The Word “Woo Woo” and Other Things That Piss Me Off As a Witch

1. "WooWoo"

I am so tired of hearing the word “woo woo.”

Language matters. Labels have power. They can create curiosity and connection, or they can create distance and dismissal. The problem with “woo woo” is that it often takes something complex, nuanced, and deeply human and reduces it to something silly, irrational, or not worth taking seriously.

Working with plants, seasons, symbols, ritual, and meaning is not a new trend. Humans have been doing this for thousands of years. We have always looked to nature to understand ourselves. We have watched the cycles of the moon, tracked the seasons, studied plants, created rituals around life and death, and searched for meaning in the parts of existence we cannot always explain.

That does not mean every magical claim should be accepted without question. Discernment matters. Science matters. Critical thinking matters. But dismissing an entire category of human experience because it does not fit neatly into a spreadsheet is not necessarily wisdom. Sometimes it is simply a lack of curiosity.

So maybe we can retire “woo woo” and replace it with something a little more accurate: “something I do not understand yet.”

2. Lazy Spellcasting

A Tupperware bowl full of random herbs, crystals, dried flowers, and topped off with a generous sprinkle of everything bagel seasoning is not a spell. It is either a snack experiment or a cry for help.

Now, there is absolutely magic in the mundane. Cooking with care, making tea, tending a garden, creating a seasonal altar, lighting a candle while reflecting, or preparing a meal for someone you love can all be deeply meaningful practices.

But the difference is relationship.

Deep plant traditions were never simply about asking, “What is this herb for?” They were about knowing the plant. Where does it grow? When does it bloom? What part is used? When is it harvested? What does its biology teach us? What season does it belong to? What stories and symbols have humans connected with it over time?

A plant was never just an ingredient. A plant was a relationship.

This is why a deeper approach moves beyond simple correspondences. Motherwort is not simply “a heart herb” or “an herb for courage.” Its name, Leonurus cardiaca, means “lion-hearted.” Traditionally associated with the heart and nervous system, Motherwort carries themes of steadiness, emotional resilience, and courage through difficult experiences.

Working with Motherwort is not just saying, “I want courage.” It is asking: Where am I being called to keep my heart open while remaining steady? Where do I need resilience without becoming hardened?

Mugwort is not simply “for psychic abilities.” Its traditional associations with dreams, intuition, protection, and thresholds reflect its nature as an edge plant — growing where boundaries meet. Working with Mugwort asks: What transition am I crossing? What wisdom am I ready to hear? What old identity am I releasing?

Basil is not simply “for money.” Basil represents cultivated prosperity. A basil plant does not appear overnight. It requires sunlight, water, attention, and consistency before it flourishes. Working with Basil asks: What am I building? Where am I ready to grow? What abundance am I willing to participate in creating?

This is the difference between collecting correspondences and developing a relationship. The magic is not in the ingredient alone. The magic is in understanding.

3. Overgeneralizing Magic

One of the most repeated ideas in modern witchcraft is that everything you do comes back to you threefold. But like many things, it is often presented without context and reduced to a simple cosmic reward system. I prefer to think of it as a reflection of interconnectedness. What we cultivate, we strengthen. What we practice, we become. What we put into relationship with the world creates ripples beyond ourselves. Nature itself shows us that transformation is not always comfortable. A seed does not become a tree overnight. It is shaped by soil, water, sunlight, seasons, and time.

Another repeated idea is that anything associated with the “left hand” is negative. Different traditions have different relationships with power, shadow work, transformation, and sovereignty. Reducing everything into good or bad removes the very discernment that spiritual practice requires. Darkness is not automatically bad. The unknown is not automatically dangerous. A forest needs sunlight, but it also needs decomposition. The soil is created from what has fallen, broken down, and returned.

Sometimes growth requires release. Sometimes healing requires boundaries. Sometimes the most appropriate magic is not attracting something new, but removing what no longer belongs.

4. “Light and Love”

There is a beautiful place for compassion, kindness, and love. But healing is not only about staying comfortable, and neither is witchcraft.

Life is not all roses and kittens.

Sometimes transformation requires us to look honestly at grief, anger, fear, endings, and the parts of ourselves we would rather avoid. Sometimes healing means admitting that we are angry instead of immediately trying to turn that anger into a lesson.

Anger is information. Grief is information. Fear is information.

These emotions are not failures of spirituality. They are part of being human.

Nature does not reject winter because it prefers spring. The tree does not apologize for losing its leaves. The soil does not consider decomposition a failure.

Everything has a season.

Michael A. Singer often speaks about the reality that life is not designed to be comfortable all the time. The human experience includes both joy and grief, gain and loss, beginnings and endings. The suffering often comes when we resist what is happening and believe we cannot be okay unless reality changes. The goal is not to create a life without discomfort it is to become spacious enough to meet life as it comes.

And yes, I am a Scorpio rising, so maybe I am naturally going to defend the importance of sitting with shadows.

5. The Death of the Ego

The phrase “death of the ego” is especially interesting when we look at it through the lens of women.

The conversation around ego is often oversimplified. We are told that ego is something to overcome, something spiritual people should transcend, something standing in the way of enlightenment, but we live in a physical world with bodies, identities, relationships, responsibilities, and individual experiences. And the ego is part of being human.

A healthy ego is not something to destroy. It helps us understand ourselves. It gives us boundaries. It allows us to say, “This is who I am. This is what I value. This is what I will and will not accept.”

The problem is not ego itself. The problem is ego disconnected from truth.

For some people, ego appears as superiority, control, and the need to be above others. But for many women, ego often shows up differently.

It can hide inside perfectionism, people-pleasing, never asking for help, or believing that being endlessly available makes us worthy.

This is where spiritual bypassing becomes important to recognize.

Sometimes the desire to “transcend the ego” becomes another way of avoiding the human experience. We skip anger because we want to be loving. We skip grief because we want to stay positive. We avoid boundaries because we want to be compassionate.

But compassion without boundaries becomes self-abandonment. Love without discernment becomes avoidance. Light without shadow becomes incomplete.

The goal is not to eliminate the self. The goal is integration.

As Britt Hartley explains, the work is not about killing the ego or rejecting the human experience. It is about creating enough space to hold our feelings, our inner child, our shadow, and our thoughts while finding a place of inner steadiness.