The Ramblings and Wanderings

Archive for the ‘Life of a Hedgewitch’ Category

I don’t really have a Book of Shadows, rather I have several notebooks scattered around with bits of this and that. Terribly disorganized I know, but better suited to my personality. Maybe someday, when I am in my grey hairs, I will combine the best pieces. Do something pretty and scrapbook-ish perhaps. For now I will carry on with my many notebooks. Every now and then I find one I thought was lost and flip through it, delighted by the bits and pieces I find. Here is a fragment of a poem I started over a year ago and never finished:

I stand upon the mountainside

I raise my hands up to the sky

My feet touch the land

My eyes caress the valley below

I taste the wind and the rain

Drink, drink, drink

Drink it all in

Soak it up witch

Here I stand

I am alive

I rise with the Sun

It breaks through the clouds

I blow kisses at the rainbow it brings

I am soaked

I am alive

The Walking the Hedge 2010 Calendar is ready to be ordered and shipped!

Created by the gang at the Hedge, this scrapbook style calendar is a beautiful work of art printed on recycled paper.

It features fun facts, Pagan & other holidays, special dates, lunar phases, poetry, art, photography and much more!

You pay a $23.00 donation to Walking the Hedge (Canadian dollars, which includes shipping)

All proceeds go to the cost of the calendar and the cost of webhosting for the Hedge

Once you order, please contact Juniper by Email with your order number, how many calendars you ordered and your shipping information.

You can find some more previews of the Calendar in the Gallery, keep checking as more previews will be posted.

We will try our best to have it shipped to you in time for Yule/Christmas!

Just so you guys know, when you order the calendar it will go to a email called pugglesforu@hotmail.com to Susan Davies … Susan Davies is my Mom. We share a paypal account and have a shared bank acocunt that is attached to it, so don’t worry when you see that name!

Although my feet
Have never walked
Upon ancestral lands

And I’ve never heard
The winds sing a song
Across the Motherland

Though I have never
Laid my own hands
Upon a standing stone

I will sing the old song
I will honour the old gods
I will learn the old ways
And make them new again

For a man or woman
Who is without roots
Finds it all too easy
To cut down another’s tree

And so I will connect
With this New World
I will love, I will learn
This, my dear land

New ways for me to make
Like forefathers of old
New paths for me to blaze
New stories to be told

I will sing the old songs
I will honour the old gods
I will learn the old ways
And make them new again

I headed out job hunting in the downtown core yesterday, wearing my best clothes and the boots-that-look-good-but-hurt. The stress of looking for work combined with navigating a new city on my own and a minor bladder infection was weighing heavily on my mind as I left the printing store and headed down Sparks street.

As I walked in to the cold December wind and plodded along in my boots, heavy bag over my shoulder, I began to think to myself that I should have done more to rack up “good karma” over the last week before going job hunting. Just as I finished this thought a homeless man approached me.

He was in his 50s or 60s, with scraggly grey hair and a scruffy beard. He walked with a slight limp and sported a nasty looking black eye that had swollen shut. Speaking with a thick Northern European accent (German or perhaps Norwegian) he humbly asked me for “One dollar or even fifty cents”.

I follow a mostly Celtic path, but certain Norse gods have popped up in my life a few times before. Including Odin, I have also met a couple of folks who swear they have encountered Old One Eye in the guise of a homeless man before. Whether this guy really was sent by the All Father or not, I am not so foolish that I would miss such and obvious sign, nor am I foolish enough to then do nothing.

I gave the one eyed homeless man with the Norse accent two dollars, double of what he asked for, despite the fact that I myself am broke. He took my hand in his and we spoke the usual platitudes of “Merry Christmas” and “Bless you” before continuing on our separate journeys.

After handing out about half a dozen resumes I grew tired of the cold and anxious due to the buzzing traffic and crowded streets. My head ached, my feet had begun to hurt in the boots, my shoulders were sore from the heavy bag and my throat was also sore. My ears were burning from the cold and my nose had started to run. So I headed in the direction of the one of the big downtown malls. Job hunting indoors sounded like a good idea.

As I walked along, I took a brief detour to pass by the war memorial and give the statutes there a salute, careful not to step on the plaque set into the ground. Then I walked to the plaza where statues and busts of some of the greatest heroes in Canadian history are placed. I took out three pennies from my purse, a very old and rough looking one, a not so old one and a shiny new one; one for the past, one for the present and one for the future. These I placed at the feet of Laura Ingersoll Secord. I crouched before this brave tribal hero and gently touch her foot. Humbly I whispered to her, asking for some of her strength in the coming days.

Secord’s Warning

©1991 Tanglefoot Media, by Joe Grant and Steve Ritchie

Come all ye brave young soldier lads, with your strong and manly bearing.

I’ll tell you a tale of a women brave, and her deed of honest daring.

Laura Secord was American born, in the state of Massachusetts,

But she made her home in Canada and proved so faithful to us.

Chorus:

There’s American guns and five hundred men,

So the warning must be given.

Laura Ingersoll Secord is the stalwart heart,

Who braved the heat, and the flies and the swamp,

To warn Colonel FitzGibbon.

Soldiers pounding at the door, they’ve come from across the boarder.

American officers march inside, it’s food and drink they order.

In comfort they have dined and drunk, their own success they’ve toasted,

But they pay no heed to the woman who hears their plan so widely boasted.

Chorus

“Oh! James I’ve overheard it all, a surprise attack their making.

FitzGibbon they intend to smash, his men for prisoners taking.

But James, a warning never you’ll take, with your wounded knee and shoulder.

I myself must carry it past the sentries and the soldiers.”

Chorus

It’s an all day tramp to the British camp, by way of Shipman’s Corners.

With snakes and flies, and sweat in her eyes, there is no respite for her.

She’s lost her shoes in the muck of the bog, her feet are torn and blistered,

But there’s many a soldier lad to be spared, if the message be delivered.

Chorus

So all you Yankee soldier lads who dare to cross our boarder,

Thinking to save us from ourselves, disturbing British order,

There’s women and men, Canadians all of every rank and station,

To stand on guard and keep us free, from Yankee domination!

Chorus:

There’s American guns and five hundred men,

So the warning must be given.

Laura Ingersoll Secord is the stalwart heart,

Who braved the heat, and the flies and the swamp,

To warn Colonel FitzGibbon.

Is it my imagination that as I walk away from the lady’s statue that my sore throat dissipates?

Then, hours later, my bag empty of resumes, I head back to the bus stop. It is time to go home. After a few hours in the boots-that-look-good-but-hurt my feet are blistered and sore. The pain works it way up my spine and cramps my neck. Damned fallen arches make my body a mass of pressure points and pinched nerves!

I hobble along the streets of downtown and begin to wonder just how cold the cement sidewalks are? My feet are sore enough that I begin to seriously consider taking my boots off and braving the cold sidewalk the rest of the way to my bus stop. Just as I looked up from contemplating my pain-filled feet to take the boots-that-look-good-but-hurt off; an older man approached me. He was in his 50s, with shoulder length, grey curls and an outdated ski jacket. He looked me right in the eyes, raised one hand in the same manner that priests do when offering blessings or benediction and quietly said something short to me in French (which I did not understand). Then he nodded his head in a kind of bow, smiled gently and walked past me.

A little dumbfounded, I decided I could make it to the bus stop in the boots-that-look-good-but-hurt after all.

The end.

Where exactly do other women learn about things such as decorative pillow shams, vs useable pillow cases?

Or the difference between dishes that are just pretty and are not placed in a dishwasher or microwaves vs practical dishes?

Where do women learn about clothes that match and how to judge other women for having socks that don’t match?

Is there a class my mother failed to take me to where we are supposed to learn how to tell if something is an antique or if it will clash with the drapes?

I am tired of feeling like a failure as a woman (and often being treated as such) because these things go right over my head. Is there a crash course I can take to catch up?

Some kind of tomboy recovery center where I can learn all about carpets and stain removal …

I read blogs like Mrs. B’s and feel like a big fat loser. Am I alone in this?

Am I the only woman who practcies domestic magick fixing the toilet or replacing the radiator hose in the car and not making perfect little curtains for the kitchen?

I am working on a blog post about our trip across Canada but am dealing with a good strong case of procrastination, the need to do more important things (like finding a job) and dealing with a time zone change.

I’m thinking you can enter your Mother-phase of life before actually being a wife or mother. On account of this damned nesting instinct causing me real existential crisis.

I wish there had been Montessori type schools when I was a kid.

I have a new computer and I have to teach it Pagan words like Samhain and Hedgewitch … blah!

I have a new computer! It is faster, stronger, better.

The reason we have the style or theme for the Hedge with the hill and the water is because I can’t find one that’s better. Someday I will find one I like more and put up a banner that has a hedgerow on it. Which would probably make more sense.

The main website may not have a hedgerow on it, but there are thresholds on it. Can you count them?

I like being the underdog and I like championing them too. I don’t want to be popular or well respected.

I have a hard time doing math in my head but can usually spout pretty decent poetry off the top of my head.

I have a poor sense of time.

I have a fear of failure. (yeah yeah everyone does)

I can totally take being ridiculed at the time its happening but then break down and cry later.

I cry very easily.

I love kids, dogs, cats, animals and trees. Not human adults so much though.

I am watching the house and kids of the couple I am renting from. I cannot believe how awesome their kids are. If I have kids I hope they are half as good.

Something went wonky with my word program while typing the last thing and I don’t know how to fix it lol

I am more emotionally tough and sensitive than you might think.

Change is hard.

I submitted to Pendraig Publishing the other day and am now checking my email every hour. D’oh.

Imagination rocks.

My familiar is getting old, it makes me sad.

I spend more hours working on the website than you think.

Since driving across Canada, I feel even more Canadian. How could I live anywhere else?