In her book The Art of Being a Woman: A Simple Guide to Everyday Love and Laughter, Veronique Vienne states that "statistically speaking, strong women who have a high stature keep illnesses at bay in their communities." This immediately put me in mind of the village wise women who used to be respected and revered for their ability to help the members of their communities with all manner of ills, bodily and otherwise. Witches of course.

This then led me to wonder how many successful, powerful women out there are actually witches without even realizing it, or at the very least are wielding magickal powers by virtue of the confident energy they put out into the universe every day. Could we chart the relative health of cities with female mayors, for example, against those with male counterparts? Who knows what wonderful work these unwitting witches are doing beyond just protecting their neighbors from illness.

Illustration purloined from Hecate. Original source unknown.

It would have been difficult for the next turn in my train of thought not to have gone toward Hillary Clinton, what with all of the Presidential election campaigning brewing about. With Hillary in the White House, imagine how healthy we all will be, universal health care or no!

With all of these thoughts swirling in my brain, imagine my delight when I read Hecate's post And Your Little Dog, Too and discovered this wonderful illustration. I'm sure whoever created the image intended it to be insulting and Hecate does voice her displeasure at Hillary's being called a "witch" in this Salon article (not related to the illustration). But in light of my recent meandering thought patterns I see all of this from a completely different perspective.

If, in fact, as I suggest, all of the successful and powerful women out there are witches of some sort and this statistic about their mere presence in our communities making us healthier is true, then anyone hurling the word "witch" as an intended epithet is in reality paying the highest of compliments! Instead of looking at this portrayal of Hillary Clinton as a witch and taking offense, why not see it as a celebration of having one of our very own looking out for us from the highest seat in our community, keeping illnesses (and nasty Republicans) at bay. I know I will!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 1:00 PM