The Ramblings and Wanderings

Posts Tagged ‘Life of a Hedgewitch’

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.

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.

Research causes you to read books you otherwise might not have!

• “A dictionary of English etymology” by Hensleigh Wedgwood

• “Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England: a regional and comparative study” by Alan Macfarlane

• “Shamanism: a reader” edited by Graham Harvey

• “An historical sketch of the provincial dialects of England” by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps

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