Greetings, my lovely feral, dark, and bright ones.

The magic bean potion is fully brewed—courtesy of a massive new bag of whole beans from Costco, because if there is one thing I refuse to run out of, it’s what most mortals call coffee, it’s pure unadulterated magic bean potion. My house is stocked, my cup is full, and the morning is unfolding.

Sleep was a chaotic, off-and-on situation last night. My dreams were a bizarre, luxurious insanity filled with notebooks and journals being flipped onto tables and tossed through the air. Why notebooks? Don’t ask me. I had no idea at the time, but of course, I couldn’t just let that go—we had to dig into what that actually means.

When you look into dream symbolism, notebooks and journals aren’t just paper—they represent unwritten potential, unspoken truths, record-keeping, and the urge to rewrite your own story. Flipping through them and tossing them in the air isn’t random chaos; it’s symbolic of reviewing the old entries, throwing out the old scripts, and clearing the table to write something entirely new. It’s your subconscious literally throwing the past record into the wind and saying, “Time for a clean page.”

On top of the notebook chaos, I slept on my back most of the night, which is weird for a die-hard left-side sleeper like me. Sleeping flat on your back is spiritually significant, too—it’s the ultimate posture of vulnerability, openness, and total surrender to the universe. You aren’t curling up to shield your core or turning left to guard your heart; you’re lying wide open to receive whatever messages are trying to drop in. Apparently, my spirit was preparing for a serious download before I even opened my eyes.

So when 6:30 AM hit, I gave up on sleep, got up, and decided to face the morning peace. I pulled on my shorts, my beautiful light purple “Beautiful Crazy” skull tank top, slipped on my glasses, threw my hair up into a quick ponytail, and got the magic bean potion brewing while the dogs headed outside to relieve themselves.

By 7:00 AM, the potion was ready. I loaded up my tech—MacBook Neo, iPad, iPhone—and grabbed my blue “Choose Love” mug.

Now, let’s talk about these mugs for a second, because my spirit team is clearly playing a game in the kitchen. We just bought a brand-new dish set with shiny new mugs, but as I reached into the cupboard, a voice made it crystal clear: Nope. Put that back. Grab this one. Yesterday, it was my “Go Forth Be Fierce” mug. Today, it’s “Choose Love.” What the actual fuck?

When your guides start hand-delivering your morning coffee vessels, you listen. Yesterday was about stepping into the fire, gathering my nerve, and preparing to speak my truth—Go Forth Be Fierce. Today, now that the fire is lit and the truth is out, the reminder is about the core intention—Choose Love. Not passive, walk-all-over-me love, but fierce, radical self-love and heart-centered power. First you step up to fight for yourself, then you lead from the heart.

I opened the back door, turned on the patio swamp cooler, told Alexa to play meditation music, sat my ass down, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath to take in the morning.

It’s not silent out here, but it’s peaceful. The birds are singing away—just wait until they realize I bought them two giant bags of seed—the Sonoran Desert cicadas are buzzing their summer soundtrack, the swamp cooler is humming, and soft meditation music is playing on our very last Echo Dot before we swap it out for a HomePod.

Ronnie is inside with the fur babies while I take this time outside alone to ground myself, clear my head, and put my shields up—or as my sister Vickie says, shield myself. I used to love meditating years ago—it was so relaxing there were times I could swear I was levitating right off the floor—and I need to get back to that place. I want to get back into yoga, too. It brings you right back to yourself, which is healthy.

Sips magic bean potion and smirks.

For over a week, I’ve been sitting on a series of draft posts. Every day I’d open one up, read through it, edit it, and second-guess myself. Why? Because I realized I had stopped allowing myself to be led by my guides, my ancestors, and my gods and goddesses. I was forcing my writing. I was trying to play by the sterile, micromanaged “rules” of modern blogging.

Raise an eyebrow with me for a second: Fuck that.

Look at what online writing and social media have turned into.

In the early days—think prime MySpace era—online spaces were raw, creative, sassy, and fun. You coded your own layout, blasted whatever music you loved in the background, posted your real unfiltered thoughts without an audience filter, and actually connected like real human beings.

Now? It’s an exhausting marathon of corporate-approved algorithms, robot compliance, and sterile “best practices”:

• The Blogging Rules: Write at a specific word count for SEO. Break everything into neat, digestible listicles. Don’t use strong language because it hurts your precious ad revenue. Keyword-stuff your titles so a Google bot likes you. Format for skim-readers who won’t spend more than thirty seconds on your page. Post on a strict corporate schedule. Keep it polished, sanitized, agreeable, and boring as hell.
• The Social Media Rules: Post three times a day or the algorithm buries you alive. Perform for engagement like a trained seal. Use trending sounds whether you hate them or not. Keep your videos under seven seconds because apparently attention spans have completely dissolved. Filter your face, filter your life, filter your voice. Curate an aesthetic that fits into a neat little box so brands know how to categorize you.

We are fed a constant diet of rules telling us how to express ourselves online. Don’t we have enough offline rules forced on us every single day? Why willingly step into an online cage when the entire point of having your own space is to be wild and free?

At this point, life demanded a quick pause. I stepped inside to check on the whole household—checking on the ferrets in their room, giving the dogs some love, and saying hello to Ronnie. Realized my mug was empty, which meant—fuck—I had to brew an entire second cauldron of magic bean potion. Made a pit stop in the bathroom, then headed back out into the yard to beat the desert heat before it kicked into full furnace mode.

Looking up, we’ve got some beautiful cloud cover rolling over today. Can we please just get some rain? I’m practically calling down the skies out here—give us the rain, dammit! I filled up all five bird feeders in the backyard (the birds are officially in heaven), topped off the doggie pool and the birdbath with fresh water, cleaned up the dog poop, and finally sat my ass back down on the patio to write.

Fast forward to 9:18 AM.

Back to writing. I reach for my fresh mug of magic bean potion, take a long sip, smile to myself, and think: Are they even ready for this unleashing?

Because what’s moving through me today isn’t heavy on my heart. Not at all. It isn’t a weight or a burden. It is pure, unfiltered, surging POWER. It’s the kind of crystal-clear authority that wakes you up from the inside out, gives you a cheeky grin, and leaves zero room for hesitation.

The Council of Goddesses

The gods have gracefully stepped back for now. They aren’t coming forth yet, and honestly? That is completely okay. Right now, this space belongs to the divine feminine—the powerful, ancient, fierce goddesses who walk with me, guide my hand, and clear my path.

And let me tell you, what a heavy-hitting, unstoppable council they are:

• Hekate: The Queen of the Crossroads, Torch-Bearer, and Keyholder of the unseen realms. She is the one standing at every threshold of my life with her torches lit, showing me that I don’t need to fear the dark—I am the light navigating through it. She holds the keys to my transformation and guards my boundaries with fierce, ancient precision.
• Brigid: The Keeper of the Flame, Sacred Hearth, Inspiration, and Craft. She brings the warmth of the home, the creative fire that fuels my writing, and the healing touch that restores my soul. She reminds me that my hearth—my space, my sanctuary—is sacred ground, and her forge fuels the heat I use to melt down the old rulebook.
• Freyja: The Norse Goddess of Love, Beauty, Magic (Seiðr), and Unapologetic Power. She doesn’t ask for respect—she commands it. She rides into battle in her own chariot, claims her half of the fallen, and reminds me to love myself fiercely, own my beauty, embrace my wild magic, and never compromise my worth for anyone.
• Lilith: The original sovereign woman. She called me out plain and simple. She is the primal force of “No.” She stands with the woman who refuses to lie beneath a rigid system, refuses to play subservient, and steps out of Eden to build her own kingdom in the wild.
• The Morrigan: And as I write these words right now, she is practically SCREAMING at me. She demands to be known! The Phantom Queen, the Crow, the Goddess of War, Sovereignty, and Fate. She doesn’t whisper; she roars. She steps in when it’s time to wage war on generational trauma, break old curses, and claim your absolute sovereignty over your own life. She is flying over this patio right now telling me: “NO MORE SHIN-GUARDING. STAND UP AND CLAIM YOUR CROWN.”

These beautiful, terrifying, powerful goddesses aren’t here to play nice. They walk with me, speak through me, and lend me their fire. They are the ultimate lineup of raw, unyielding, divine female authority.

The Myth of the “Perfect” Woman

What does it mean to be a woman in this world?

It’s the expectation of being the rock, the role model, the wind beneath everyone else’s wings. The perfect daughter, sister, mother, wife, employee, cousin, granddaughter, niece—and whatever other exhausting titles society decides to pile on our shoulders.

Let’s go deeper with this. It’s not just the titles; it’s the quiet, systematic expectation of absolute, self-sacrificing utility that the patriarchy demands of us.

We are conditioned to be the emotional shock absorbers for everyone else’s chaos. We are expected to carry the invisible mental load, curate the peace, organize the holidays, smooth over the family conflicts, swallow our own grief, and play the designated, unpaid therapist for every fragile ego in the room. The patriarchy wants women to be endless wells of labor, comfort, and compliance—completely drained of our own fire so we’re too exhausted to burn down the structures holding us back. We are told that our worth is measured solely by how much of our own sanity we can carve away to keep everyone else fed, comfortable, and placated.

Look at how traditional, patriarchal narratives treat independent women: stay quiet, stay submissive, stay convenient. If a woman stands up, claims her equality, and says “No,” she is immediately labeled a demon, a villain, or a monster. It’s the oldest trick in the book: make female independence a sin so every other woman stays too terrified to try it.

Two Matriarchs, Two Blueprints

Recently, two of my younger cousins on my mother’s side told me point-blank: You’re the matriarch of the family now.

I laughed and asked why it couldn’t be their older sister, but they just laughed back because, well… she’s not entirely all there, for lack of a better phrase. So the title falls on me. Honestly? I didn’t ask for the position, but I know they’re right.

Looking back, my life was shaped by two completely different matriarchs from two entirely different bloodlines. My mother and aunt were wonderful, and I love them, but they never held the kind of power or presence these two grandmothers had.

First, on my maternal side, there was my Grandmother Herrmann. Born August 18, 1918—the day before my birthday, so she always considered me a late birthday gift—she was married twice, and we believe the third man in her life was actually my biological grandfather. She was the tough, hard-nosed, stern, fiercely independent matriarch. She raised four kids on her own, ran her own bakery in Paterson, New Jersey, took over the family real estate business, raised my cousin, and hosted every single one of us at her home as we grew up.

Her house was our “safe/unsafe” space. She could be amazingly loving, generous, and caring, but it came with a price tag of pure, hard-edged friction at times. She worked every single day of her life into her eighties and never gave up until she passed in 2012. She was the matriarch you went to war with, walked away from, and always went back to. It’s her grandkids—my maternal cousins—who officially handed me the crown.

Then, on my paternal side, there was my Grandma Todd. Deep, loving breath in.

Now, let’s be completely clear: nobody on the paternal side has said a word to me about taking over, and frankly, they wouldn’t dare speak ill of Grandma Todd to me anyway. Grandma Todd remains sacred ground. She was soft, gentle, kind, and generous. Never abusive, never unkind. She was the exact picture of a kindly older witch in her apron, cooking, baking, and keeping an immaculate house. Walking up her driveway to the cottage my grandfather built for her as a wedding gift was pure magic. You could smell the gardens from down the hill—tulips, begonias, Johnny Jump Ups, pansies, chrysanthemums—framed by apple trees, oaks, pines, and fresh laundry drying on the line. Her yard was literally featured in Better Homes & Gardens. Stepping into her house felt and smelled just as amazing as the outside. It was my second home, my true safe space.

I am a blend of both of these women. So as I sit here looking up at the clouds drifting over my house, I have to ask: How do I take this mantle and do it right?

Real Feminism vs. Modern Noise

This brings me to why I am bringing up feminism in the first place.

Grandmother Herrmann was a true feminist. Not the modern, trend-driven, corporate-sanitized version performatively shouted about online today, but the raw, unvarnished, real kind born out of her era and generation.

In her era, feminism wasn’t a slogan on a t-shirt or a hashtag on a profile. It was survival. It was grit. It was a woman standing on her own two feet in a world built entirely by men for men, refusing to bow down or ask for handouts. She didn’t wait for society to give her permission to be powerful; she built her own income, ran her own businesses, fed her own family, and bought her own land when society expected her to stay dependent on a man. She didn’t need a movement to validate her independence—she embodied it every single day through sweat, stubbornness, and sheer willpower.

That is the true spirit of feminism: unyielding, self-made female power and absolute independence.

Reforging the Crown and the Throne

So when people hand me the old ancestral crown and tell me I am the matriarch now, I refuse to put that worn-out, tarnished piece of heavy junk on my head. I refuse to sit in a rusty, uncomfortable chair built on the backs of quieted, self-sacrificing women just to keep an old, toxic machine running.

I am melting that old crown completely down. I am throwing it straight into the fire, burning away the generational bullshit, the quiet conditioning, and the inherited trauma. And out of those ashes, I am building something entirely new—stronger, sharper, more powerful, and custom-fit to my head.

My crown was never delicate tinsel meant for a pageant queen sitting quietly on a pedestal. It is forged from thick, solid gold—yielding enough to mold perfectly to me, yet unbreakable, gleaming with the warm glow of a hearth fire. Fused with the deep minerals of my real roots, it blooms with high-contrast color: electric raw quartz, deep violet amethyst, fiery copper, and vibrant, living flora. It is light enough to wear with ease, heavy enough to carry real history, and built with a quiet, unshakeable authority.

As for my throne? Forget cold iron, rigid stone, or zero-effort neutral tones. Mine is the ultimate sanctuary—deep, plush, and built on a frame of solid, hand-carved walnut and sweet applewood, inlaid with warm brass and gleaming gold. It is the absolute blend of unbreakable strength and total, luxurious comfort, cradling me softly without ever giving way. Anchored deep into the midnight-black granite and iron-rich earth of where I truly belong, it sits right at the center of my hearth—sheltered, warm, and illuminated by the fire I build with my own hands.

Draped in sweeping royal sapphire silk, ruby-red cloth, and sunset-gold weaves, cradled by vivid green living vines, electric purple sage, flame-orange blossoms, and bright wild flowers, it is where I rest, where I reign, and where I protect what’s mine.

If taking this seat means I have to break into a million pieces and rebuild myself from the ground up, I will do it with a smirk on my face, a fire in my eyes, and a soft place to finally sit down.

TRY ME.

It’s a seat of absolute truth, fierce protection, radical boundaries, wicked humor, and wild, unvarnished freedom.

Living for Me: The Fifty-Six Shift

Here is the ultimate truth sitting on the table today: I am about to turn 56 years old.

Now that my mother has passed, the final tether holding me to anyone else’s expectations has completely dissolved. For fifty-five years, I navigated the noise, the obligations, and the guilt. Not anymore. I am living for ME.

And let’s address the elephant in the room that society loves to project onto women my age: I am not “grandma” to anyone’s kids. Not to my own daughters, and not to my stepdaughters. Being a grandmother was never my dream, no matter how much other people tried to script that role for me or convince me it’s what a woman should want at this stage of life.

Do I love my daughters and my stepdaughters? Fuck yeah, I do. Always have, always will. But they choose to be estranged from Ronnie and me, and that is their choice to make. The door isn’t locked, but the chasing is officially over. It is entirely on them to find their way home to us if and when they choose to. I am done trying to be a mom, a grandma, a peacekeeper, or an apologist to people who aren’t at the table. My energy is no longer available for unrequited emotional labor.

My life belongs to me now. My time, my body, my spirit, and my home are mine.

The Decree of the Witch Matriarch

I AM A WITCH MATRIARCH. Yes, I said it out loud. Loudly, clearly, and without an ounce of apology.

And no—you don’t get to tell me how to do my craft, either. You don’t get to hand down your clean, sanitized, aesthetic-driven instructions for a spiritual path you know nothing about. You don’t get to tell me what tools to hold, what words to speak, or how to commune with the unseen world. My spirit, my work, my practice, and my sacred space belong entirely to me.

Because when you strip away centuries of religious control and societal brainwashing, the ultimate truth revealed is undeniable: Nobody is coming to grant us permission to live. Nobody is left to judge us. I am the final authority here.

The cage door was never actually locked. It was held shut by a fragile illusion—a web of arbitrary rules, religious shame, and manufactured guilt created hundreds of years ago specifically to keep women from realizing how terrifyingly, undeniably powerful we actually are. The second you stop respecting the illusion, the entire cage crumbles into dust.

To step into this depth is to realize that true magic isn’t a hobby or a neat little subculture—it is the raw, untamed force of life itself flowing through a woman who refuses to be mastered. It is the direct reclamation of the ancient, primal knowledge that lived in the bones of our ancestral grandmothers before dogma tried to burn it out of us. It is the refusal to apologize for your intuition, your rage, your laughter, your boundaries, your beauty, or your bloodline.

As the Witch Matriarch now, standing firmly in my own power on my own terms, surrounded by the power of Hekate, Brigid, Freyja, Lilith, and The Morrigan, my first, last, and only decree to this family and anyone walking this earth is simple:

LIVE YOUR LIFE YOUR WAY, AS LONG AS YOU HARM NO ONE—INCLUDING YOURSELF.

I will get whatever piercings I want. I will color my hair whatever fucking color calls to my spirit—purple, auburn, silver, raven, or fire—whenever I feel like it. I will wear what I fucking want to wear—skulls, leather, shorts, band tees, bold makeup, or whatever makes me feel alive. I will drive what the fuck I want to drive—big, loud, and unapologetic. I will deck my home out in whatever aesthetic feeds my soul. I will spend my hard-earned money creating joy right now instead of hoarding it for an imaginary rainy day. I will practice my magic out in the open without asking for anyone’s blessing. I will say “NO” without offering a single word of explanation or apology.

Skip the white-picket-fence script. Skip the traditional expectations, or pave a brand-new, unpaved road nobody in your bloodline has ever had the guts to walk down before.

I am done dressing for an imaginary panel of critics who think turning fifty-six means putting on beige, cutting your hair short, hushing your voice, and shrinking into the drywall until you disappear. If my true voice is “too loud,” let the walls shake to their foundations. If my makeup is “too bold” or my truck is “too big,” let them stare until their eyes hurt. My presence is not a public service, my body is not a community project, my craft is not up for debate, and my life is not up for a vote.

The designated peacekeeper is officially retired. The bloodline’s silence ends today. The old rulebook is burned to ash—leaving only the full, unfiltered, roaring truth of who we are when nobody is left to tell us who we’re allowed to be.

So let me ask you: Do you truly want a matriarch and a role model to follow?

Seriously? Because if you do, you better have a fucking backbone to handle it, cause babies, it is about to get real in here.

I will not sugarcoat the truth for you. I will not enable your dysfunction, pat your head while you play the victim, or pretend your self-destruction is just a “phase.” I will tell you to cut your shit, stop making excuses, get off the drugs, get off the alcohol, and get your fucking life straight!

You want to call me your matriarch? You want to say I’m the wind beneath your wings or your role model? Then step up. Don’t half-ass it. Do the work, take responsibility for your life, and stand on your own two feet. I am leading by example—showing you what absolute sovereignty, strength, and truth look like. If you’re coming along for the ride, bring your fire, leave the bullshit at the door, and get ready to run.

And finally, to the one I keep calling a psycho stalker—let’s just say your actual name, because after all, it’s just a name, and I am not afraid to speak it out loud. It holds zero power over me.

Melissa.

Keep following me. Keep watching every move I make, trying to mimic what I do and figure out how I operate. Maybe if you watch close enough, you’ll actually learn how to be your own powerful woman for once in your life. Maybe you’ll finally take charge of your own existence, stop making endless excuses, and stop taking shit from everyone around you. Maybe you’ll finally woman up, stand on your own two feet, and stop being such a weakling playing the professional victim of your own life.

Yes, I am calling you out directly. You want to follow me, watch what I do, and try to be like me?

DO BETTER, BITCH.

Because at the end of the day, my energy isn’t built to be weighed down by ghosts, parasites, or small minds trying to ride my coattails. My fire was built to burn bright, clear the path, and warm the souls of those who actually have the guts to stand in their own truth alongside me.

I step into fifty-six not with hesitation, but with a crown of Sonoran wood, a heart full of wild magic, and an ironclad soul. My roots run deep into this desert earth, my wings are fully expanded, and I am completely, unapologetically free.

I am Rae. The Witch Matriarch. The architect of my own destiny, the keeper of my own sacred flame, and the absolute queen of my own wild life.

Now watch me roar.