Pledge to support “Witch, The Book of Remembrance,” by Rowan Morrison.
This is a call to action for everyone who knows me as Janine Phillips or Janina Grey.
In June of 2024 I faced my demons and took a very long step (and flight across the Pond) to right horrific wrongs that had been committed against me – in this lifetime and in lifetimes past – by the Church. With my husband and kids by my side, I travelled to Scotland, a place where for most of my current life I believed I had lived and died in a past life. I truly believe I had been one of thousands of women who had been persecuted and tortured and murdered for being a witch. This belief started when I was five years old, living in the Bronx, with nightmares of my “village” being burned, and memories of being dragged through my village, over cobblestone and dirt roads.
My journey to Scotland began with a Facebook page run by a magical and loving woman named Rowan Morrison. Her friendship changed my life forever. She was putting together an art exhibit that was created to put faces to the unnamed women accused and murdered for being witches. I loved what she was doing so much I wrote poetry to thank her and the others for the heart wrenching works of art they were creating.
At the same time my friendship with Rowan was unfolding, I was processing my current life torment and grief as a claimant in a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre. It was in this diocese, in St. Margaret of Scotland’s parish in Selden, New York, where I met Father Joey Casaclang. As a young girl I was preyed upon by Father Joey for more than five years. I kept it secret most of my life, pushing it back into the far recesses of my mind. The layers of denial slowly began crumbling away this last decade as I worked with survivors of sexual abuse and childhood sexual abuse in my role as a YWCA Mohawk Valley Domestic and Sexual Violence advocate and crisis counselor.
But this blog isn’t about that. It’s about completing the journey.
When Rowan told me (in 2024) about an exhibit and events they were planning as a remembrance for the lives lost, she asked if she could read one of my poems. One thing led to another and before I knew it I was on that stage, in Edinburgh, reading my own words, a part of this event that honored the mostly women, some men, and children, whose lives were cruelly snuffed out during the Scottish witch hunts that began with the horrific Witchcraft Act of 1563.
As part of the events planned that week, I found myself at the Dunfermline Abbey, St. Margaret’s Street, in Dunfermline Scotland. Full circle. The same St. Margaret my parish was named after. There as the wind whipped about us on the top of the hill, the ancestors whispered and moaned as thousands of names of the persecuted were called out. I was where I was supposed to be, thanks to Rowan.
Now the artwork created to honor these women, men, and children are coming to life in a book Rowan has proposed as a Kickstarter project. She has raised all but a few hundred dollars needed to make this dream a reality. The deadline is Friday, November 21, 2025. We are SO CLOSE. We need your help to make this happen.
Please find it in your heart to head over to Witch, the Book of Remembrance and help Rowan meet her goal.
Please pledge ASAP. We are only $268 short of the goal as of my writing this plea. The deadline is Friday, November 21, 2025.
What better time to honor the dead than during Samhain?
Love and blessings for your support.
Janina Grey 