*Every circle has a keeper of the flame. Ours is The White Witch.* ![[tarot - white witch jesse.png]] Jesse Chapman has always been fascinated by what happens when people gather. Strangers become friends. Conversations deepen into confessions. A night that begins with laughter can end in transformation. Over time, he found himself in the role of the one who could create the container—the person who makes it safe enough for others to reveal what’s real. Jesse also knows what it’s like to feel the opposite—to feel unreal. To feel separate and unable to reveal one’s true self. As a queer man raised in a religious household, he eventually pushed away everything that smelled of religion. The collateral damage—ritual and spirituality—was enormous. What remained wasn’t freedom. It was absence. It was disconnection. But in searching across disciplines—psychology and philosophy, theater and film, somatic practice and social ritual—Jesse found himself circling back to what he thought he’d left behind: the sacred. Only this time, it arrived not as dogma, but as discovery. Out of that searching, a figure emerged. A presence. A name. _The White Witch._ The White Witch is one part shaman, one part shadow, one part mirror. She reminds us that wholeness comes not from perfection but from integration. That a gathering is more than a party—it’s a portal. That shadow is not an enemy, but an invitation. That laughter and grief can live in the same breath. She continues to reveal her gifts: safety in chaos, laughter in grief, beauty in darkness, and a map for those willing to wander. She is both guide and mirror, conjured in Jesse but felt by all those in The Circle. A witch exists inside all of us. The White Witch calls a gathering now to help us find ours. That is when we seek her—not as a savior, but as a guide, holding the lantern, whispering: _You already carry the fire. Let me help you see it._ Because sometimes the way back to ourselves is too clouded, too heavy, to walk alone.