Walking the Hedge

Prayer/meditation shawls are worn in many faiths, you may have heard of Christian women making them for people who are down on their luck, or seen Jews wearing them while in mourning. Buddhists and Hindus wear them as well. You find something similar to these all over the world and in history.

I’ve wanted to make one for myself for years now. The idea was to make something I could wrap myself in during ritual, mediation, spell work and most importantly, shamanic work.

Cloaks and robes are fun and all. I like them, I like the feeling of wearing them, the idea of dressing like the ancestors I honour. I like having ritual or magickal garb. But still, they feel something like playing dress up to me. I like to wear them at a ritual with others, I find they encourage me to get up and dance and clap and chant. Depending on which ones I wear they can help me feel more light hearted or elegant or sorcererous.

However, robes and cloaks don’t help me enter into trance states, they don’t whisper of the otherside to me. They don’t make me feel like a shaman or Hedgewitch. They are also not very practical. It’s silly to throw on a ritual robe to make incense.

I find most Pagan-y ritual garb to not be very comfortable to tromp through the woods in, climb a tree, and sit in it all night in trance. I have a cloak that is soft, warm and light, like a blanket. But it is also volumous and long and deep hooded. This is great in full-on pagan ritual, snuggling before the fire at fest and such. Yet it just doesn’t quite work when I’m tromping around an alpine meadow digging up St. John’s wort.

One thing that has found its way into my spiritual wardrobe is head coverings, such as scarves and hats and headbands. They make me feel more priestess-like. They also act as an important reminder for me. You see, my hair is perhaps my best feature, my greatest source of beauty and physical pride. It’s soft, curly, long and usually dyed some shade of red, bright red. My hair is very attractive and also does a damned good job of making limp haired women jealous. Covering it in rituals, rite, and workings reminds me that the Craft and Spirituality I practice is not about my ego, nor is it about impressing other people.

Shamanic practitioners often have costumes, something they wear only when doing specific practices. Such as otherworld work, healings, or calling on specific spirits and energies. I decided a couple of years ago that what I wanted as a major part of my shamanic costume was something I could wrap around myself, a prayer shawl. Combined with my favourite head covering that hides most of my hair and part of my face, I feel this is (a pretty good start) for a (journeywoman?) Hedgewitch.

As I said, this is something I’ve been wanting for years. Yet, I have been putting it off. I wasn’t ready to embrace what I wanted my prayer shawl to be, wasn’t ready to make it and wear it in front of people. I knew in my heart what I wanted, but it took time to come to terms with it.

I’m sure many of you when thinking “shamanic prayer shawl” are picturing something very natural, organic. Something made of homespun cotton, linen or even leather. After all do we not teach that natural fibres are best? Of course we do, because they are! Being a very Nature-based practitioner, someone who has a bit of a reputation as a Witch who prefers to live hermit-like out in the woods somewhere, you’d think any prayer shawl I made would be %100 organic, all natural and brown … maybe green. Probably fibres made from wool I got off a sheep I raised myself, right?

Wrong.

I tried to want something all natural and beige. I even spent part of last summer making friends with a fibre artist and Quaker lady who lived near me. I tried very hard to want my shawl to be natural fibres and hairs, hand dyed, home spun, with leather and bone embellishments. I just couldn’t. So I kept putting it off and putting it off.

Let me get back to my ritual robes for a moment. I have two. One is made of pale green linen strips woven together, complete with frayed ends. It looks very “Witch who lives in a hut in the woods”-ish. It’s loose and comfortable and witch-y.

The other is altogether different, that’s my “temple robe”. The bottom layer is of expensive, midnight black princess satin, the top layer of high quality black cotton eyelet material. The bloody thing cost me over a hundred dollars to make. Yup, that’s right. Oh, and did I mention the neck-line that plunges almost to my belly button? It’s sexy, sultry, magickal, dangerous, ceremonial and dark, dark, dark. For the kind of woman who spends most of her time in whatever is good for the garden and bought at a thrift store, it is a very special treat. I am not the kind of woman who gets taken out to the opera, if you know what I mean. This robe is not about showing of my cleavage but creating a frame of mind totally different from the nature-y and green robe.

My cloaks tell a similar story, one is a light and soft green plaid flannel, the other is purple velvet.

Nature Witch vs Temple Witch, if you will. Summer and Winter.

I didn’t want my prayer shawl to be either, not homespun linen nor slippery satin. Not meant to help me enter into a different facet of my personality or slip into a certain kind of Witch-y or Pagan-y archetype. No, this shawl is meant to be ME. Just me. It will speak to the people who see it and they can make their own judgements, they will. But I find when I slip through the Hedge and walk the roads less travelled I am in some fundamental way laid bare. Stripped of masks and trappings and totally myself. It is not safe to hold onto illusions of who you are when dealing with the unseen and otherworldly.

It takes courage to go against the grain. To break stereotypes and to do not as what will be accepted by others but to do what is best for you, then to wear it on your back for all to see. I`ve been teased, mocked and downright insulted before for not doing it “right`in the eyes of my fellow Pagans and Witches. It might seem that going against the grain is easy for me, but its not. It can be quite painful in fact. It’s not easy being a misfit Witch, an outsider even among outsiders. Some days I grow weary of it, heart achingly weary, and oh so terribly lonely.

Part of me wanted to make the expected shawl. Something I could show to people and they would nod their heads and say “Yup, that’s a nice shamanic costume you’ve got there”.

However, I’m committed to making it the way that suits me best.

My shawl will be made of 60% wool and 40% acrylic inexpensive slightly fuzzy yarn. It will be ratty looking and full of holes. Haphazardly crocheted like an oversized, insane doily. It will have fringe and tassels and random threads hanging off of it. Beads, bells and gods know what else will dangle from it, making me jingle. It will be roughly rectangular but not perfectly so. It will be in a riot of colours, many of which will clash. Already it is shades of blue, green, purple and orange.

And it sparkles, that’s right, sparkly and shiny.

And it will be mine, and I will wear it with pride.

Related posts:

1. Hey Mister Tambourine Man
2. Project Check In
3. The Course of My Studies Part Two