14 September 7 - 13, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents over coffee at the West Oak Coffee Bar. “That was not really the way. I would say if we had a magic, it was telling our stories to each other.” With EWW, Kirby reads tarot cards and astrological charts. She calls herself a tarot storyteller instead of just a reader. She doesn’t claim to tell fortunes from the cards or tap into some unseen knowledge to which only she has access, but insists that those who come to her already know on the inside what they see in the cards — they just need permission to put the pieces together. For her, the market represents a community of misfits and rejects making a home together. “That’s fundamentally how the witch stuff really became the ‘other,’” she says. “What we’re made up of is a bunch of others.” Cassie Smith, a Hemlock Fox mixologist and special events/community outreach coordinator for the market, believes that true magic lies in authenticity. “The more true you are to yourself, the more magic you’re going to have,” she says. “But if you aren’t learning to like that authentic part of yourself, you’re not ever going to be able to tap into that magic.” Smith grew up in a Baptist family, attending a small church where her grandfather was a deacon. But she didn’t see her family upholding the morals and beliefs they espoused in church on Sunday. The hypocrisy she perceived didn’t sit right, and she never felt connected to the Christian faith. “I felt much more in tune and connected to nature,” Smith says. “Anytime I was around trees or plants, I felt much more myself; I like that magic within me.” She considers herself more of a green witch, one who cultivates the earth and practices with nature. Smith is an avid gardener and grows all her own herbs and fruits that she uses to make her Hemlock Fox cocktails. Her mixology is a form of her craft: working with natural ingredients to concoct her boozy potions. Like Smith, Bernal also grew up in a devoutly Baptist community and rebelled against the social constraints of its teachings as a teen. She remembers causing a small scandal at school when she was the only one to refuse to sign a virginity pledge to stay ab- stinent until marriage. But at home, Bernal was surrounded by “magical thinking,” reading books about fairies and making wish boxes. Even her grandmother’s cooking pro- cess was magical in its rituals. “My grandmother would roll over in her grave, though, if she knew that this is what I do for a living now,” Bernal says with a laugh. In conjunction with the market, she runs a small business called Woolen Witch Crafts. Bernal forages animal bones from nature and uses them to make ethereal home décor, such as vintage lamps suspended from preserved vertebrae. She also sells woolen animal familiars as keepsakes, and some filled with catnip as toys for pets. Despite the consistent presence of witchcraft in her life since childhood, Bernal felt a deep discomfort around Pagan spaces for years until she understood the feeling of excitement and curiosity for the unknown and unfamiliar. Stepping into that world, she says, was like coming out of the broom closet. “The minute I gave in to that, that’s when things kind of started to fall into place,” she says. “That’s when I was like, it’s fine that I’m different. Let me just play to my strengths instead of trying to hide them and trying to do what everybody else wants me to do or things I ‘should’ be doing.” Grossman doesn’t think it’s necessarily unique to witchcraft that when we see ourselves in others’ work, it can feel like a “bit of a permission slip to be even more truly ourselves.” Christ-Doane, from the Salem Witch Museum, remembers growing up in the ‘90s exposed to the explosion of witch characters in popular media and seeing the witch become a coming-of-age symbol, particularly for young women. “It’s this idea that you’re going to wake up one day and realize you have superpowers and you felt different your whole life, and this is the reason why,” she says. Most marketgoers and vendors have come to EWW with much of the same gratitude and generosity Grossman has witnessed on a national level in response to her work. “The vast majority of people who en- counter my work … have felt as if they are being given some kind of affirmation about things they know to be true about themselves,” she says. Despite the threats some Pagan and witch festivals or gatherings have faced in recent years from the religious right scrab- bling for footholds among the changing so- cial landscape, EWW has received a mostly warm and eager welcome from the DFW community. A handful of people have ap- proached Bernal with rude comments or de- clared, “You don’t look like a witch.” She only replies, “What does a witch look like?” Darby Murnane A memorial for Bridget Bishop, who was tried and executed as a witch in Salem. Culture from p12 SCAN HERE TO ENTER TO WIN TICKETS!
