coming to the crossroads

44 Days of Witchery  :: #1
I've wanted to do this one for a while but never seem to get it together. Maybe this will help keep this blog alive even though I'm the only one who reads it!



What’s your witchy background?
I grew up sort-of Christian, but always believed in magic and fairies. I used to put milk out by the raspberry canes at night, and play under the canopy of wild grapevines and lilac bushes. I had an oak tree that was my special friend (my only “imaginary friend”), and when the library cut it down, I was heartbroken. I especially loved ghosts, cemeteries and ghost stories, loved to scare myself shit-less in the middle of the night! It wasn't until I hit puberty that I began to sense the ghosts. But that's a tale for another time.

When I was thirteen I read—get ready for it—Mists of Avalon. Next I read The White Raven by Diana L. Paxson. “All gods are One God, All Goddesses are One” was something I could live with. It helped me from talking back in church if I would just repeat this to myself when the rhetoric (esp about keeping women quiet and submissive) became too hard to stomach.

The only other book that made a big impression on me was The King Must Die by Mary Renault. It's about being chosen by a god, and it's about Fate. It's also about Theseus and the Labyrinth--if you get a chance, you should read it because it's amazingly good.


I went to college, where I befriended some Wiccans. Only one is still practicing that I know of, and I only know because she's still a good friend of mine. For me, it's been almost four years(half the time I've been in Alaska!). Now that I think about it, it began when we moved into a house at the crossroads. We are in the western quadrant. To the east is an unmarked lane with three cabins on it, to the north and south meanders the dirt road, twisting and turning through the birch, willow and black spruce.

I was pregnant. I was feeling like an earth goddess mama. I read Margot Adler and Merlin Stone. I reread The King Must Die. After reading some Wiccan 101 books, I finally felt comfortable enough to practice—whew! All those ritual tools! All the ceremonial magic stuff! It's enough to make your head spin! I never did a formal dedication to the gods, I decided I'd rather skip right ahead to being a magician (but setting up everything...waiting for the right planets/right time...couldn't do skyclad because of bugs...the annoying rule of three...totally exhausting. No wonder so many people give it up!).

Anyway—long story short, I felt like something was missing. I stopped practicing. I did some research, I had a dream about the old gods of Russia. The Lord of the Underworld, the Bone Mother, Moist Mother Earth and the firebird were there. K. told me that he was amused and pleased that I had been looking for them--he called me by my secret name. He also said that I was "allowed" to call upon other gods (for the record, I'm not Russian, I'm Slavic/Polish and English). Well...that was pretty decent of him, considering. The others did not speak. The Bone Mother's face was in shadow, and I only felt the MME's presence. After the dream, I wrote it down, but still did not practice (I had been invoking MME prior to this).


Instead, I concentrated on the land. How it felt when the seasons changed. I have some pictures of “the way the light feels”, but you can't really sense it from a picture. There's a point when you just “know” that the season has turned. It's seven days past the equinox as I write this, but the domino has yet to fall. When it happens, it happens, and I can't explain it. I can't explain how the light feels falling through the spruce. It's breathless, expectant, waiting.

Then I read a book about traditional witchcraft...yup. That night, I dreamed about the crossroads. To dream of the crossroads means “you will make an important decision that will affect the rest of your life”.

“Certainly it is clear that the crossroads and its related symbolism had been considered as a place where mysterious beings can be met, and where life and death, microcosm and macrocosm merge into one another. ” (“The Enchanted Crossroads” to read the article, go to: http://www.whitedragon.org.uk/articles/crossroad.htm )





Where am I now? I've stepped upon a new path, twisting and turning, meandering through the shadows and the light. Where am I going? I don't know yet, I'll know when I get there. The lesson is in the journey, not the destination.

coincidence? I think not.

Is it coincidence or not when things line up like this? You tell me.

Last year around this time, three things happened: my children got very ill with whooping cough. A (now ex-friend) tried to set me up with someone while I was still in a relationship with my current partner. This person repeatedly FB messaged/stalked me and just gave me the creeps in general. I cut ties with those "friends" and repaired my relationship with my partner.

Yesterday: creepy guy messaged me on FB *and* my eldest son has come down with whooping cough. I am very, very pissed off right now. You don't mess with my kids. I'm not waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Eneke Beneke, Let Me Live

This is inspired by a recent discussion in one of the forums I belong to, about “the darker side of fairy tales”. Here's my contribution (albeit a bit short/shallow in some places, as I did not have the energy to go as deeply into it as I could have...still, I haven't critically thought about fairy tales, at least not by writing it out, for almost 8 yrs, so good enough I say!).

This story always interested me. It's from "The Lambkin and The Little Fish." (Grimm's Fairytales, #141)

 "The children ... played at counting out.

"Eneke Beneke, let me live,
And I to thee my bird will give.
The little bird, it straw shall seek,
The straw I'll give to the cow to eat.
The pretty cow shall give me milk,
The milk I'll to the baker take.
The baker he shall bake a cake,
The cake I'll give unto the cat.
The cat shall catch some mice for that,
The mice I'll hang up in the smoke,
And then you'll see the snow."
They stood in a circle while they played this.... As they were running about so merrily the step-mother watched them from the window, and grew angry. And as she understood arts of witchcraft she bewitched them both."

What were they saying in the rhyme that upset her so much?



Let's deconstruct it from the beginning. The children are playing a counting-out rhyme (remember most children's rhymes often reference darker things—recall Ring Around the Rosie). They're playing by running around the pond, so maybe the pond is symbolic of a door to the Otherworld?

Eneke Beneke—who or what is Eneke Beneke? I couldn't find much, just that “Beneke” is a common German last name.

Eneke Beneke, let me live—a plea to a powerful spirit to spare your life.

And I to thee my bird will give—a sacrifice. Birds symbolize freedom, so maybe the soul or free will.

The little bird, it straw shall seek
The straw I'll give to the cow to eat.
The pretty cow shall give me milk,
The milk I'll to the baker take.
The baker he shall bake a cake,
The cake I'll give unto the cat.
The milk, the cake, etc are food for the familiar, which is the cat.

The cat shall catch some mice for that,
The cat catches the mice, which are thoughtforms or whatever the witch wanted from the other realms, perhaps shapeshifters, or small souls. 
 
The mice I'll hang up in the smoke,The smoke is from the incense, I presume, or the smoke used to “feed” the spirit (Eneke Beneke).

And then you'll see the snow."
This is an interesting line, especially how “snow” was emphasized. It makes me think of Frau Holle, who was an Underworld goddess. When she shook out her goose down blankets, it snowed. So is Eneke Beneke another name for Frau Holle? Or is Frau Holle on the side of the rhymer? 

EDITED TO ADD (3-15-12): The "snow" refers to the ashes from a flesh sacrifice. 



Curious and curiouser, the step-mother bewitches the children for singing the rhyme. Was she afraid? Was she the one they were bewitching? She certainly took her revenge fast enough—she turned them into a little lambkin and a fish! But you'll have to read the rest of the story to find out about that!

What do you think?

if the chain ever breaks...

With the constant dancing of the auroras in the sky, it's made me think of the Zoryas. Don't know who the Zoryas are? Here's a quick rundown.

Zorya Utrennyaya is the Morning Star
Zorya Vechernyaya is the Evening Star.

They guard and watch over the doomsday hound, Simargl, who is chained to the star Polaris in the constellation Ursa Minor, the "little bear". If the chain ever breaks, the hound will devour the constellation and the universe will end.


 For protection, say the following prayer to the Zorya:
O Virgin, unsheath your father's sacred sword.
Take up the breastplate of your ancestors.
Take up your powerful helmet.
Bring forth your steed of black.
Fly to the open field,
There where the great army with countless weapons is found.
O Virgin, cover me with your veil.
Protect me against the power of the enemy,
Against guns and arrows, warriors and weapons,
Weapons of wood, of bone, of copper and iron and steel.

mama said there'd be days like these

The birds are singing in the middle of the night. The land is breathless, waiting. The sun is so bright that the glare of it off the snow half-blinds you. Everyone feels it—the hare, sometimes spotted in the bracken chewing on wild rose hips; the black fox, darting down his own path through the deep snow beneath the birches; the raven perched on the swaying top of a spruce tree, defying the northern wind. Climb to the tallest peak and gaze out over the snowy valleys. Lift your harp and let the wind pluck the first notes of spring from its strings. Feel the song resonate in your blood, in your marrow, in your bones.

Is it spring yet where you are? Here we are waiting. Breathing in, breathing out. The land is waking slowly, slowly, slowly. The buds will not yet curl from the branches of the diamond willow beside the porch until the ice has broken up from the rivers (hence the nickname for spring, “Break Up”, which is not half as poetic as “Mud Season”). The days will be longer, the air will smell of growing things, and from every branch and bramble the wood will burst with exultant birdsong (almost 20 hrs of it--yeah).

Soon spring (summer) will come(we have just two seasons here—summer and winter). I don't know how to explain it, but it's as though there is a subtle shift in the land. I don't know—I just feel it. How do you know when spring—real, true spring—has come to your neck of the woods?

A few days ago we saw a pair of grouse step out of the (muskeg) and pick their way across the dirt road to the sawmill. We have a theory they are stealing the chicken feed, since the sawmill chickens are free range—however, those chickens met their demise last fall, so the grouse are a bit slow on the uptake on that one. Wild birds here are opportunists. Ravens and magpies like trash, gray jays will eat your sled dog's food if it hasn't yet frozen, and the chickadees like to drink my dishwater (I assume they like the taste of grapefruit biokleen). We have a migratory wildfowl refuge here in town and every August they have a sandhill crane festival. Yesterday we went for a walk with the dog down the Seasonal Wetland Trail. There's something magical about a seasonal wetland covered in snow. I wish I'd taken more pictures—next time.

see how high she flies

13 things for 2012

-become more proficient at tarot & start scrying
-do more spellwork
-find a proper place for ritual that can't be seen from the neighbors' or the road
(my husband cut down my "special place"--my grove--to build the new house--then come to find out, the land was riddled with giant roots and permafrost--the house had to be built 20 ft to the left. Yeah. Still kinda pissed about that. This summer he needs to find a spot for a leach field.)
-connect with the local land-spirits
-plant a witchy shade garden
-spend as much time outside as possible, May-September!(this will justify being so very, very lazy all winter long!)
-meditate more often

other:
-finish 12 knitting projects (I just bought some Malabrigo Lace called "Sealing Wax", so of course I'm making a Lettuce Pullover (knitscene fall 2010) that I have to call "Cabbages and Kings"!!)

-finish ww1 novella by the spring equinox
'o for a voice like thunder
to drown the throat of war...' ~ william blake

-finish 3 other writing projects, preferably ones already
researched

-lose 100 lbs w/ raw diet & exercise

-figure out what kind of degree I need to get to find a job that isn't soul-killing
(I don't want a job I hate, not even for the "experience"--I've done it before and I ended up
quitting or getting myself fired)

-learn to spin nettles (all in the name of research!) ... or I could just make nettle beer. Not sure yet.