Pockets were cut out of women's clothes so everything we carried had to be small, out in the open, and on show.
Then the moon came off the calendar, and we lost the thread of our own seasons.
Then they made gossiping a crime - the secret pathway we used to keep each other safe. Stay away from that dude, he bailed me up in the woods. That's how we survived. That's what gossip was for.
During the witch trials, they rewarded the women who dobbed the others in. So we learned exactly the lesson they wanted us to learn: connection could get you killed. Keep to yourself.
Then, having taken the pockets, the moon, the gossip and the trust between us, they told us to hold the whole lot together on our own.
We were never built for that. We were built for village. For people minding people. For being initiated and carried through our transitions, our grief, our seasons.
You were never meant to do this alone.
Witxh Church is where you come back to that.