Flying Ointment

Well I made (and have since tried) my first flying ointment. It's made with honeysuckle, and I wish I could find where I got the idea from now, because it's not mine. I thought I read a post on one of the other hedgewitchy blogs, in fact I could have sworn it was Juniper's, but now I can't find the post. I remember the author saying she picked it and got a little dizzy from the scent and thought (more or less) Oh yes this will work. I'd really like to credit the person I got the idea from. [Edited to add: it was Scylla, on her tumblr, which is why I couldn't find it on a blog.]

It was actually my first try at making an ointment of any sort. It wasn't too hard (though I made more than I'll probably ever use); just a cereal bowl full (basically till I got sick of picking them) of honeysuckle flowers, simmered in a cup of grapeseed oil for about an hour, then a little more than an ounce of beeswax stirred in while still hot so it melted. It doesn't smell like honeysuckle--I may have got it too hot; it did boil a little here and there, and the essential oils may have flashed off--but it's still pleasant, having the beeswax in there.

And it works. Or, it works on me. I am, it should be said, really sensitive to medications or drugs of any kind--commonly if I'm going on a medication that's new to me I will break the tablets down into the tiniest crumbs, and pick the next larger crumb each day. I don't do any sort of recreational drug, or alcohol (it tastes like gasoline and either makes me fall asleep, or nauseous, or gives me a splitting headache) and so the whole idea of entheogens is way out of my league, for the most part.

But this seemed mild. Perhaps it's not a good idea to assume that, I don't know. I do remember pulling the flowers off as a child and sucking the little bit of nectar at the base, so I figured it wasn't going to be horribly poisonous or anything.

And I thought it might just give the journeys it facilitated a sweetness.

Boy was I right.

First of all, it is pretty mild, though it works, like I said, for me. It relaxes me while at the same time allowing the right part of my brain (or Soul) to focus. But it has a bit of a side effect.

It may be that spirit guide of mine, I don't know. I've had him for years, it's true, and we are old friends, and there is also I suppose I should say a good deal of love between us. One might even say, if we are talking in psychological terms (which I do think is one valid way to approach this, as, after all, I experience all this through my psyche or Soul) that he is very heavily connected to the libido.

So, the stuff works, oh yes. I can See quite clearly on it. But we inevitably get, well, a mite distracted.

Anyone out there know if honeysuckle is an aphrodisiac? Nothing I've found mentions it.

Oh my.

Greater Celandine

I have been carrying a sachet of greater celandine with me for the last couple of months; well, a little pouch, actually, as I knew I'd need to carry it around with me for some time. And so, every day, once when I get dressed, and again when I go to bed and leave the pouch on my altar, and then every third day also when I replace the old herb with fresh, I have said, out loud:

Greater celandine, grant me protection, joy, cheer and the lifting of depression, victory over my enemies, and escape from imprisonment. Thank you.

Because that is what I learned about greater celandine, Chelidonium majus, in the three books on herbs I have in my library so far (I am new to this, mind you). Those books being Paul Beyerl's A Compendium of Herbal Magick (oh the K, honestly; I may start spelling it Krowley out of spite), A.J. Drew's A Wiccan Formulary and Herbal, not that I'm Wiccan, and although it's really pretty much derivative of the last one, that old standard, Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs.

Since the beginning of the year I have also been following along with the year-and-a-day lessons in Christopher Penczak's The Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft, because, although I've been doing a lot of what's in there already, it seemed a good idea to at least try it using a proper system, even if it was someone else's, and even if I only learn the rules to later throw them out (much as one must do as an artist).

So I've been doing those two things, learning about herbs and learning how to talk to all kinds of things I would not have thought had Voices; well, not that I didn't know a bit about journeying anyway, or I wouldn't, I suppose, have been so interested in the book in the first place.

Because I have this spirit guide, psychopomp, guardian angel, Muse, daimon, genius, ghost, guest, lover, spirit husband, I don't know what you call him, but mainly Beloved; and he, he, is an old, old, friend, present and trustworthy. I suppose I have honed my Sight through talking to him; nothing like being in love to motivate you. It's more than ten years now since I first finally figured out how to listen to him; I wear a ring, a silver wedding band, as indication of our marriage, as does he.

And no, this is not secret, though private. But there is no way, simply no way, I am going to be able to talk about shamanic, well, shamanish journeying without talking about him, and rather a lot.

But anyhow. I am aware that part of learning about herbs in this hedgewitchy way should properly involve sitting down and talking to them, if possible; and while I wanted to try it it didn't seem to be happening. For one, I find it really hard to meditate, and so journey, outside; there are too many distractions, too much noise, too much light, and I never feel quite safe out there with my eyes closed. And I'm the type who needs to feel reasonably safe, for good reason.

So I kind of didn't know where to start. But miracle of miracles, the other night I had an idea to try a new technique for art; and so I found myself outside sketching greater celandine to give the idea a try. I brought some inside, too, to serve as further model. That's the art at the top of the post. I'm not sure the technique panned out, though that doesn't really matter.

Because as I was doing it I found that I knew I was now ready to go 'talk' to greater celandine. When you draw or paint something, you really look at it, really see it; you give it this focus, this attention, this awareness. This offering.

So tonight I did what I do to get into trance, and found myself at the base of the World Tree, as usual, which imagery I got from Penczak's book, though I understand it is common. Its trunk is big and fat, yellowish like elm, or willow; the branches are low and nearly horizontal, the leaves pointed ovals like beech. It's not quite my imagery--I usually go out to wherever I'm going through the attic--but it's working for now.

And he is there, of course. You should see him; I always say that, but I wish someone else could, I really do. Today he's just in blue jeans, of all things, and a green stripey short-sleeved shirt like a boy's that's been sized up; suits him, in this guise. Dark hair a halo of waves and curls, parted on the side, and big dark eyes in a face that is really very ordinary, and really very beautiful. He smiles, open-mouthed and kind, at that description. Well, it's true.

"What would you like to do?" he asks.

I look at him and smile myself. He is old, and new, always.

"I would like to talk with greater celandine, if that's all right."

"Okay," he says with a little shrug, "this way."

He leads me over to the right of the Tree to a stone wall; this is not going to be a journey up or down, but right here, beside. That makes sense to me, though I've heard others (well, Penczak mostly) say that plant spirits or devas or whatever they are called are found in the (or an) Upper World. To me, though, plants are rooted. They're here, in the earth, this middle place. Why would they be up in "heaven"?

There are a few steps in the stone wall, down into an herb garden with brick paths, a circle inside a square and don't tell me that's not a Jungian archetype; and there, in the garden proper, grown on purpose, and not just a weed, in a place of honor, is a greater celandine plant.

So I sit on the bricks with him, and say hello to the plant; then I ask if it would like to talk.

I feel a warmth from it; I guess that is a yes.

I tell it then that I have made a painting of it and that I hope it finds it pleasing.

More warmth. Okay.

So I know what is said about greater celandine; but I don't know why it is said. That's what I'm curious about.

I should say I guess that greater celandine grows all over my yard, my poor former junkyard of a yard. It has always been here, in some quantity; when we were kids we'd pick stems and write with them, the yellow sap like ink. I know it by sight and feel and smell, though it was so common to me that I only in the last year learned its name. We are not necessarily old friends, I would say; but we are, I think, familiar with each other. And lately, since I've woken up to the idea of plants having spirits, I get the feeling it has been trying to get me to notice it all this time. And so when I read that it helps one escape from imprisonment that clicked, as I work my way through coming to terms, and getting beyond, a nasty childhood that really amounts to unlearning a couple decades of, well, brainwashing.

I guess I should start with the basics. "They say you are an herb of the Sun. What does that mean?"

And then it says, more or less, really it's more the feel of it than any words, All plants are of the Sun. We eat sunlight; we make sunlight into food.

Oh. That's true. That is a miracle, when you think about it.

More warmth, again, and a feeling of, well, pride. Interesting.

And then I think: plants breathe in carbon dioxide, and breathe out oxygen, the opposite of us animals. I have heard that it is proper, when harvesting a plant, to give it something in return. Traditionally, things like wine, tobacco, even hair are offered; but some of those, like the wine, aren't really going to do a plant any good and may be poison, in effect. Penczak does say, and I agree with him, that he feels it's better to offer a plant something it can use, like water. So I wonder if breath might work, as an offering: both for the carbon dioxide, and because breath is spirit, too, the life force in some ways (to expire is to die, to breathe out for the last time).

I breathe on the greater celandine plant. If a plant can be said to sigh with relaxed pleasure, this one just did. Well then.

"How are you specifically of the Sun?" I ask it then.

Sunlight runs in my veins, it says.

Ah. With some plants with dark flowers, like purple roses, you can see the pigment throughout the plant, under the green skin of it, in the stems and the leaves, too. With greater celandine you can see the yellow sap in it; the leaves are a very bright color, both green and yellow at the same time, overlaid upon themselves. The whole plant is suffused with that sunshine yellow.

"How do you bring protection?" I ask next.

Sunshine keeps away the dark, it says.

"Joy and cheer?"

Sunshine runs through my veins, it says again.

"I don't understand," I say. "How does that help?"

By putting the idea in your head, it says. Oh, like a drug in the bloodstream, reaching every area, every cell through the capillaries; that is a good metaphor to meditate on.

"Victory over enemies?"

By adding up many small victories to make larger ones.

I am confused by this a little; then I remember that the seeds of greater celandine have a chemical on them that attracts ants, who then take the seeds and distribute them.

"Escape from unwarranted imprisonment? Why 'unwarranted'?"

Sunshine has an affinity with justice, it says. Oh, yes: sunshine is the best disinfectant, we shine the light of day on injustice, the Sun, Helios, sees all.

"Escape?" I ask again.

Invasive plants know how to escape; we are moved from our homeland and learn to thrive in a new place, and then make that our homeland. That's true, that's the word they use: plants 'escape' cultivation and the garden when they learn to grow as wild in a new environment.

I nod, and thank the plant, having run out of questions for now. I could probably come up with some more, but I don't want to pry; that will do.

I breathe in then, thinking of blessings; then I breathe out, again, on the plant, and I feel it is pleased.

Memory Tea

So. Another thing abused kids learn is that their own memories can't be trusted. After all, when your parents do something awful and then say that no such thing happened, or you misunderstood, or (my favorite) you're just too sensitive, it does stuff to a kid's mind. It's called gaslighting, is the official term; it means deliberately playing with someone's perception so they don't know what to believe. It is lying, of course, as well as, for real, a type of brainwashing.

I am coming to realize, more and more, that my parents' denial of the rotten conditions here, especially the way my mother frames things (she is never at fault, even when she very obviously is; she is a narcissist and so completely, appallingly allergic to responsibility), has done a number on my mind and my memories. I had always just thought I had a lousy memory; now I am realizing that that lousy memory has been deliberately trained into me. I have little sense of the surety of my own memories, and if someone remembers differently well then they must be right.

This rather bothers me, as you may imagine.

So, today then, on Memorial Day here in the US, the Day of Memory, I made this up.

It's a tea, the ingredients of which are all said to be good for the memory; mainly I sat down with a couple of herb books and looked at the lore, then picked out the ingredients I had, and then further narrowed it down to what I thought might taste decent. This is what I came up with:

1 teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon fresh lemon balm leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon fresh lavender leaves, chopped (I would have used the flowers but they aren't in bloom yet)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon celery seed
1/4 teaspoon dill seed

Put the seeds and the cinnamon in a mortar and grind it roughly (you just want to break them apart, not pulverize into a fine powder). Wrap all the ingredients up in a square of clean cotton, tie it off and pour boiling water over it. Let it steep for a few minutes and sweeten with honey to taste.

That was my first guess at proportions and it worked so well I think I'll keep it. No one flavor dominates, though the cinnamon gives it a good warm base. I couldn't really taste them as separate flavors, but the rosemary gives it a good broadness that balances well with the sharpness of the lemon balm. It was quite nice, even though I don't usually drink tea, and it was quite calming (probably the lavender had something to do with that): I had been having a really aggravating day, a lot of little things driving me up the wall, but after drinking this I felt much better.

After I'd got the ingredients ground or chopped, I put it all in a bowl, and then, and this is the magicy part, ran my fingers through it to mix it (it smelled really nice), charging it with the ability to improve and strengthen memory and to remember the truth with certainty.

Next Step

So. Part of the reason I started this blog was to have a place to gather up my forays into the world of the hedgewitch. But it is taking me a little while to sort out how much I want to say.

Because I want to talk about all of it. That is my nature. But I get the feeling for some reason that I'm supposed to be secretive about all this, like Witches don't tell their secrets or something, and we all know how to read between the lines. Yes, well, reading between the lines is something I've always been total crap at.

There are reasons for that. The first may just be me: I am an ISFP on those tests, after all, and we really do just want stuff on the up and up, dammit. The other reason, and one which has probably influenced those letters above, is that I was an abused and neglected child.

Abused children learn pretty quickly that secrets are harmful: after all, we are told things like Don't tell anyone I hit you, or Don't tell anyone we don't have hot water, or Don't let anyone know there's no food, always, always with a helping of shame, guilt, and fear (You'll be in big trouble if you tell! We're poor and that's your fault!) So we learn, I have learned, that secrets usually benefit those who abuse power in some way.

And while I don't, really, want to have to include all that abuse stuff at this place, I don't, really, think I can avoid it: after all, it is the main reason I find myself turning down a path that looks to be decidedly crookeder than the one I've always thought I should be on. And so I don't think they can be separated, though I have lots of other places to talk, or vent, about it.

Coming to terms with, and trying to work your way through, having been abused will change your morals. Before I realized my childhood did classify as such, sure, I bought into the whole Do No Harm, have compassion for all &c stuff. But the more I look at the behavior of my parents, and my sister, the only other close relative I have, and see that they both cannot and do not want to ever change, the more I realize that in those circumstances fighting dirty is the only thing that will work at all.

And so here I am. And here I am still not sure just how I want to use this blog, though I know I want, very much so, to use it, and use it well. But I feel I should know more about this before I do.

Which is ridiculous; how else am I going to learn? So, I'll just write. I'll let it all come out, and we'll see how it, and I, evolve. I may very well look back on this in a few years and laugh. Ah well, a sense of humor is essential.

The House of Fiori

In my dream last night was a woman; she was dressed in a heavy gown of dark brocade, embroidered all over in metallic threads, gold, silver, copper, and other colors. Her hair was nearly as heavy as her gown; and she sat there, queenly, royal, though she was not on a throne.

She said, 'I am of the House of Fiori, and we will help you.'

I woke then, my brain already translating, Fiori, Flora, the flowers, the plants.

I think it is a good omen.

Garden Natterings

Been working on several more herb posts; mostly, though, I've been outside working in the garden, the formal one out back which is terribly overgrown, since due to a kitten explosion taking all my energy the poor thing was pretty much abandoned last year. The only thing I did plant, a pair of containers of sweet peas and convolvulus (with bamboo pyramids), was abruptly ripped up by my mother the first week of September, a good month and a half before the first frost, with no warning, no explanation, and no mention, even, after the fact, like she expected me to think it just disappeared. Or it had never existed, maybe?

So I've been out getting my hands dirty, mother or no; and I've been putting in some new plants, here and there. I have planted the little violas, heartsease, as they're called, which love to cross-pollinate and then self-seed in that garden, leading to all kinds of interesting new colors (though they do eventually tend to revert to the johnny-jump-up form); and yesterday I got some snapdragons, which, so the reference books say, are good for turning curses back on the one(s) who sent them.

And I bought some monkshood, also known as wolfsbane, with its poisonous root; I was looking for delphinium, which I love and which thrive, the first year anyway, but that was what I found, and I'll not complain.

So I've been researching, and thinking, and wondering; I took a drive yesterday to an herb farm that's a bit out of the way looking for agrimony, which they didn't have. And today I found myself standing out there, in the rain, looking at it all, figuring out what was next. And I thought: I'm officially obsessed with gardening again, like I had been several years back. And that's okay.

I've downloaded a pdf (damned things) of Culpeper's Herbal, that work from the 17th century by the guy over there on the right, Nicholas Culpeper. It's a rotten format, a book on the computer; and the urge has crossed my mind, more than once, to make my own version, hand-lettering the entries in calligraphy, painting pictures of the plants myself and tipping them in, and binding the whole thing up in say green leather. I could do it, with a little bit of research on bookbinding; and I could do it up like a grimoire, almost. It should, I think, be treated like that, with the respect it deserves. And I would certainly learn about herbs. It would take a long time to make, though, and be quite a commitment.

It's tempting, though.

Herb Musings

So, this new hedgewitchy blog is the perfect place to continue writing about herbs, something I'm only finally getting into as a Witch, even though I've been a gardener for years. I know, I know, some of us are late bloomers.

The subject of herbs being a very large one (it's basically all the plants on Earth, you know?) I've decided to start, as I said at the other place, with what I see in my own yard and neighborhood. And because I am a beginner, these are for the most part going to be, well, book reports. It kind of can't be helped. I do not, at this time, have enough experience to be able to say what I have learned myself through use, or through communicating with the plants themselves.

I find I am also having rather a difficult time with that last bit, right now, and not because I don't have experience with visions or journeying, because I do oh ho trust me I do; but because I'm not used to doing it outdoors, which seems to me the appropriate way to go about things if I'm looking to talk with a plant that is outside. I am a very visual person; and I have found, so far, that even just trying to meditate out in the outside world, with the sunshine, and the noise, and the cars going by, is very difficult, even with my eyes closed, though I don't tend to feel safe without them open, and I'm sure that doesn't help. I'm not sure what to do. I know there are such things as walking meditations; I thought I might look that up, see if there were any ideas there that might help. I suppose I could, if it came to it, just sit up in the attic in the dark, in that safe and private place, like I am used to, and extend my feelers out to the yard. Maybe that would work; I don't know. It seems kind of, well, armchair-y, if you know what I mean.

But for now I'll start with the book-learning.

Fieldstone

H is for Hedge

So let's talk about hedges, in the context of hedgewitchery (if that's a word). The hedge, of the English type, being the border between the cultivated, civilized land, and the forest, the wildwood. And so a metaphor for the Veil, the barrier between this world and the Other, that which is crossed on a journey of a shamanic type.

Except I don't live in England. I live in New England. We don't have hedges like that, old thorny hedgerows planted as living fences, to mark boundaries, keep the sheep in, and provide home for hedgehogs; what we have here are stone walls. Old, tumbled-down, New England fieldstone walls, more than a few of which date to colonial times, though of course it is simple enough to build new ones (and I've built a few myself). They, too, mark the boundary, in many cases, between the cultivated field (or mown lawn) and the woods; and they, too, are a haven for wildlife and wild plants, especially in my yard blackberry brambles.

Three sides of my property are marked by fieldstone walls, dating to who-knows-when; the house itself, a colonial probably circa 1745, has a fieldstone foundation. And six fireplaces, though I don't mean to brag; but it's a lucky, lucky house for a Witch, and I know it.

Old fieldstone walls criss-cross the woods around here, woods that were once fields but have since been reclaimed by forest; driving around, especially in the winter when the leaves are off the trees, one can see the old property lines, the old boundaries now lost, the walls now little more than piles of rocks more or less in a line.

I have not tried, so far, to imagine or See the barrier crossed in a journey as a fieldstone wall. But it is a good metaphor, a local metaphor, one that speaks of this land, this very specific place, this bit of Earth I tend, my home; and so I wonder if I might picture it so. I would think it would be profoundly centering and grounding, and root me here. I shall have to give it a try.

I Is For Initiation

I should warn you, I suppose: my opinions can be pretty strong. That is one of the reasons I founded this new blog.

I joined the Pagan Blog Project back in January, and have been following along on that my public blog; but I got to a point where the stuff I want to talk about wasn't right for that place. I want to talk about darker, angrier, rootier stuff; also I really need to be able to swear like a fucking pirate, which just wasn't appropriate there, or maybe didn't feel appropriate there. So many restrictions there, ones that I placed upon myself, and don't now know how to find my way out of. But I will have freedom.

So I thought I would continue the posts over here, mostly. So here is my opinion on initiation.

I don't like it. It squicks me right the fuck out, as a matter of fact.

I mean, fair enough, I'm not a joiner; a hermit and artist and ISFP where the I (introverted tendencies) consistently pins out at ninety-eight (sometimes literally one hundred) percent can hardly be expected to be; but it's not just that. I am a feminist, also, and a radical one at that (radical meaning 'root', and yes, it's related to 'radish'), and so, I understand that consent is sacrosanct.

Part of that of course is having a pair of personality-disordered parents; my mother being somewhere on the spectrum for narcissistic personality disorder, and my father pinned way into the red for obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. The both of them, pretty much, in their own separately fucked-up ways, have little concept that the rest of the world is not part of themselves; and so there wasn't really much hope that they understood proper boundaries. And consent, true consent, must be built on a foundation of strong boundaries. Because consent must include being able to freely say no.

And that's the thing with initiation. Besides the fact that I simply can't shake the feeling of it being just a form of hazing, of doing something unpleasant and frankly bullying to someone to make them part of a club, which they then perpetuate by inflicting on new members, it goes against consent. Because if you can't tell me what you are going to do to me, then I cannot consent to it. It is that simple.

First Step

So here I am, starting my sixth blog. This one, however, I'm doing (semi-) anonymously. I am dying to be able to talk about this sort of thing, the witchy, the liminal, the well, if not shamanic, shamanish; but my public blog, the one with my real legal name on it, the one that goes with my professional Goddess art site, does not quite feel safe. And I have to feel safe, I do, having a background of abuse and neglect. I can't have my family (I use that term strictly in the biological sense) finding it. I'm already nervous enough having shared my experiences with my daimon, my him as I imagine I will simply call him here too, on that public blog. I am, at forty-three, only now starting to work out what that abuse I experienced as a child has done to me, though I know it's nasty. And since I am not yet at a place where I can just say of my family fuck 'em, anonymity (semi- or otherwise) seems a good thing.

So here I am Hazel, a name I've known for years would be my crone-name, though, again, I'm only forty-three. But I'm in the process of a change, a big one, and I've often joked, mostly seriously, that I feel as if I'm going straight from maiden to crone. It's also a nice plant-ish name, and one thing I've finally started getting into is the witchy side of herbs, though I've been a gardener for years.

This blog, then, will be about exploring the path of the hedgewitch, for me. It will be a place for me to think out loud, though, really, that's all a blog ever really is; and I should say straight up front that I am no expert. I am mostly at the beginning of this path. It is calling me, I guess, or, rather, has been calling me; by the time I stumbled upon the word, and started reading about the practice, it was less a feeling of Oh wouldn't that be wonderful and interesting! and more Holy shit there's a name for what I've been doing?

I suppose then that I should define the term hedgewitch. I am using it to mean witchcraft with a traditional bent and a strong shamanic element, meaning, part of the practice involves trancework and communing with spirits, and which therefore, is basically animist. Some define the practice as primarily concerned with herbs and the Green, as a subset of the sort of green witch path; while that is a part of it, certainly, in my mind it is darker and thornier, more bone-deep, blood and black earth and the scream of the rabbit as the fox kills it to live.

I mean, that may be high talk; I don't imagine I am going to grow out of being a coward any time soon. But this world deserves my open eyes, I think.

And so I will look, and See what I can.