meeting clients exactly where they are and walking alongside them into what comes next.
On Oil Pastels and Earth-Based Making
This time of year, I always reach for oil pastels.
There is something about them that feels exactly right for Samhain. They are shmoogey, squashy, blendy. They don’t behave the way a pencil or a brush behaves. You press them into the paper with your hands. You smear and blend with your fingers. You leave marks of yourself in the making.
Oil pastels resist control — and that is the point. They ask you to be in your body. They carry pigment the way the earth carries color: ochre and burnt sienna, the deep reds of dying leaves, the purple-black of a November sky just before dark. Working with them in October feels like working directly with the season.
For a healer who tends to cycles and earth and the body’s wisdom — oil pastels are your medium right now. Let them be messy. Let your hands get dark with color. Become a part of your creation.
Pick up a set this week and make something with no plan — just the colors of what this season feels like to you. That is witchcraft. That is art therapy. They are the same thing.
A Samhain Reclamation
At dusk tonight or tomorrow, find a quiet moment. Light a candle if you have one. Say these words aloud, or write them, or simply feel them:
I am a healer. I come from healers. My knowing is my magick.
I release the fear of being seen for what I am.
I reclaim what was taken. I tend this threshold with love.
Blow out the candle. Let the smoke carry what you’re releasing. Or let the flame burn — and sit with what rises.
The Dark Half Begins
In Celtic tradition, Samhain was also the New Year. The dark half — when the light is low and the work turns inward — was the beginning, not the end. Seeds are planted in the dark. Gestation happens underground.
The culture will tell you to hustle through Q4. We offer a different invitation: descend. What needs to freeze, let it freeze. The light will return. It always does. But only after the dark has been honored.
If something in this post is calling you toward deeper work — toward tending your own threshold with support — our team of licensed art therapists is here. We offer individual art therapy sessions for female-identifying clients, trans-femme individuals, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community, ages 8 and older, in person in Guilford, CT and via telehealth throughout Connecticut. Schedule your free 15-minute consultation or call us at 860-393-0940.
Happy Samhain, fox-hearted ones. You belong to this lineage. You always have.
With love and wildness,
Sarah + the Fox + Feather Team
Fox + Feather Healing Arts
FAQ
What does the word “witch” actually mean?
The word witch derives from the Old English wicce — a practitioner of magic and healing. Before it was weaponized, it described healers, herbalists, midwives, and wise women who held their communities’ medical knowledge. Reclaiming the word is both a political and spiritual act.
What were the European witch trials?
Between the 15th and 18th centuries, an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 people were executed in European witch trials, the majority of them women — disproportionately healers, midwives, and independent women with knowledge. The trials represented the systematic erasure of feminine healing power, and their legacy persists in the anxiety many healers still feel about being fully seen.
What is Samhain?
Samhain (pronounced “sow-win”) is an ancient Gaelic festival celebrated on October 31st — the most sacred threshold of the Celtic year, when the boundary between the living and the dead was believed to soften. In Celtic tradition it was also the New Year, marking the beginning of the dark half of the year.
Why are oil pastels recommended for Samhain art-making?
Oil pastels resist control in a way that asks you to be fully in your body — pressing, smearing, blending with your hands. Their earthy pigments (ochre, burnt sienna, deep reds and purples) mirror the colors of the late autumn season. For threshold work and earth-based making, they are the ideal medium.
How does art therapy connect to spiritual and earth-based practice?
At Fox + Feather, art therapy and earth-based practice are deeply intertwined. Creative expression — like seasonal ritual — is a way of tending the threshold, of giving form to what is invisible, and of honoring both what is passing and what is becoming.
How do I get started at Fox + Feather?
We offer a free 15-minute phone consultation. Contact us here or call 860-393-0940.
Why Choose Fox + Feather Healing Arts
Fox + Feather is Connecticut’s only group art therapy practice specializing in eating disorder and trauma recovery. We tend the threshold — the liminal spaces of transformation, grief, identity, and becoming — with clinical skill, creative depth, and reverence for the body’s wisdom. We serve female-identifying clients, trans-femme individuals, and LGBTQIA+ community members ages 8 and older, in person in Guilford, CT and via telehealth throughout Connecticut. We accept Husky insurance and most FSA and HSA plans. Meet our providers or book your free consultation today.
References
History.com Editors. (2023). Samhain. HISTORY. https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/samhain
Levack, B. P. (2006). The witch-hunt in early modern Europe (3rd ed.). Pearson Longman.
History Cooperative. (2024). Cailleach: The Celtic Goddess of Winter. https://historycooperative.org/cailleach/