Candles in the Darkness

You may have noticed that I fell mostly silent following Halloween. The darkness without and the darkness within sort of coincided this year, leaving me with little to write about, a lack of inspiration, a lack of motivation. Mundane circumstances started overwhelming me, once the busy October season was past; and while I know damned well that it's past time for me to witch up (hat tip to Evn for the phrase) and get on with it, well, sometimes it's task enough just to get up and put on actual clothing, let alone figure out how to go about restructuring your entire life midway through.

So I've spent the dark time between Halloween and the solstice in a sort of hibernation, accomplishing little, idling, as it were, waiting for the light to change. The things providing light at the moment are puny at best and hard to see by, but the fact that I'm even here posting this may be indicative of the necessary internal shift that will start the upward momentum. (Despite my apparent inability to even string together a cogent analogy...) I'm one who doesn't like to leap without looking, who likes to have a plan in hand before making a move. I am at least mildly hopeful that it's almost time to begin.

Witchly Dreams and Stranger Things

Last night I had a strange and rather beguiling dream. I was visiting a small and rustic shop in an unknown locale; it might have been on festival grounds or in a woodland, I couldn't say for certain. There was a table set up with a selection of glassed purpose candles, and my eyes were drawn to the ones at the far right of the table; these were in yellowish glass containers, with yellowish wax, and each one contained a few leaves from a small paperback-sized book. Studying the containers I learnt that the candles were designed to work with the energies of a fictional being from an obscure horror novel (one that has never existed on this plane to my knowledge); the candles contained pages from said novel and were meant to evoke the character to a particular end. One of the candles' glasses had broken into several pieces, and I remember picking that one up and sitting it carefully at the back of the table.

I know that other things happened, but they have mostly all retreated to the far edges of my memory and refuse at the moment to be drawn out. However, the one thing I do remember is my friend Glaux joining me at the table and proceeding to anoint my forehead with an ointment she called the Toadman's Salve. I was instructed to be careful what I looked through thereafter. Sometime after that I picked up my camera and found that my vision through the viewfinder was--altered, is the only way I can really describe it. I also remember wondering vaguely how this Sight was going to impact my ability to drive safely home!

I've never given much consideration to toads and their meaning to me personally, although now that I do think of it I realize that they've always made their presence known in my life, from a young age. As a child I could catch them easily, and I know that I was responsible for the death of a few as a very young and stupid kid; I could catch them, all right, but had no idea what to feed them. At our previous home, I often saw them around the property, and again I would catch them and move them out of harm's way (say when the lawn mower was approaching). Tree frogs were common visitors, as well, but it was only the toads that I could easily catch. What this means I have no idea, but something tells me it is a subject for further investigation.

Invocation of the Horned One

Another of my favorite chants, and one that is particularly appropriate this time of year, also comes from Doreen Valiente. I reproduce it here, with no further comment needed:

By the flame that burneth bright 

O Horned One!

We call thy name into the night 

O Ancient One! 

Thee we invoke by the moon-led sea

By the standing stone and the twisted tree

Thee we invoke where gather thine own

By the nameless shrine forgotten and lone

 

Come where the round of the dance is trod

Horn and hoof of the goat-foot God

By moonlit meadow on dusky hill

When the haunted wood is hushed and still

 

Come to the charm of the chanted prayer

As the moon bewitches the midnight air

Evoke thy powers, that potent bide

In shining stream and secret tide

 

In fiery flame by starlight pale

In shadowy host that ride the gale

And by the fern-brakes fairy-haunted

Of forests wild and wood enchanted

 

Come! O Come!

To the heartbeat's drum!

 

 Come to us who gather below

When the broad white moon is climbing slow

Through the stars to the heavens' height

We hear thy hoofs on the wind of night

As black tree branches shake and sigh

By joy and terror we know thee nigh

 

We speak the spell thy power unlocks

At Solstice, Sabbat, and Equinox

Word of virtue the veil to rend

From primal dawn to the wide world's end

Since time began---

The blessing of Pan!

Blessed be all in hearth and hold

Blessed in all worth more than gold

Blessed be in strength and love

Blessed be where e'er we rove

Vision fade not from our eyes

Of the pagan paradise

Past the gates of death and birth

Our inheritance of the earth

From our soul the song of spring

Fade not in our wandering

Our life with all life is one,

By blackest night or noonday sun

Eldest of gods, on thee we call:

Blessing be on thy creatures all.

Chants: The Witches' Rune

My friends over at American Folkloric Witchcraft recently posted a version of Doreen Valiente's classic chant The Witches' Rune. It's one of my favorites, and I've used it often with good result; but the version I was taught goes a bit differently, and I thought I'd post it here for the contrast:

Doreen Valiente (Ameth)

"Darksome night and shining moon,
East then South then West then North;
Hearken to the Witches' Rune:
Here come I to call ye forth!

Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
Wand and Pentacle and Sword,
Work ye unto my desire,
Hearken ye unto my word!

Cords and Censer, Scourge and Knife,
Powers of the witch's blade,
Waken all ye unto life,
Come ye as the charm is made!

Queen of Heaven, Queen of Hell,
Horned Hunter of the night,
Lend your power unto the spell,
Work my will by magick rite!

By all the power of land and sea,
By all the might of moon and sun,
As I do will, so mote it be;
Chant the spell and be it done!"

A Highland Witch's Powers

Unlike modern Wiccans, classic witches are not bound by the command of harming none; on the contrary, s/he would be fully capable of cursing and curing, with equal facility. Isabel Cameron, in her A Highland Chapbook, describes the powers of such a witch thusly:

(She) could o'ercast the night, and cloud the moon
And mak' the de'ils obedient to her crune,
At midnight hours o'er the kirkyards she raves
And howks unchristened weans out of their graves;
Boils up their livers in a warlock's pow;
And seven times does her prayers backwards pray;
Then mix't with venom of black toads and snakes.
Of this unsousy pictures aft she makes
Of ony she hates;--and gars expire
With shaw and racking pains afore a fire;
Stuck full of pins the devilish pictures melt;
The pain by fowk they represent is felt
Whilst she and cat sit beeking in her yard...

You'll note that the witch in question is credited with doing more than just casting the evil eye; she's also commanding demons, speaking incantations, and stealing unbaptized infants from their graves and using their organs in the making of poppets of her enemies. No "bright blessings" to be found here; these witches of auld were expected to throw down when the need arose! (Please note that the proprietress of the Classic Witchcraft blog does not condone or recommend grave-robbing or demon-summoning, and reports the above for entertainment purposes only!)

Of course, there were available countermeasures, should one find him- or herself on the receiving end of such attentions. Should you believe yourself to be "o'erlooked," pronounce the following countercharm immediately:

The eye that goes over me and through me,
The eye that pierces to the bone and the marrow,
I will overthrow and the elements will help me.

(The snippet of verse detailing the witch's powers appears to have been taken from the 1808 printing of the Scots pastoral play The Gentle Shepherd, by Allan Ramsay, albeit in a slightly edited form. The astute Googler will easily locate the work in its entirety.)

At The Equinox

I'll admit, I was feeling less than festive at the autumnal equinox this year. That's unusual for me, as fall is my favorite time of all, and so many of the things that I love best take place this time of year--but there it was. Nonetheless I baked a loaf of utterly non-traditional soda bread (filled with raisins, currants and cranberries), arrayed the altar with pumpkins and gourds and fruits and the monster acorns I've been gathering on my rambles through the neighborhood, and contrived with my closest fellow witches to celebrate the season's turning as best we all could. I decided to do a reading, using the deck that I always switch to at this time of year, and I'll share it with you here:

(Images are from Kipling West's Halloween Tarot; in this deck, Pumpkins replace Pentacles and Bats replace Swords.)

Oddly, I felt rather better after that!

Poetry: J.L. Stanley

When they ask to see your gods

your book of prayers

show them lines

drawn delicately with veins

on the underside of a bird's wing

tell them you believe
in giant sycamores mottled
and stark against a winter sky
and in nights so frozen
stars crack open
spilling streams of molten ice to earth
and tell them how you drank
the holy wine of honeysuckle
on a warm spring day
and of the softness
of your mother
who never taught you
death was life’s reward
but who believed in
the earth and the sun
and a million, million light years of being

Introducing The Witch

(Note: The original posting date for this was March of 2010, on another blog I maintained.)

from the Halloween Tarot, by Kipling West

If Hogwarts existed, and I'd been plucked from my muggle-born world and sent there to study, I think I would have enjoyed Potions most of all. (As a child I'd have gone in mortal terror of Professor Snape, though by my teen years I would have been regularly costing my House points for snarking back at him.) I love experimenting with things, making messes, making potions, making magick--the magick of scent, that most evocative of sensations. I love settling in to my witch's cottage (yes, I have one) and setting out my ingredients, setting up the atmosphere for crafting something wonderful. I work by candlelight, of course, and utilize things like cauldrons and stone mortars and pestles, wooden bowls, wooden and pewter and silver spoons, glass jars and stoneware jars. I like music for background and inspiration, but since it's impossible to play the harp and do handwork at the same time, I use recorded music instead; Blackmore's Night, typically, though it might as easily be something else in a similar vein.

When I was blogging on the Temperance card the other day, I completely forgot the version to be found in one of my all-time favorite decks, Kipling West's Halloween Tarot. I got that deck out this morning and when I turned her up, I couldn't believe I'd forgotten. That's me, the me I have in mind when I'm doing my thing with my herbs and oils; the witchiest me, not a High Priestess of the Wica or anything ceremonial or outwardly imposed. That's the me that I held in my heart and my imagination from the time I was just a child, and to me that's what Witchcraft will always look like: cauldrons and cats and owls and hats, something bubbling away over a fire, shelves of obscure tomes and jars filled with you-don't-even-want-to-know-what. Steady hands, good instincts, curiosity, a willingness to experiment, those are the characteristics of Witchcraft to me. The religious aspects, and all the other trappings, they have their place but are wholly secondary to me in my practice. The craft, the Craft, the work of the hands and the imagination and the senses, that is Witchcraft, and that is magick. It's my own weird science, and it fulfills me.

(Yes, I was one of those kids who had a chemistry set, and a backyard meteorology set, and I made messes and set things on fire and drove my parents nuts. I used to stake out plots in the yard and conduct archaeological digs. I even had a job working in a laboratory once; I loved it, wearing a lab coat and gloves and messing around with beakers and centrifuges and such. If you were wondering.)

I remember being quite young and finding paperback books on Witchcraft, all of them the kinds of little books by folks like Hans Holzer that were so popular in the early 1970s, and I read those books and sort of glossed over the descriptions of "skyclad" ceremonies and ritual sex and such. I was culturally aware enough to dismiss those as being hippie free-love stuff, not actual, you know, witchcraft, which certainly involved the necessary ingredients of cauldrons and cats and owls and hats and potions and candlelight and...you get the idea. I'm considerably older now, and I'd like to think better educated and more experienced, but that early image of Witchcraft has never left me, and I guess it never will. No matter what my age or experience level, I'll always be that little witch in her cottage, mixing up something arcane by candlelight, overseen by cats and owls and the quiet stars above.

(Bonus: I also own boots like that. Stockings, too.)

May I Direct You...

While you're waiting for me to put up some new content (sorry, non-blog life has briefly intervened), may I direct you to my two somewhat related Tumblrs? They have pretty pictures of relevant things, and perhaps you might enjoy them:

Clarsach agus Claidheamh (Harp and Sword) is witchcraft, paganism and occult-related.

In A Graveyard Past Midnight is a collection of all things spooky, with a seasonal emphasis on autumnal and Halloween themes.

Churchyard Yews

There are yews, and there are yews. Most of us in the US are familiar with the ornamental shrubbery Taxus canadensis, the ubiquitous straggling evergreen beloved of landscapers. We had them at our last property; they can grow quite tall under the right conditions, and produce abundant red berries. They also require a lot of attention to keep them looking nice in a landscape. Their nature is to sprawl and shoot out random branches.

Fortingall Yew

The yew commonly found in Europe and the British Isles is Taxus baccata, a quite different species. T. baccata is a proper tree, rather than a shrub, and can reach rather dramatic proportions. They are known for achieving rather dramatic ages, as well, with known specimens thought to be thousands of years old. The Fortingall yew, for example, is thought to be between 2,000 and 5,000 years old. It can be found in a churchyard in Perthshire. Other famous specimens can be found in Wales, Belgium, and Ireland; and notably, all are found in churchyards.

Knowlson, writing in The Origins of Popular Superstitions and Customs, has this to say about yew trees in churchyards:

Some authorities ascribe it to the adoption of ancient funeral rites; others to the prosaic notion of keeping the wind off the church; others, again, to the warlike need of bows and arrows--yew being especially serviceable. A large body of writers believe the use of the yew was symbolic--it typified by its unchanging verdure the doctrine of the resurrection. A few cynically assert that yews, being gloomy and poisonous, are rightly used for churchyard decoration; and there are not wanting writers who see in the practice a tribute to the superstitious regard men have always paid to trees. We may examine one or two of these suggestions, although no definite conclusion may be possible. We know that the ancient Britons planted yews near their temples long before Christianity was introduced into England, and this would suggest a custom on the island not necessarily Roman or Christian.

Knife with yew hilt

One of my personal tools, my curfane or harvesting knife, has a grip of churchyard yew. (I even have a photo of the churchyard and yew involved!) Given the yew's associations with death, this seems an appropriate usage.  (Note: The knife did not "harvest" the fellow next to it.) Because of the poisonous nature of even the wood itself, it is a powerful-feeling tool and one that I use with great care and respect. It is eminently suited to "sacrificing" a purposefully baked loaf, for example. In the past, I've used it on the altar in a Wican "white handled knife" context, but it felt frankly dissatisfied with the role; some tools have their own agendas, and this one clearly felt constrained by the rules that bound the WHK in that system. Now wild again, it awaits its next task--most likely, the carving of the bread I'll bake at the autumnal equinox. The harvest season is upon us, after all.

Hagstones

The hagstone is a traditional and naturally-occurring witch's amulet particularly valued in the British isles. Known variously as hagstones, holed stones, holy or holey stones, hex stones or adder stones, they range in size from pebble to boulder, and are characterized by having one or more holes running all the way through. They are most prized as found objects, as they are relatively rare, and are variously used for protection, fertility, and scrying. A woman wishing to conceive might crawl through the opening in a very large standing hagstone, or carry a small one in a pocket or a mojo bag (and an enterprising woman wishing to avoid conception could of course invert the spell and use the holed stone as a charm against fertility). Once thought to be protective charms against witchcraft, they can certainly be used to protect oneself from the negative workings and influences of others, magickal or mundane, and hanging one from a red thread above the bed can allow the nightmares to pass through the hole and safely away from the sleeper. In Dartmoor it is said that looking through the hole in the stone enables one to see the piskies, and that wearing one would repel the evil eye by distracting the caster thereof.

One of the things that attracted me to our previous home was the number of largeish stones arranged about the property in a casual but appealing attempt at natural landscaping. At least three of those stones had depressions or true holes through them, which was even more appealing to me. The one you see on the left was in front of the house, in the garden beyond the edge of the deck. (You can see the base of the classical goddess statue at the upper right. The daffodils are ones I planted.) The hole is to the right on the central stone, and you can see the large crystal protruding from it that we placed therein. Another holed stone to the far right of that one, not visible in the photo, I typically used for making small offerings; one day I was about to place something in there only to startle a young brown snake who'd curled up within! The third of the stones, the one with a deep depression that did not go all the way through, was beside the side door of the house; that one often received offerings of acorns and such, or the occasional bit of wine or water or bread. I miss those rocks, but they came with the property and when we left, they stayed with the property; they were mine to tend, but not to keep.

I do keep a small, smooth hagstone as a personal amulet; it's pocket-sized and useful for a number of things. I like it as a sort of "worry stone," something to caress while in deep contemplation, among other things. It came to me quite a while ago, so long now that I don't recall the circumstance. It's not the only one that I have, but it seems the most potent.

Poetry: Edgar Allan Poe

This poem has always, for me, seemed to hold the essence of being a witch; it captures that ineffable sense of otherness that is at the core of it.

Alone

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were---I have not seen
As others saw---I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I lov'd, I loved alone.
Then---in my childhood---in the dawn
Of a most stormy life---was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold---
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by---
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Thoughts? Discuss.

She Goes Into The Countryside

I make no secret of my indoorsy proclivities, and have discussed them at length elsewhere; but on occasion, even I go outdoors, and sometimes while I'm there I get lucky.

Found objects are not ordinarily my forte; I've never been so fortunate as to come across a really amazing find while out walking. This weekend, however, I quite accidentally managed to find not one but two small treasures. (What I did not have, of course, was my camera, or I'd have photographed them in situ. The small trip off the beaten track was unintended,)

I was at an historical event, garbed as an 18th century woman (albeit a very heavily armed one, but that's just me), and making my precarious way down a stepped slope in wildly inappropriate footwear. As I clutched at a sapling to keep myself upright, I happened to glance to my left, whereon I spied a large rock upon which rested a perfectly centered, immaculate blue jay feather; it was as if it had been quite deliberately placed there. I left it there--in part because I couldn't remember if jays were a protected species in that particular state, and in part because the tableau was too lovely for me to disturb--and took away the memory, along with a mental note to consider the blue jay and what lessons it might bring.

Jays are related to crows, and carry some similar characteristics of behavior. They're chatty and aggressive, and fiercely protective; I once passed too closely by a jay's nest as a child and she chased me all the way back inside my house. Looking at the lore of the jay as a totem, I find that some consider it a trickster character, and one given to mimicry and mockery, so perhaps these are things in myself that need attention at the moment, a tendency toward such actions which may or may not be serving me. One source indicates that they are highly resourceful and adaptable, and capable of getting along with the least amount of effort, and that when jay shows up one should look into one's own tendencies toward being a "dabbler" and not following through with things. Ahem.

Seeking shade and wondering how to get down to the creek, we found a path and started along it, only to find very near its entrance a small scattering of bones--deer, from the look of them, intact and mostly clean, scavengers having already done the hard work. Again, it was a little too perfect, all neatly displayed for me to go all forensic-anthropologist on ("This femur shows signs of having been stripped of its flesh by some scavenger") without having to mess with anything rotting in the midday sun (I prefer my bones to arrive already defleshed, thanks). A lovely femur, a scattering of ribs, right at the edge of the trail where anyone might find them and cart them away. And you know what? I didn't. I left those beautiful bones right where I found them, and not only because, as my husband so helpfully reminded me, I already have a deer femur. The land we were on is often used by scouting groups, and in fact there was a troop of them on site that day; and it occurred to me that maybe those kids needed the thrill of finding bones in nature and trying to identify them more than I needed to bring them home. If I enjoyed it that much, they probably would, too.

Now, had it been a skull, all bets would've been off. I'd have shown it to the scouts as I gleefully carted it off.

What have we learned? To keep our eyes open. To know the difference between what we want and what we need. And to persevere; because just a short way on down that path, past those ever-so-distracting bones, I was awarded with the vista of the creek, and the remaining foundations of the mill, and the mostly intact waterwheel that I had no idea was still standing.

The Company of Witches

Cottage in Blaise Castle estate. Photo by Angi Nelson.

In some of the British wiccan traditions descended from Gerald Gardner, you may come across the saying "You cannot be a witch alone;" but this of course is not always the case. When imagining the classic figure of the witch, the image is often that of a very solitary figure: the herb-wife or cunning man of the village, living alone and plying their trade unobtrusively, set apart by talent and temperament if nothing else, separate from village life but an inextricable part of it as well. Certainly the witch of fairytale lore is a lonely soul, hidden away in the dark forest in her slightly sinister but oh-so-very-attractive cottage. The soul brave enough to seek out and enter the witch's cottage may find therein the answer to her wildest dreams...or the loss of her very soul or sanity. In legend, of course, that cottage may symbolize the deepest part of our unconscious, the place where the demons dwell, and the witch residing therein the keeper of the mysteries of ourselves that we have yet to uncover; to seek then to enter that cottage, and to learn from that witch (or, even better, to become such a being) is to seek our own soul-knowledge and mastery.

But that's the inner working; at the external level, there is also the very concrete reality of the witch's work, whether it be done alone in a cottage at the edge of town, or amongst compatriots in a coven. One certainly can be a witch alone, but sometimes one wants or needs the company of like-minded persons; hence the coven, where witches may meet for esbat or sabbat to work magick, dance, feast, or get up to other varieties of No Good. The woodcuts that so many of us find so evocative often portray what could be considered a coven: rings of witches dancing in a circle, often around a sinister horned figure. The modern reality tends to look a bit different, as it's difficult to fit a 20-foot-tall goat-man into a suburban living room; and many modern covens are more celebratory and, dare I say, religious in nature, gathering more for social purposes than magickal ones. (I frankly am less concerned about what the local coven may be getting up to than what's going on at the megachurch down the way, but in terms of actual impact it's easy to see which of those entities has the advantage.) There are benefits to having a support structure like a coven, like the sense of belonging and connection that can arise from being a part of a group, of a lineage, of a tradition with a real history about it; but such connections are not strictly necessary for one to be a witch.

The ideal situation for many would be to have a coven to meet with for certain occasions or purposes, while maintaining a vigorous personal practice on an as-needed basis. I have always found this model to be most effective for me. Having a network of trustworthy fellow practitioners with whom to discuss the art is highly desirable and, in the modern age, perhaps easier than ever to come by thanks to the internet; and having others with whom to gather and do the work of the witch can be extremely satisfying and enlivening. But even covened witches should remember that their work is sometimes best done alone, free of distraction, in that secluded cottage or forest glade or living room. You can be a witch alone, or witches all together; the work, and the wisdom, are the final determinants.