The Ramblings and Wanderings

Posts Tagged ‘About Juniper’

(I’ve been having some trouble staying online for more than a few minutes at a time, so I’m hoping this works! Also sorry to anyone waiting on me to get back to them and such.)

Click the link below and have a listen … or else!

Standing Stone and Garden Gate Promo

Now head on over to the Podshow’s website at:

Standing Stone and Garden Gate

(a podshow for thinking Pagans and working Witches)

For full episodes.

Enjoy!

What’s your Path?

I am a Hedgewitch. Meaning I am a shamanic practitioner of folk magick (that’s the short explanation). My spirituality is Celtic/Anglo-Saxon Paganism. I started in Wicca like many do, but have moved further away from it more and more of time. I am not however a Wicca-basher like many non-Wiccan Witches are.

Do you have an altar?

Sometimes I use an altar and sometimes not. An altar is simply a workspace to me. I have laid out elaborate altars on tables, simple altars in dirt, and none at all. Sometimes I use my stang as a kind of portable altar, but that is not its only purpose.

A shrine?

I have shrines, many in fact. I like them. One in each room of the house, some simple and small. The main one in the living room is the largest and has the most “stuff”, it also receives the most attention. Right now I have no shrines outdoors, partly due to it being winter and partly due to being trapped in an apartment. Which I hate, I miss the country life so very much!

Do you believe in deities?

I believe in the gods as surely as believe in the air we breathe and land beneath my feet. You could call me a poly-animist (which I suppose is rather like pantheism but it just doesn’t quit fit the bill)

What form of spellwork do you do?

Whatever is needed. Folk magick, low magick, whatever you wish to call it. I am not a big fan of categories.

What tools do you use?

Many and varied. The longer I practice the simpler they become, trading in fancy crystal for plain rocks, silk ribbon for homespun thread.

Who is your favourite author when it comes to your chosen path?

Most of the books out there on Hedgewitchery are crap.

Nigel Jackson, Eric de Vries, Owen Davies, Nigel Pennick, Andrew Chumbley (to name a few) have some books that might interest.

I do enjoy some of the more Wicca-ish books sometimes, and there are a few good Kitchenwitch and Greenwitch books out there that are worth reading as well. I like Arin Murphy Hiscock.

I also enjoy books on Shamanism, nature of any sort and folk lore; I’m a big history and eytmology nerd as well.

I have often thought that

If only I had been born into a tribal society

I would have been given a costume and drum

A place and role in society

And happily spent my life as a shaman serving my community

Instead I am stuck working retail

Moving through Western society as awkwardly

As a square peg jammed into a round hole

And practicing my spirituality behind closed doors

Last night I dreamed I was sitting in a grove with a lineaged Traditional Witch or Wiccan.

I am not sure which Path she was on exactly, dreams are like that, but I knew she was hard-nosed Traditional.

We were discussing our different world views and Paths.

She leaned against a large grey boulder or small standing stone and said:

“My Path is like this stone, strong and old; a solid foundation upon which to build.”

Then she pointed to a pile of leaf litter and compost by my feet.

She spoke with smugness when she said:

“Your Path is like a pile of compost, a bunch of different stuff collected in a shapeless heap.”

I was not injured by her words.

I reached out and stirred the compost pile with my hand.

I said:

“Yes. But you can grow things in a compost heap.”

And thus a riot of wild flowers, ivy and herbs sprang forth from the compost and leaf litter.

Covering it with new, fresh, young growth.

I plucked a ripe, red fruit from a Wild Strawberry and asked:

“Can you eat your rock?”

I turned towards her, waiting for an answer.

But she and her rock had been covered over with moss, they had become one.

She could not speak, she could not move.

I said:

“Moss does not grow on a rolling stone.”

I ate my strawberry in the silence, watching the herbs in my compost pile grow.

Taken by Brendan

This is how my garden grows

I will be me

Unequivocally

Always

And in every situation

No audience

No following

No friends

Or family

Will make me be

Anything other than

Me

I am not a one dimensional character

I am an onion

I have many layers

It may take time

For them all to see

All that is me

Sometimes happy

Sometimes sad

Sometimes compassionate

Sometimes stark raving mad

Though I am a human being

And thus I will change and grow

And often be a different me

I will still always

Be me

But always and forever

I will be me

Consistently

With integrity

I will be me