Jan 29, 2024

Three millennial women explore what it means to identify as a witch in today's world.

AIRS: Sunday January 28, 2024 at 8:00 PM on CBC

Available on CBC Gemn documentary Channel

Three millennial women explore what it means to identify as a witch in today’s world and set out to discover if the rituals, lore, and sacred places of their ancestors can help them channel their gifts, confront their obstacles, and claim their power.

Ayo has been building an international career with the hip-hop-inflected soul music she creates as Witch Prophet. Raised in a religious family from East Africa, she was drawn to the occult as a teen, but the Jamaican guru who later helped her harness her dreams and impulses has disappeared. In New Orleans, Queen Erzulie, founder of a mystery school for Black Witches of the diaspora, tells Witch Prophet she is carrying a weight that is blocking her from moving to the next level.

Andra, a baby when her family fled Romania, was raised with her grandmother’s stories and the belief that the land is alive and that spirits surround her. Women have traditionally known that power is about sharing gifts with each other and building communities, but she feels that her own practice has hit a crossroads. She returns to Romania and her ancestral home, which holds deep memories, and visits a famously haunted forest to reconnect with her magic and sing to the spirits.

Laura has been a solitary witch since coming out as a queer woman, but now an energy shift pushes her to seek a community or a coven and develop her practice. An older witch suggests that she start by finding out when her ancestors arrived in Canada and the folk practices of that time. Laura learns that her ninth great-grandmother was Mary Towne who was tried as a witch and hung in Salem in 1692. Her world cracked open, Laura takes part in a past life regression session that offers provocative images, which lead her to Scotland and deeper questions.

After their encounters with new information, places, and communities, Witch Prophet, Andra, and Laura pause to take part in traditional rituals that honour their ancestors as they set course on new paths of knowledge-seeking and healing.

https://www.cbc.ca/documentarychannel/docs/coven

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