Episode 254 - Witch Blood Rising with Asa West

Witch Blood Rising is a celebration of the ways that witchcraft has stubbornly kept itself alive in Western culture—and a call to action for all seekers who yearn for a witch’s life.

Growing up in an endless sea of California suburbs, where sacred groves and wise women only existed in movies, Asa West spent her childhood chasing visions she didn’t understand. When she found a guide to witchcraft in a tiny bookshop, she knew she’d found her calling—despite a patriarchal society’s efforts to keep her away from a life of mysticism.

But it’s not easy to awaken your witch blood in a culture that laughs at magic and renders women powerless. Although the market abounds with practical guides to witchcraft, it’s harder to find books that chronicle the art of living a witch’s life. Asa West uses her almost thirty years of magical practice to bring warmth, humor, and insight to a spiritual path that's at once immeasurably ancient and continually reborn. She explores all the ways that witchcraft rises up from the blood of its devotees and through subjects like the online herbalism industry, Marvel movies, witch-hunting manuals, bee priestesses, and tarot.

Witch Blood Rising is a celebration of the ways that witchcraft has stubbornly kept itself alive in Western culture—and a call to action for all seekers who yearn for a witch’s life.

Asa West is the author of The Witch’s Kin and Five Principles of Green Witchcraft, and her work has appeared in The Offing, Joyland, Gods&Radicals, and other publications. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been covering feminism and media since 2007 under the name Julia Glassman. As a journalist for The Mary Sue and other outlets, she covers everything from Marvel movies to folk horror—and, of course, all things witchy. You can find her online at www.asawestauthor.com and The Red Tail Witch (https://linktr.ee/theredtailwitch).