Book Description

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes meets Suspiria in this haunting mystical memoir of finding meaning, beauty, and power through a life and work as a witch.An initiation signals a beginning: a door opens and you step through. Traditional Wiccan initiates are usually brought into the craft through a ceremony with a High Priestess. But even though Amanda Yates Garcia's mother, a practicing witch herself, initiated Amanda into the earth-centered practice of witchcraft when she was 13 years old, she didn't become a professional witch until she underwent a series of spontaneous life-induced initiations of her own.Starting with her initiation into her mother's coven, through years in the underworlds of poverty, sex work, and misogyny, Amanda describes her journey to return to her body, harness her power, and create the magical world she longed for through witchcraft. Hailed by crows, seduced by magicians, and haunted by ancestors broken beneath the wheels of patriarchy, Amanda's quest for self-discovery and empowerment is a deep exploration of a witch's trials-healing ancient wounds, chafing against cultural expectations, searching for love-along with mythology and tales of the goddesses and empowered witches throughout history. Squarely at the intersection of witchiness and feminism, this book will resonate with anyone who feels enraged by a culture built to disempower and subjugate them and who is searching for the answer one of today's most pressing questions: is it possible to live a beautiful life in a world that feels like it's dying? Historically and by definition, witches are not at the mercy of the patriarchal world. Witches have the power to take their visions and bring them into reality. Declaring oneself a witch and practicing magic has everything to do with claiming authority and power for oneself. Initiated is a manifesto calling the magical femmes of the world to take up their wands. Stand up, be brave, describe the world you want, then create it like a witch.