“Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil.”- Plato
Educators are my heroes. They are my family. I work for them, in higher education institutions. In my daily life, I spend most of my time surrounded by students and educators, facilitating and organizing their operations. I value the service of education-- any form of it, more than almost any other service. Education is one of the nobler pursuits, and a benefit to humanity. Access to it, by anyone and everyone, should be a social obligation. It should be a ritual we never forget. Not just for ourselves and the future generations, but for everyone who suffered in the name of accessible education.
Hypatia of Alexandria’s story is a misunderstood but tragic one. I honor her day not because of some wild narrative about her being the 'oyster-flayed martyr of pagans'. She wasn’t. She was by all accounts a pious, respected, middle-aged, Neo-Platonist scholar, orator and philosopher who taught maths and astronomical sciences in the open to people of different classes and religions. She was bludgeoned with rooftiles and burned due to her affiliations and associations with controversial social and political figures of the time. She was collateral damage caught in the religious and political ignorance of the burgeoning Christian unrest around her. Hypatia is closer to a martyr of intellectuals and educators. Of those who were charitable and creative and wise, caught living in an ignorant time and place. And those who suffer from guilt by association. And those who are wrongfully humiliated. And those who abhor mobs and adore math. And those crushed under the oppressive wheel of Abrahamic religion. A far deeper role than ‘pagan saint’.
Hypatia represents the consequences of education in the face of political upheaval and mob zealotry. She represents the cruelty that befalls the innocent when ego, religion, toxicity and anti-intellectualism take hold of groups… or entire lands. Like right now. We are seeing the same rotten corruption gnaw at the peace of the world around us. We are seeing a rise in hatefulness for the charitable. Hatred against those who provide humanitarian aid. Hatred against simple arithmetic and recorded history. We are in a land that is returning to a flat-earth; where sticks turn to snakes and the sun stands still and those who do good work are least respected. And are crucified for it. Sounds... familiar.
There is a sickness to finding pleasure in an echo-chamber. Especially an insidiously anti-humanitarian, pro-greed campaign to strip and mine the land like parasites feasting on flesh. I don't know what it will mean to the generations to come to be so deprived of progress and forward-thinking in such a swift move, but I believe that the wheel of this cycle has long been turning, and always will. Did Hypatia wonder, in her last, fearful moments, if the violent, bigoted mob before her would ever come to see reason? Well, they didn't. Her world, like ours, was one overridden with angry, fearful, hateful people who do not truly understand what suffering they bring into this world. I hope to see the pendulum swing back. Or maybe see the string cut.
“If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another.”- Epicurus
I wonder if Hypatia’s ghost rubs her forehead in frustration and laments, “Do these fools ever learn?” I’d say she died because the powerful, self-interested, ignorant always seem to win. Because the separation of church and state should be a divide so deep a sea could fill it. Because blind faith makes even good people follow evil men, and sanctify and justify those evils without knowing what they do. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding, as Henry Drummond so eloquently says. Today I am grateful that ignorance could not destroy the legacy of intellectuals like Hypatia. The fact that we’ve been educated on her existence is proof that the preservation of knowledge continues onwards. Will we fail her, in this generation, by, going backwards? By burning heretics and witches and midwives?
"We can be true to her memory only if we recognize the life she led as well as the death she suffered."- Edward J. Watts
So, in Hypatia’s spirit, go forth and protest. Teach. Teach. Teach. Walk unafraid knowing what brutality awaits the thinking man. Teach; with rationality and reason, with openness and scrutiny, with peer-reviews and primary sources-- whatever it is you have to offer. Indulge your curiosity and stop to listen to the teachers today. Teach every soul you can reach who can hear you. Offer it freely. Rebel against the mob and keep the knowledge flowing.
Hag's night in my path takes place on December 11th-- but I hadn't time to post on that day. I've been avoiding my duties for a while. Part of me feels like I have to be woken up. Jolted. Taken from comfort and thrust into the cold. On a creative level at least.
I'm so asleep. Escaping. But always, right under the surface-- an incessant desire to create something... or I suppose, express something. Art, of course, is one of the most common and accessable forms of magic and can conjure, dispell, invoke or abjure as we see fit. Art will transfix or trick the eye; it will outrage with fury and flame, or evoke wonder and stillness. It is a powerful magic that anyone and everyone can do and had wild effect. Remember that when in doubt. It's magic.
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| Sin-mother of sharpers and shylocks, sharks and showmen. |
Another Pink moon rises, and with it, the feast of rabbits and hares. Sadly, the pickins' were slim this year and I just didn't feel the need or desire to do my flower fry. I don't even know why. I walked with the fields and flowers, and even picked a few for the altar, enjoying the sense of sacrifice. But when I got home, the tide felt... less food-oriented and more about transitions.
I took time to garden; transitioning pots to the outdoors to catch the fresh new rain to come. And I sat with my rabbits; Bosley and Sherman. They reminded me of the warmth and kindness and change around me. So, they got a little but of fresh green oat and barley grass from my Holy Grains garden. A quiet tide with family-- loved ones. My commitment to observance of hours and tides continues, even challenged by my own lazy will in the midst of all this sadness, war, anger, change... I keep to the hours.
My newest venture with fellow witchy-people has really helped me recuperate my sense of socialization. I really love Lisa and Tania for that. Shout out to Coleman of Dark Exact Tarot for linking us magical folk together. It's cold out here in the Northwest, I'm blessed to have found such warmth with you all. May the rise of the Floralia, Walpurgis, Beltane and May Day be everything you need, and bring every bit of fire that warms me.
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| From garden dibble to rusty sickle, the Green Lady watches and blesses all within her purview. |
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| A Weaver Witch's Cauldron: from lucet to hook, from loom to spindle, from nostepinne to nalbinding-- baby, I've got the magic. |
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| "Spider spider, is that web for me?" "Of course! To hold you tenderly." |
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| Never doubt the power of Red Thread. It is a popular magic. It's well known around the world that a string or rag or spool of red has a binding, connecting, banishing, petitioning and protective power. Red thread connects the fated, red thread leads us through the labyrinth of life and death, red thread binds the dead, red thread winds a trick and pulls the future towards us. |
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| Spin. Measure. Cut. |
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| I will rule, I rule, I have ruled, I am without rule. |
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| from my scrapbook of shadows |
Evergreen, evergreen, evergreen. So many smells and textures, so many kinds of conifer and holly and feral arbutus. The evergreens that are brought into the house before Christmas are meant to bring good luck. And likewise, for luck, they must be removed and burned by January 5th, with the ashes taken to the orchards at the feast of Mater Malum (Epiphany). Every tree who stands tall and gives shelter, whispering and weighted with the responsibilities of winter's burden, is honored today. My fingers smell like juniper berries and cedar oil. My kitchen is covered in pine needles and my allergies are kicking my ass. As it should be. In our grimoire, the day is simply meant for the hanging, or laying of evergreen boughs, the making of hanging decorations for yuletide, the maceration of pine and spruce needles in brown sugar and the counting of holly berries.
It's also a day to honor the emerald kingdoms that surrounds us. After all, we're a regional witchcraft tradition, so honoring the most powerful trees in the Northwest in their most powerful and protective time, is just part of the sacred landscape. Everyone gets to take home their own centerpiece covered in boughs and cedar roses, and the presence of it all lingers, in the air, and in the home.
Stay Green.
An airy time. A frigid time. And here in Seattle, a dreary and rainy time. The day of the North Wind is meant to be done on the starry clear night of early December but we are knee-deep in a torrential downpour and daylight dies at 4:15pm. So... we adapt. As winter calls us to do. Biting wind. Stern wind. North wind. Ancestor wind. We honor you.
We caroled in the cold wind that rises North. When I think of winter and the North Wind, I think of specific notes, harmonies, tones of the season. The roar of the wind, the quiet notes of icicles falling, the thunderous cracks as ice melts and refreezes and the delicate patter of rain on what remains of the maple leaves... It's musical, far more than any other season in my opinion. The Caroling in of the North Wind is celebrated by opening the home, airing out the house (lüften that lair, baby) and letting the wind pass through with song. A blade, like the cutting and bitter wind is placed at the entry door, and the smoke of some evergreens to lead the way. Juniper, I choose you! And then, ringing the bells, or, of chimes, and calling on the cold to be kind.
You welcome it. You welcome the bitter knife-wind. He's inevitable; you may not defeat him you may only outlast him annually. And so, you welcome him and honor his power and ask of the cold wind-- Will you be kind? I welcome you through with song, and scent and serenade this day. Some spirits are like that. Even though they scare you or cause great calamity, sometimes it's best to welcome them as part of the balance of life, part of the magical cost, the human cost, the living cost, and say to this wind; I will not go gently, nor will you, so let us be ready for what comes. To be honest, I've never liked the ringing of the bells for this day; I prefer the blowing of bellowing wood flutes and ringing of forks or wind chimes. Something... windy. To the wind goes all the songs and warmed, saturated air. With the wind goes the prayers and thoughts. Out into the night.
I welcome the North Wind. I will not go gently, nor will you, so let us be ready for what comes.
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| Cran-Apple Orange Tart-Pie and cran-apple simple-syrup soda. |
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| Apple-Cranberry clove poached pear |
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| Cinnamon poached pear with honey goat cheese and dates |
The Diviner’s Tide
This Folk Witch's Winter Ways
The land stretches even under the stiff soil; can’t you hear her great sigh? Restless in the dark cold earth, undulating with the change of the tides. It smells like rain and damp earth outside; a little sweet and tangy where the pines and spruce needles are falling; muddy and dank where the birch leaves decay in the puddles. The sun rises just before 8am and sets just before 5pm. Crows caw and huddle in mass murders along the grass, picking it apart to forage for beetles and worms. I do not love winter. I am a daughter of sun and spring and warm green. Miss me with this bitter noise, I want my sunlight back. Such a boring, lifeless time, with nowhere to go, nothing to do and worry as a constant companion.
Back before the pandemic, in the long, long ago, I had written a little bit about my changing warmth towards the winter holidays. I wrote a bit on apples, eggs, wassailing, divination and opening my mind to the secular folk magics of the season. I maintain that Christmas is a garbage holiday; I still don’t like what it brings out of people, how it ravages relationships and brings financial misery to so many poor people. But I have been able to find my peace with the season by ignoring Christmas itself and focusing on the traditions of magic that appear between Hag’s Night, the Halcyon Days, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve and Epiphany. These are diviners' days, but then again… aren’t all of the holy days of the calendar used for divination… and I've taken a particular interest in reinterpreting Winter’s-tide and all that comes with it as a holiday of divination and home protection.
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| Cedar "rose" cones that were cured with olibanum oil and cinnamon for about 7 months. |
And so, I set aside the notion of presents and stockings and trees and bring out the folk magic; the foods of prediction, the yule-candles and strings of cranberry garland. I turn my face away from the celebration of a miracle that I don’t believe in and turn my face towards the miracle of the great god some call the Sun. With the rise of the Sun’s renewal comes an awakening of the land, a stirring in the fruit trees, a weakening in the frost. The Sun is the old god, you know. The herald of evolution, the balancer of our world, he who sustains us always and consumes us in time… All these sabbats are his, and yet, what time do we yearn for his power more than winter? It brings me peace of mind to take the time to find a place of joy-- a space to live in the moment and appreciate the temporary nature of all that surrounds us, and bringing magic into any and every aspect of life has been a therapeutic way to cope with life and death and the things in between.
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| The Yule Candle |
Winter Solstice/Yuletide
Also called St. Thomas Night or Yule, I call it Midwinter or
Long Night. This is when the Sun seems to have the least rulership over
the land, and with the darkness rises the otherworldly things who love to haunt
cold and dark spaces. I honor this darkness, and light a candle from
sundown to sun up; for luck, for protection, for the honor of the Sun, the
great Luminary. Some practices that have found their way into my Midwinter:
Christmas
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| "gilded nutmeg"- for good fortune and health. |
I don’t do much with Christmas; magic didn’t seed in this
holiday and folk charms were not part of my family way for this holiday-- no
mistletoe hung over our door, no taboos against ivy and yew; it was all about
gifts, stress and awkward feelings, and honestly, that’s all Christmas is to
me. Luckily, my in-laws have long supported my pagan ways, and this
Christmas we will be focusing on crafts, not gifts. I look forward to
stringing cranberries and popcorn, drying orange and apple slices, and caroling
around the blue spruce in the yard while the kids and I decorate it and
take joy in being together. I have managed to squeeze some magic into
Christmas where there once only stood boredom and consumerism:
New Year’s Eve
Epiphany
Now, I know it seems odd, but ever since my, ehem,
epiphany with the Mother of Apples. I
have become enamored with this tide as my moment to honor the orchard; a realm
in which I do a lot of my work year-round. Does sound counterintuitive since
there are no blossoms, greens or fruit on the tree, but it’s sort of perfect
for me; the apple trees always have a few decaying remnants on their boughs;
fermented by frost and time, swinging stubbornly on brittle black
branches. There is the power of life
deep beneath this layer of death, and it’s in this green heart I find a
connection. She’s sleepy, and wants
coaxing. I hear it…
Washington is known for our vast array of apple trees and
variety of the malus fruits, and so fruit-bearing trees-- especially apples--
play a unique and deeply spiritual role in my practice as a witch. It is
in the orchard one finds so much ripening life and rotting death. It is
in the orchards I find my favorite meadow-spirits, and it is along the pomme
trellis hedges I wander to and from worlds on occasion. Why the apple? It’s like a heart. It’s this trophy of the land, this beautiful,
symmetrical, useful entity that has traveled the world bringing endless joy and
nurturing. Mater Malus has a sweet and spicy smell when she holds you, and is
ever warm and yielding. I think I’m in
love. I think she reciprocates.
Because I work with apples so regularly in my witching and
because they are symbolic of the Witch Queen herself as she moves through the
seasons changing shapes, I find a spiritual center in the high grass of the
orchards. And so, what is typically a Holy day for Christians, has become
my own personal day of exploration of personal gnosis, meditating on the power
of this liminal god who has long grown with me and long helped me grow.
I take those old charms to heart and put them to work for me
as a witch; the Apple Mother calls on me to sing, to sacrifice, to warm her
branches and shake the rot from her roots. She calls on me to awaken the
land with song, circle, cider and service:
“Oh, here we go a-wassailing among the leaves so green
and here we come a-wandering so fair to be seen--
Love and joy come to you, and to you your wassail too,
and god bless you and send you a happy New Year,
the god send you a happy New Year.”
Another year in quarantine, another Feast Day in solitude. The Harvest Moon is my birth moon, it is when I came into the world at the time of the scales, under the auspicious Glittering Venus, the Morning Star. This Tide is for corn and nuts and grains and apples. For the late roses and the early frosts and the first rains after the relentless summer dryness.
They have come for the sacrifice; for the turning of the land from fruitful and green to a time of reservation and survival. This is the time when the horned father rides with all his host and array. The autumn is personified as a lush woman bearing a cornucopia. a sickle, a crown of roses and the flames of burning fields around her. And beside her, a withering pyre, where there rises shadows and spirits. That's what I see in the subtle turn of the land, in the change of the trees. And for this moment, where the day and night are equal and turning toward the short dark essence of a dark-year, we honor the sustenance that emerges from this tide, and taste the changes. I think we all await it; this time of pumpkins and apples and sweet smells and savory ones.
The Harvest Is... food, family, home, sacrifice, gathering, rush, preparation, sex, finality... it is the light waning, and the all-consuming darkness and the message that it sends to us; there must always be a balance, a time of emptiness, a hunger. All things must change, and we can only hope that the change of the tides, there will come a change... one that will reopen the world.
