The Ramblings and Wanderings

Archive for the ‘Crossing the Hedge’ Category

“The shaman knows that the soul’s urge toward beauty is not about perfect symmetry and mainstream approval. It is not about opening doors in business, or snagging the right mate, or fitting in at the A-list parties. The shaman knows that beauty is about opening doors to joy, snagging the moment, and fitting into your own life. She knows beauty is not something to buy. It is a path, a way of living and being in the world. The only path and the only way, if you want to keep dancing and singing.” ~ Robin Rice

It is perfectly normal to have difficulty learning to enter into trance states and to cross the Hedge. Thanks to certain authors, self help gurus and the like there is a belief that everything should be relatively easy or at least achievable after a couple of tries. The fact of the mater is that training one self to enter into trance states, or altered states of consciousness is not easy for most people. Hedge crossing (being the step you achieve after learning to enter trance states) is even more difficult. It’s supposed to be strenuous. There are reasons why shamanic practitioners are, and always have been, few and far between and are well respected (and a little bit feared) members of their communities.

It takes a minimum of twelve, but better twenty four, repetitions to create a new habit. So if you were to practice entering a trance state via drumming every full moon it could take you at least a year, and maybe two, to just begin to train your mind, body and spirit slip through the Hedge at the sound of your drum. This is just to start the new habit; you then have to follow through in order to maintain it.

Hedge crossing often, if not always, requires pushing past boundaries. Not just the boundaries of your own mind or the boundaries of this world, but the boundaries of what you think you can do. How long can you sit and chant for? How long can you dance? Can you keep drumming even when your arm is sore and hurting from the drumming? Can you perform ritual after three days of fasting?

The other night I performed a night ritual with a friend, introducing her to working with flying ointments. To begin she ate little that day and mostly healthy foods such as avocado, crackers and apple juice. We began the ritual around 9pm, at sundown purifying each other in the river, going through invocations, creating a boundary around our ritual space, and making offerings. Then I performed a short crossing myself seeking any last minute suggestions from my spirits.

Finally as we neared midnight I allowed her to coat herself with the ointment I had prepared. I had her do yoga for about half an hour. Then breathing exercises and swaying combined with chanting. Then I got her to plough the furrow (or Compass Round), dragging her feet and clapping her hands (or slapping her thighs). She did this through a hawthorn grove, being pricked by thorns that lay on the ground. I had her plough the furrow for quite some time, dragging her feet harder and harder, pushing against the tides. When she began to get out of breath … I made her chant out loud. I asked if she was tired and she nodded, so I had her keep going a little longer. Then, when it began to look as though she might rebel against my abuse, I helped her wrap herself up in a blanket against a hawthorn tree and attempt to cross.

She stayed there for about three hours. Her experiences are her own.

(All you people who write me saying you’d love to learn from me still wanna be my apprentice after reading that?)

This is how you cross the Hedge. Hedge riding is hardcore witchcraft and by that I don’t mean “hardcore” as in “cool” I mean it as in “hard right down to the very core”.

Here is a Hedge crossing checklist (in an undetermined order):

* What is your goal? What is it you want to achieve? Why? What is your motivation for crossing and what do you want to gain from it? Until you know what you want to do and why, everything else will not fall into place. Be clear, do your research. Have intent.

* Do you know where you wish to go? Many people report that they want to cross but do not know where they wish to go. They do not know for sure if they want to astral travel within the Middle world, if they wish to journey to the Underworld etc etc

You need to know if you wish to cross within your body, going deep within to converse with spirits and gods and ancestors. Or do you wish to leave your body behind and take your spirit for a flight else where, even if only within the confines of your ritual space?

Until you have a clear idea of where you want your spirit to go, how can it go? This is like walking out your door without knowing where you want to go or how to get there.

“Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior’s indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.” ~ Carlos Castaneda

* Study and research. It’s a good idea if you are going to cross to the Underworld that you have some idea of what you might find there. It’s easy to get lost while wandering around on the otherside and to find things that are strange, even scary. Study up on ancient and modern cultures mythologies and understandings of what lies beyond the Hedge.

* Find your safe entrance. Creating or finding a safe place that acts as your entrance and exit for crossing can not only help you make that “jump” across but it can also help provide you with a way to get the heck out if things go wrong.

Basing your visualization on something meaningful to you, or something with cultural significance will work better than just trying something from a book as well. Take the time to really build up your visualization, give it character, make it yours long before you even attempt to go through that hobbit door.

Also don’t try a million different entrances. If a cave doesn’t work for you the first two times don’t try a hedge the next time, then a tree the time after that, and then mountain after that. Giving something a fair try means doing more than just three or four times. If something isn’t working try variations before you scrap it entirely.

* Practice, practice, practice. You need to train yourself to slip into altered states and then across the Hedge. Once you’ve been doing it for a while (possibly years) you will find it easier to make that transition and be able to cross, do your thing and come back all under an hour. But even someone who is experienced will struggle at times. If they are out of practice it may take time to get back to where it is less difficult. I don’t think it ever gets “easy” it simply gets less difficult and requires less effort over time.

* Know yourself. Become comfortable with yourself. Face your demons. Love yourself. You do not want to be in a drug induced Journey and then be forced to face an aspect of yourself or your life that you were unprepared for. When walking between the worlds you cannot wear masks, you cannot be in denial of who you are and the things you have done. Break down your inner barriers before you try to break through the barriers of the unseen. Going to therapy now to deal with your issues is better than going to therapy and a shaman later to deal with your issues and the trauma of having to face them in the Underworld.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Jalal ad-Din Rumi

* Check your ego at the door. Waltzing out of your body or into the realms of gods, spirits and ancestors full or pride and with your hand out like some spoiled child will get you slapped down. Pretending the gods, spirits and ancestors are not greater or more knowledgeable or are less powerful than you are will not keep your safe from them on the otherside. Folks often like to think the gods (etc) are not bigger and badder than they are because the thought that they might be makes them uncomfortable, prepare to be very uncomfortable. People who say that they are equal to the gods or ancestors obviously haven’t met them in their own territory.

There’s a fantasy novel I adore wherein the main character who has had run ins with the gods before comes across a bunch of pilgrims. One of the pilgrims is going on and on about how she would love to meet the goddess face to face and all the things she would say. The main character thinks to herself “yeah right, if you found yourself in Her presence you’d be face first on the floor pissing yourself”

* If you want to start Hedge crossing on a regular basis I suggest you spend a little time studying things like Shamanic Death before they happen to you unexpectedly.

* Are you really, REALLY, called or do you just want to be a shaman? Do you know what the difference is? I am not saying you should not add shamanic practices to your spiritual path if you are not called to shamanize, but I am suggesting you be honest with yourself about whether you really have been called or not.

* Chant out loud, not just in your head. Repetition is only part of the purpose of chanting, using your voice and your breath is also necessary to make it worth your while. Vibration, breath, voice, repetition, intent, focus, energy and consciousness raising … these are what chanting is about.

* Ritual before a crossing matters, especially when you are first starting out. Think of it this way: First you enter into a ritual mindset, then into an altered state, and then you cross. X, Y, Z. There are good reasons why shamans around the world do certain things a certain way, wearing a specific costume, fasting, drumming, lighting candles, making offerings and so forth. Yes, part of the reason for these things may simply be for show (nothing like the placebo effect to help you along a bit right?) but the main purpose for these ritualistic actions is to prepare the mind, body and soul.

* Stick to it. It’s hard to stick to a single visualization or one chant or one drumming rhythm in a single ritual. But the idea here is to train your self like Pavlov’s dogs. Changing chants and such mid rite is like switching gears in your brain. Experienced practitioners have worked with one rhythm, one herb, one chant or one visualization until they know exactly how it affects them and what it does for them, and then they work with something else for a while, adding to their repertoire. Then they can “switch gears” according to their needs.

* It can take a while to learn what an altered state feels like for you, how to hold on to it and what to do from there. This is why the things listed above are so important.

* Flying ointments are like the usher in a posh theatre. Their purpose is to hold the door for you and help you find your seat. However you still have to buy the tickets, get to the theatre, walk through the door, watch the show and find your way back up the aisle afterwards. They can only do so much for you, they make your work easier but you still have to do the work.

Full on entheogens and hallucinogens, such as a good sized dose of datura, work a little differently than a flying ointment of mugwort or wormwood. These will grab you by the throat, drag you into the theatre, shove you into a seat and you don’t even get to choose what play you watch before being ejected face first out the door at its end.

* Expect it to be unpleasant. Many people give up once they start to feel seasick, dizzy, or uncomfortable. Altered states and Hedge crossing can be disorienting and feel very strange and be rather unpleasant. When working with tools such as ointments, tinctures, and smoke (to name a few) your body may be unhappy. Drumming, swaying, rattling and many meditative postures can give you sore muscles. You’re supposed to puke during a sweat lodge, a Sundance is really quite painful, and most entheogens make you sick and you can get lost wandering around on the otherside and fuck yourself up. Hedge crossing is for the stalwart souls willing to deal with a little discomfort and for those willing to risk going crazy as well.

* What is your goal? What is it you want to achieve? Why? What is your motivation for crossing and what do you want to gain from it? Until you know what you want to do and why, everything else will not fall into place. Be clear, do your research. Have intent. (Yes this is a repeat)

* If at first you don’t succeed try, try again.

* Yes, for some people this all comes naturally. Those folks are rare, don’t be sad if you aren’t one of them.

* Check out these articles and the books they suggest (if any) also read using your brain and critical thinking skills.

http://witchofforestgrove.com/2010/06/18/walking-between-worlds/

http://witchofforestgrove.com/2010/04/14/shapeshifting/

http://www.sacred-texts.com/sha/sis/index.htm

http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/boe/boe16.htm

http://www.sacred-texts.com/sha/anim/index.htm

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe03.htm

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sce/index.htm

http://www.adf.org/articles/cosmology/otherworld.html

http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/wcwe/wcweapp5.htm

http://bitterwitchx.livejournal.com/3982.html

* Check out these books (click here)

“Observe the wonders as they occur around you.

Don’t claim them.

Feel the artistry moving through, and be silent.” ~ Jalal ad-Din Rumi

(And yes I know a Sufi poet and a Shaman are two different things, but you can never have too much Rumi)

Related Post: Risk vs Reward

(Breaking the rules of wordless Wednesday … Sorry I haven’t been around much! I have lots going on right now. I’m writing like crazy, reading like crazy, working and job hunting, Bren’s birthday is coming up, helping with the starting of a ritual group, planning and performing all night rituals and Hedge crossings, doing some wood burning, there’s the podcast … the list goes on.

Two things I owe you guys: an article on Hedge Crossing for here and an article on building a relationship with a landscape for New World Witchery, I hope to have these finished up asap.

Also check out the upcoming book from Pendraig Publishing called “To Fly by Night” recognize any names? Only my first name is listed right now hehehehe)

A first(ish) draft of the introduction to the chapter on etheogens and hallucinogens in that book I’ll never finish writing.

“Blind as a bat, mad as a hatter, red as a beet, hot as hell, dry as a bone, the bowel and bladder lose their tone, and the heart runs alone.” ~ A teaching mnemonic device about the effects of Datura stramonium

Like many young and inexperienced Witches I had a craving for a deep, mystical and powerful spiritual experience, similar to the tales I had heard the Elders in my community share. I wanted something akin to the tall-tales the other young Witches and Pagans told each other when not within earshot of the Elders. I wanted something special, something that would make me special, some great nugget of lore or wisdom that would impress people. I was envious… and a little bored.

My first attempt at working with flying ointment had been something of a disappointment to me, yet also a temptation. Being careful and cautious as I was advised, I had made a very simple and weak blend. Then I rubbed it on a few pulse points before stretching out on a blanket in my living room and trying out a few different breathing exercises. I had a minor visionary experience but not the mind blowing, enlightening Journey across the Hedge that would allow me to “wink wink” with other practitioners who had. However, it was enough to give me a taste of what might be. I felt like a starving man being offered only a single slice of bread. I wanted more.

As a teenager, I had experimented a great deal with hallucinogens. LSD and mushrooms were easier to get my hands on than alcohol or cigarettes in high school. With that experience, I thought I knew what I was doing.

I made a new batch of flying ointment: stronger, better, faster. It was a combination of lard, a small amount of mugwort  and a large dose of datura. I had done a little cursory researching on the ingredients and the making of ointment. I impatiently waited for the next full Moon, took a few days off work, and prayed for good weather.

I fasted on the day of my planned rite and buzzed around the house and my four acre wooded property with nervous energy, full of anticipation. I choose a spot some twenty yards from my home in a clearing surrounded by birches and spruce. There I laid out my blanket and set up my altar. As the Sun went down I began my ritual, calling upon gods, ancestors and the spirit guides known to me at the time: Owl and Crow. I slathered myself with the stuff, rubbed a dollop upon my tongue, and spread out naked upon my blanket.

I lay scattered in the abyss

Surrounded by a bleak

And terrifying nothingness

The creatures I had trusted

Who naively I had followed

Have torn me apart

And left me in a mess

The shock and horror

Their betrayal

The pain of my dismemberment

Fills my being and all that I am

And then suddenly is forgotten

As I begin to contemplate the blackness

And the fact that though torn asunder

I am still capable of self and thought

I realize that in these pieces

I cannot be more than self and thought

The fear that I will never leave this place

Begins to fill the emptiness around me

I cry out and then I hear myself begging

For release, for a way out of here

A dark figure beyond the black looms

Large and twisting with antlers adorning

He offers me a deal…

A short while later I am slammed back into my body screaming like a newborn babe. I twist and writhe upon my blanket, clutching at it, face down at first but eventually I flounder my way upon my back. My blurred vision clears somewhat and I stare about in gasping horror. The white birches have become finger bones with strips of flesh clinging to them; the spruces loom darkly above menacingly. The Moon and stars in the sky above wheel and spin dizzyingly.

My dogs locked in their run have heard my screaming and now bark and whine, the sound echoing in my ears and my head, making me clutch my ears in pain and fear. They sound as if a pack of coyotes or hyenas are scrabbling at the fence, trying to get through to rend and tear at my flesh, just as my spirits had done to me in That Other Place. Amongst the chaos, noise, and terror, a single thought blooms in my mind and gives me focus: Get this stuff off of me!

Sobbing now I begin to frantically rub the blanket against my skin, trying desperately to remove the offending ointment. The nasty, greasy stuff does not come off easily. It seems to cling to my body, and I weep and whimper at the irrational fear that I would take my skin off with it.

I catch a glimpse of light, streaming from the kitchen window of my home. Somehow I stumble to my feet, but then the ground rushes up at me and slams into my face. Pain explodes through my consciousness. As adrenaline floods my body, I am awarded a moment of clarity and take it, picking myself up and moving as fast I dare towards my home. By the time I reach the front steps I am crawling again, unable to stop the world from shifting beneath me. It seems to take forever to climb the six steps up the front door and my hand passes through the doorknob three times before I can grasp it to open it.

Clinging to counter and walls I shoo my dogs away, which I see as in the house barking and lunging at me, though in fact they were still outside in their run. Somehow I make it into the bathroom and grab at the faucet like a drowning woman reaching for a life preserver. I am afraid to turn on the hot faucet, paranoid I might burn myself so I turn on the cold shower and climb in, coating myself with shampoo and soap as I try to remove the ointment from my body.

I walked with one foot in each world for three days. I did not return to work for nearly two weeks. My life has never been the same since.

Today you can find flying ointment recipes on websites and in forums, even in books written by authors whose works are aimed mostly at teenagers. People call themselves Hedgewitches with no concept of what the word really means. They mistake it for a solitary Wiccan or a domestic Witch messing about with herbs in her kitchen. They look for flying ointment recipes, and tips on how to smoke salvia divinorum, seeking that short cut to a special mystical experience which they think they deserve. In this culture of instant gratification, the masses no longer want to do the work. They do not feel the need to earn their stripes. They want what they want, and they want it now. Meditation and trance inducing techniques are boring and require patience, time and discipline. Would it not be easier to simply drink a tea, slather some ointment or smoke an herb instead?

Many of the folks seek these recipes and tips from complete strangers on the Internet. Paradoxically, many also ask for only “safe” recipes, and don’t want to risk something bad happening to them. Too many people think they can safely dabble with such tools and techniques, based on the advice of an anonymous “friend” on a forum and expect to receive the Mysteries this way.

You don’t take flying ointment, entheogens or hallucinogens hoping that you will have a grand experience and that nothing negative might happen. If you should choose to work with them, then you must be willing to risk a bad experience. There is always a risk of danger and trauma when you work with such substances, no matter how careful you are and how well you do your research you cannot fully eliminate that risk. If you are not willing to accept that risk, then you stand a very good chance of being traumatized, hospitalized, or forced to face something you may not truly be ready for.

If you are not prepared to accept the risk, then do not use these techniques and tools. If you are seeking a shortcut to enlightenment, insight or the Mysteries then you are a fool indeed.

Hedge Witchery

Hedge is a Teutonic term originally meaning any fence, boundary or enclosure, later meaning a specific type of living thicket planted to act as a fence, enclosure or boundary.

Old High German (language used roughly from 500 to 1050 C.E): hegga, hecka

Old Dutch (600 to 1150 C.E.): heggehn

Old Saxon or Old Low German (800 to 1200 C.E) : haeg

Anglo-Saxon or Old English (550 C.E to 1250C.E): hecg, hegge, haga, hecge or hege

Middle English (11th century and about 1470 C.E): hedge, hegge, hedgen, heggen

Suffolk dialect (at least 1300 C.E. to present day): hetch

Modern English (1550 C.E to modern day): hedge

Middle English hagathorn meaning “hedge thorn” becomes the modern hawthorn

Old Teutonic stem haja- meaning “behind the hedge” gives rise to the Old English haja, Middle English heye, haye and thus the English hay. Behind the hedge lays the hay field.

The old words for hedge also gave rise to the words hawk (hedge-bird), haggard, edge and hag (witch).

Old English for hedgerow is heggeræw.

Saxon haegtessa and the Old English haegtesse, roughly translates to hedge-rider, hag-rider, witch and witch-fury.

In a 13^th century Icelandic text called the Poetic Edda, we find a long poem called Hávamál, and in that poem the god Odin recites a list of Rune-spells he has learned while hanging upon the World Tree (axis mundi). This part of the Hávamál has come to be called the Song of Spells. The tenth of these spells particularly interests and inspires Hedgewitches. There are many translations of this verse; here are four of them.

For the tenth I know,
if I see troll-wives
sporting in air,
I can so operate
that they will forsake
their own forms,
and their own minds.

~ Benjamin Thorpe

A tenth I know: when at night the witches
ride and sport in the air,
such spells I weave that they wander home
out of skins and wits bewildered.

~ Olive Bray

If I see the hedge-riders magically flying high,
I can make it so they go astray
Of their own skins, and of their own souls.
~ Nigel Pennick

A tenth I know, what time I see
House-riders* flying on high;
So can I work, that wildly they go,
Showing their true shapes,
Hence to their own homes.

~ Henry Adams Bellows

* House-riders: witches, who ride by night on the roofs of houses, generally in the form of wild beasts.

From these translations we can infer that a Hedgewitch or Hedgerider is thus a person with some shamanic qualities. They can ‘ride’, as in travel through and over, the boundary of this world and into the Otherworld. They can leave the “enclosure” or “hedge” of their own body, experience soul-flight and send their spirits to wander in the night. It would also seem that Odin has the power to confuse their spirit flight and to return them back to their own bodies.

During the Middle Ages hedge begins to be used prefixed with other words to denote something that is born in, or belonging to, the outlying hedges or woods. Something or someone mean, base, low, odd, outlandish, an outsider. Such as hedge-priest, hedge-press, hedge-vicar.

The Raubritter or the robber barons in Germany during the late Middle Ages were sometimes called hedge-knights and even referred to themselves as hedge-riders. They were no doubt referring to the fact that they rode on horses amongst the hedgerows. These knights would descend from their fortified homes and prey upon the peasant class, raiding their cattle, robbing them and even holding people for ransom. Ernest F. Henderson in “A Short History of Germany” writes: “The knights themselves only saw the humorous side of the matter, and gloried in such names as “hedge-rider”, “highwayman,” “bush-clapper,” “pocket-beater,” and “snap-cock.” “

Now we must fast forward to the surge of interest in solitary Wicca, Paganism and Witchcraft takes off in the 1980s and sky rockets, we see more and more books and classes available on the subject as the years go by. The introduction of the internet insures that solitary practice is here to stay.

Ronald Hutton in his “The Triumph of the Moon” writes: “Alongside coven-based pagan witchcraft there appeared at the end of the 1980s a formally constituted strain which catered for the solitary practitioner. It was largely given identity by the West Country writer Rae Beth, who standardized for people the delightful term of ‘hedge witch’.”

It would seem the people who began to use the term Hedgewitch as a solitary Wiccan practitioner were looking at the usage of hedge from the Middle Ages. They were inspired by such terms as hedge-preacher but had not gone even further back in the history of the word.

During all this we also see a burgeoning interest in home based practice, as well as the nature oriented Witchcraft movement. Terms such as Kitchenwitch, Hearthwitch, Cottagewitch, Greenwitch all start gaining popularity. By the early 1990 you begin to see more and more fictional character called Hedgewitches in fantasy and other genres. In 1994, the now defunct Association of Solitary Hedgewitches (ASH) was established as a contact organisation for solitary Witches to network.

In the 1990s an interest in shamanic traditions also begins to grow tremendously within the Pagan and Witchcraft communities. We also begin to see more and more references to shamanic practices as a part of Hedgewitchery. Even Llewellyn Publications jumps on the bandwagon, adding to its “Witchcraft Today” series a book by Chas Clifton called “Shamanism and Witchcraft Today” wherein the Hedgewitch and Hedge-rider make appearances. Once we reach the year 2000 the term Hedgewitch has grown to mean not only a solitary witch but also one who practices shamanism, herbalism and who is typically found in wild and rural areas.

In the year 2000 Eileen Holland writes in “The Wicca Handbook”: “Hedgewitch: a walker-between-worlds, a non-Wiccan witch with a shamanistic path.”

In “Being a pagan: Druids, wiccans, and witches today” by Ellen Evert Hopman and Lawrence Bond, written in the year 2001, a self proclaimed Hedgewitch named Deborah Ann Light speaks about her practice: “A Hedge Witch is a Witch who lives in the country. We collect things. We wander the roads and byways and gather what we find caught in brambles and under rock and in the roots of trees.”

At this point Traditional Witchcraft and other Non-Wiccan forms of Witchcraft had begun to gain popularity. Once reclusive, more and more Traditional Witches write books and create websites, stepping into the limelight for the first time. These Witches lay claim to the word Hedgewitch, saying that it has always meant a shamanic practitioner of folk magick. That it is a Path within Traditional Witchcraft, and the usage of the term for a solitary Wiccan to be incorrect. Proving the claim that Hedgewitch was used by Traditional Witches prior to Rae Beth’s writing in 1990 is impossible unfortunately, due to the very fact that there is no written evidence. Traditional Witchcraft is secretive and the practitioners often oath bound into silence.

What we do know however is that the voices of the Traditional Witchcraft community were heard and the usage of the term Hedgewitch began to sift back into a definition more in keeping with what we find in the Havamal.

In a Chapter titled “Dancing on the Edge: Shamanism in Modern Britain” written by Gordon MacLellan from the 2003 work “Shamanism: a reader” edited by Graham Harvey we find: “But we do not have an extant shamanic tradition to draw upon. There are claims for surviving hedge-witch practices, some of the old covens have lasted down the centuries and there are tantalising echoes of still fuller traditions fading with our older generations. Descriptions of the Highland seers sound very like those of entranced shamans. Folk tradition is full of spirit-catchers and witch-bottles and the proper ways of living with the spirit world of Faerie.”

By this time even Rae Beth was correcting and adjusting her original definition of “Hedgewitch” stating that at the time of writing that famous book she had not properly done her research into the history of the word. Her spirits had spoken this word to her and she had applied it to her practice at the time without understanding. Today she is encouraging the growing trend of using “Hedgewitch” to mean a spirit walker, one who knows, a shamanic practitioner of Witchcraft.

“HedgeWitche’s cores practice is centered around the Underworld journey and therefore, around the invoking of trance. There is NO WAY you can enter the Underworld without the alteration of your consciousness, for you will have to experience the inner to access the Underworld. That alteration is done by trance – it is the experience of the inner – without the key of trance, the door will stay fully locked. And so if you want to be a Hedgewitch you need to know how to invoke trance.” From “Hedge-Rider: Witches and the Underworld” by Eric De Vries in 2008

From all this we have the modern English word Hedgewitch. There can be variations in the spelling of this term, such as “Hedgewytch”, some may use all lowercase lettering as well. There are also a few related terms, such as Hedge-Riders, Night Travelers, Myrk-Riders (“myrk” being the old spelling for “murky”, or a kind of darkness), Gandreidh (wand-rider). The old term of Cunning Folk is sometimes used, and also Walkers on the Wind.

Today its exact usage is still being shaped and taking form. The simplest definition would be a Witch whose practice is earth-based, involves the use and study of folk traditions, and is shamanic in nature.

(normally I allow people to steal my stuff, but not this please!)

I am asleep.

I am asleep and have delved into some deep abyss of dreaming far beyond the physical enclosure that is my body.

I dream and know I am dreaming. I glide through a realm of black and blue, soft and delicate as silk, sheer like fine muslin. I dance in the glory of the dreamscape.

Then, a gradual awareness begins to tug at me. I feel my body calling me back to awakening. The most simple and basic need driving me out of my sweet surrender to dreaming: the need to pee.

I float in a spiral pattern upwards and out of the dreamscape towards the light of the morning sun.

I awake and sit, then clamber out of bed, and reach for clothing left out the night before. I find I cannot put it on and I perceive everything is still soft and shrouded in the wrong kind of pale light.

I am still asleep, dreaming of being awake.

I decide to try again to wake.

Again I find myself dreaming of waking, this time stumbling to the bathroom naked. I realise the falseness of my wakefulness as I reach for the bathroom doorknob.

I decide to try again to wake.

I sit up in my bed, and now wary of dreaming of being awake, I quickly realise my still dreaming state.

I loose my patience and attempt to force my body to wake with a wrench and a twist.

I find myself rolling over and sitting on the edge of the bed. There is a different feel to this than dreaming, more real and physical. Yet, it is still not quite right. I rub my hands against the mattress, attempting to ascertain my level of consciousness. I can feel as well as any waking moment the mattress beneath my hands, the seam at its very edge.

The edges of my sight are slightly blurred, my body not as responsive as it should be. I can fully perceive the mattress and its seam though I know my head is not turned to view it. That is not quite right.

I pause for a moment of frustration.

Through experience, I know what to do. I force my self to look at my right upper arm. There I see no tattoo of black thorns adorning it. I reach for my ears and feel no hoops piercing them.

I know what this is.

I twist my astral body around on the bed and gaze at my physical body curled up, under the covers, her back to me. I cannot see it but I can feel the thin lifeline that ties us to each other.

I am not sure if an astral body can sigh in annoyance, but mine tries anyways.

I have a routine now for such occurrences. I move towards my physical form and tug on an ear that should be pierced at the same time and thusly, slip back into my body.

At first I have the sense of being on the inside, moving outwards.

Finally I wake.

Like spring buds opening to take in the warmth of the sun I slowly unfurl my self within myself. Soul within shell. Spreading outwards until reaching finger tip and pinkie toes.

Then at last, I can roll over onto my back. I concentrate on my breath. I attempt to ground and center. I really have to pee.

My dog rubs up against the side of the bed, greeting me, getting in the way as I reach for clothing and then head for the bathroom.

I kiss my man good morning and sit at my desk, staring blankly at the computer screen before me. Now I perceive myself from the outside, looking in.

It will take some time to fully shake the cobwebs away.

Living a life with many states of consciousness can be irritating and confusing at times.

Sometimes, you just wanna wake up and go pee.

The tenth Rune-spell I did learn

Whilst hanging from the World Tree

Is to gaze deep into the murky night

And spy the Hedgewitches flying high,

Sending their spirits far and wide

I see their true forms,

Though they may shift their shapes

With this Rune-charm that I know,

I can confuse their wandering souls

Then turn them ‘round and send them home

Back into their bodies,

Back within their own skins

And for a time at least, trap them within.