Students Explore Tarot and Spirituality at UWM Witchy Wisdom Event

In a fascinating fusion of academia and mysticism, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student involvement group hosted a Witchy Wisdom event as a part of the Geek Week activities. 

The ethereal event consisted of a brief tarot lecture, along with aura paintings, tarot readings, spell jar making and birth chart exploration. The lecturer at this event was Brenda Barrales, a local witch and co-owner of What the Hex, a seasonal witches market. 

 Following the lecture, students also had an opportunity to sit down with Barrales for an intimate tarot reading. Along with What the Hex, Barrales is a co-owner of Tres Ojos, a business started with her wife. The couple started their spirituality just as they were working on their sobriety journey as well. With Tres Ojos, Baralles and her wife do different healing and cleansing rituals, readings, and other services and creations connecting to magick and energy. 

Before embarking on her spiritual journey, Barrales spent some time at UWM as a student, which is part of the reason she was excited to return to campus for the Witchy Wisdom event. 

“It’s always nice to come back in a different way. It’s wonderful to connect with students and to know there are young people hungry to learn about magick and spirituality,” Barrales said. 

Barrales’ business partner, Ciara Hiers, also attended the Geek Week event, where she painted many students’ auras using watercolors to discern messages within the pictures. Hiers has been working as a full-time artist since 2023 and specializes in embroidery, terrarium making, and many different forms of painting along with her live aura paintings.

Another spiritual opportunity students had at the Witchy Wisdom event was to explore their birth charts with student of astrology, Elizabeth Bogart. Along with being an astrology student, Bogart is also a small business owner and podcast host. Bogart has been studying astrology and teaching reiki yoga and meditation for over ten years now, with a specialization in women’s medical and physical health. 

Bogart’s history as a special education teacher is portrayed in her current career, as she focuses on connecting with her students directly to figure out their specific needs, just as she did working in schools. Working in schools also raised her appreciation of the UWM Witchy Wisdom event as it brought her interest to students’ attention. 

“When I was in college we didn’t have mainstream spaces to explore this kind of stuff”, Bogart said. “It was kind of laughed at.” 

The stigma that can follow a lot of unique interest is exactly what student involvement is trying to combat with their Geek Week activities. By mainstreaming some of these unique interests by turning them into a campus event, UWM students can find new communities within the school. 

“My favorite part is having all of these people who maybe don’t have access to these kinds of events and bringing them together with this common interest,” said Shannon Siebers, a Geek Week volunteer. “I think bringing these communities together is really what Geek Week is for.” 

Inspired by an online photo of Spiderman illustrated as the hanged man in a tarot card, the student involvement organization had their eyes set on tarot as a geek week theme and event since as early as last year. 

“The idea came to be through marketing,” said Krystal McCain, student involvement organizer. “We always try really hard for the Geek Week marketing to be unique and different from what you usually see around campus.”

Along with their spell jars and complimentary crystals, many students also left with a custom. Geek-themed deck of the major arcana, the same cards that could be seen at all corners of campus leading up to and during Geek Week. These cards included Characters from different animes, comic books, movies and TV shows.