Experiences of Earth
I think it's easier now to simply call myself a witch, as druid was never really a term I owned...no more than "friends" translate to "actual trusted friends" on Facebook. What it means to call myself anything, I don't know. Apparently there's a family history of being feared and punished because it's seductive for a weak person to resort to name calling and gossip. Witch will have to do. For now.
The truth of it is, I'm not really sure if there's a name for what I am, what I do. Every effort I have made in the past was done so to help foster a safe environment for people similar to me. Now I realize, there aren't many people at all similar to me. I've made an error in years of trying to find them. All this time, though, there was more power in our various differences, so long as we shared a common goal.
So here's a sort of list of my weirdness, and maybe I will find kinship with some of you I didn't know I had, which is far too lengthy for any Facebook post. It will not, cannot be exhaustive, because I have a terrible memory which forgets even the most important things.
1.) I become attached to literal patches of earth and locations. If I put down roots there, as a place of safety or wonder, I will never leave it. I will always mourn it as if the loss was yesterday. This doesn't, I have found, apply to buildings, but rather the land it is on. All that is there now and has been there before, I feel the weight of it, and I feel responsible for it's stewardship. It is a physically tangible anxiety, knowing I cannot access it any longer. I keep jars of earth containing that of both of my childhood homes. I try to carry them with me when I travel; they live in the car for now.
2.) Water is like, liquid death and history. It has a voice, its own individual music, it has been places, it has been changed. The sea and the river are different, but different in the way that freshwater is sharp and the sea is like a blunt force trauma. And I love the sea; I long for it a lot because I grew up near it. I realized early on in life that I cannot, c a n n o t live too far from a major body of water. Some people fear the sky or the sea for it's expanse, but I cannot breathe properly if I think about the distance between myself and the Chesapeake Bay right now, or how I could possibly manage to travel west and check out the desert and mountains...the thought is more anxiety inducing than a plane ride. How can I visit the grand canyon if the ocean is so damn far away? I haven't sorted that out yet, but I'm trying.
3.) I cannot forgive oath breakers. I've tried, and I can't. More often than not, if you break an oath, you're dead to me. Weakness of body is forgiveable; weakness of the mind and heart in this way...aren't. Narcissists, egotists, oathbreakers; they are erased from my world.
4.) Big Name Anyone doesn't impress me. Anyone can become a Big Name in the right time and place. If you have my respect, rest assured it has nothing to do with how known or popular you are.
5.) Certain objects are more magical than others. They have more weight than others. An object sacred to one person may not feel so to me, which does not mean I scoff at it. It means I just don't choose the object for my own work, and if it is shared with me to use it will be treated with reverence as a cherished item. I realized over time that tools are so individualized that it might be possible to determine a sort of witch you are from what your sacred objects are alone. Some examples of items I find explicitly 'heavier' in magic: woolen string or yarn, plants that you've grown, animal sheds, blood, hair, blackthorn, hawthorn, rowan, cherry, birch, sassafrass, natural 'faces' or 'eyes' in things, stones with holes through them, a stick that has been caught by branches and has not touched the ground, beloved books, a well forged blade, a bow and arrow. Nephrite jade, garnet, rainbow obsidian, labradorite, moonstone, opal, river rocks.
6.) Sacred Places: the confluence point of two or more rivers, libraries, caves, the tops of mountains (even though getting there can be hair raising) natural holes in trees, All of Ireland, some cemeteries...but many are not..., the area around any altar, front doors, gardens, groves of blooming cherry blossoms, active snow, stone circles.
A note on stone circles, I'm not sure why I am so drawn to them. Maybe it's an intrinsically human thing, that unusual organization in a landscape consisting of natural elements is a curious thing. But when I see them, I hear them, and I feel seen by them. It's a strange thing. Remind me to write about the practice of using a circle of stones for ritual.
7.) The numbers 3, 9, and 23.
8.) Stories are sacred. Myths are too.
9.) I dream up stories in my sleep, sometimes full epics that I sometimes try to write. I can communicate with the dead. I have an eerie sense of places and what transpired there. I dream in other languages fluently though I do not speak them fluently. (Japanese is a pretty strong offender here, I've literally woken myself up because I was speaking a sentence. Because I was finishing the sentence while waking, I looked it up. Yay grammatically correct dreams? it was weird. Probably nothing, certainly not useful if I can't call it up later.) My brain is full of stories. Not necessarily good ones, but they never stop. I am working on becoming a better writer, that I may tell them.
10.) I can't lie. I cannot willingly make a lie come out of my mouth. I can't do it. I do not understand lies or the liars who tell them. I've misremembered events before, usually the order in which things happened, but not the events themselves. It's so pervasive that I think it might have been a geis I picked up when I became a board member once upon a time. It was always there, but that's when it really got uncomfortable. For example, we did an exercise in a staff improvement meeting at UMBC where the interview game was "2 truths and a lie" to introduce yourself. It was so bad I literally said two truths, and " I can't lie". And they looked at me like LOL well there's the lie, and I was like no...no really I can't. And I nearly had a panic attack because they even questioned it. Ironically, this was a mental health first aid class; I can't imagine what they thought about me. Anyway, it's taboo.
I figure this is enough talking about my weirdness for now. I don't like talking about myself because I doubt anyone cares about all that but I'm hoping that maybe possibly someone will resonate with a number of these and I don't have to sit here and wonder what on earth the 'label' is for something like this. I'm...actually wondering if Steward is a term I should consider. Or something. For now, we're going with witch because that's my practice.
The truth of it is, I'm not really sure if there's a name for what I am, what I do. Every effort I have made in the past was done so to help foster a safe environment for people similar to me. Now I realize, there aren't many people at all similar to me. I've made an error in years of trying to find them. All this time, though, there was more power in our various differences, so long as we shared a common goal.
So here's a sort of list of my weirdness, and maybe I will find kinship with some of you I didn't know I had, which is far too lengthy for any Facebook post. It will not, cannot be exhaustive, because I have a terrible memory which forgets even the most important things.
1.) I become attached to literal patches of earth and locations. If I put down roots there, as a place of safety or wonder, I will never leave it. I will always mourn it as if the loss was yesterday. This doesn't, I have found, apply to buildings, but rather the land it is on. All that is there now and has been there before, I feel the weight of it, and I feel responsible for it's stewardship. It is a physically tangible anxiety, knowing I cannot access it any longer. I keep jars of earth containing that of both of my childhood homes. I try to carry them with me when I travel; they live in the car for now.
2.) Water is like, liquid death and history. It has a voice, its own individual music, it has been places, it has been changed. The sea and the river are different, but different in the way that freshwater is sharp and the sea is like a blunt force trauma. And I love the sea; I long for it a lot because I grew up near it. I realized early on in life that I cannot, c a n n o t live too far from a major body of water. Some people fear the sky or the sea for it's expanse, but I cannot breathe properly if I think about the distance between myself and the Chesapeake Bay right now, or how I could possibly manage to travel west and check out the desert and mountains...the thought is more anxiety inducing than a plane ride. How can I visit the grand canyon if the ocean is so damn far away? I haven't sorted that out yet, but I'm trying.
3.) I cannot forgive oath breakers. I've tried, and I can't. More often than not, if you break an oath, you're dead to me. Weakness of body is forgiveable; weakness of the mind and heart in this way...aren't. Narcissists, egotists, oathbreakers; they are erased from my world.
4.) Big Name Anyone doesn't impress me. Anyone can become a Big Name in the right time and place. If you have my respect, rest assured it has nothing to do with how known or popular you are.
5.) Certain objects are more magical than others. They have more weight than others. An object sacred to one person may not feel so to me, which does not mean I scoff at it. It means I just don't choose the object for my own work, and if it is shared with me to use it will be treated with reverence as a cherished item. I realized over time that tools are so individualized that it might be possible to determine a sort of witch you are from what your sacred objects are alone. Some examples of items I find explicitly 'heavier' in magic: woolen string or yarn, plants that you've grown, animal sheds, blood, hair, blackthorn, hawthorn, rowan, cherry, birch, sassafrass, natural 'faces' or 'eyes' in things, stones with holes through them, a stick that has been caught by branches and has not touched the ground, beloved books, a well forged blade, a bow and arrow. Nephrite jade, garnet, rainbow obsidian, labradorite, moonstone, opal, river rocks.
6.) Sacred Places: the confluence point of two or more rivers, libraries, caves, the tops of mountains (even though getting there can be hair raising) natural holes in trees, All of Ireland, some cemeteries...but many are not..., the area around any altar, front doors, gardens, groves of blooming cherry blossoms, active snow, stone circles.
A note on stone circles, I'm not sure why I am so drawn to them. Maybe it's an intrinsically human thing, that unusual organization in a landscape consisting of natural elements is a curious thing. But when I see them, I hear them, and I feel seen by them. It's a strange thing. Remind me to write about the practice of using a circle of stones for ritual.
7.) The numbers 3, 9, and 23.
8.) Stories are sacred. Myths are too.
9.) I dream up stories in my sleep, sometimes full epics that I sometimes try to write. I can communicate with the dead. I have an eerie sense of places and what transpired there. I dream in other languages fluently though I do not speak them fluently. (Japanese is a pretty strong offender here, I've literally woken myself up because I was speaking a sentence. Because I was finishing the sentence while waking, I looked it up. Yay grammatically correct dreams? it was weird. Probably nothing, certainly not useful if I can't call it up later.) My brain is full of stories. Not necessarily good ones, but they never stop. I am working on becoming a better writer, that I may tell them.
10.) I can't lie. I cannot willingly make a lie come out of my mouth. I can't do it. I do not understand lies or the liars who tell them. I've misremembered events before, usually the order in which things happened, but not the events themselves. It's so pervasive that I think it might have been a geis I picked up when I became a board member once upon a time. It was always there, but that's when it really got uncomfortable. For example, we did an exercise in a staff improvement meeting at UMBC where the interview game was "2 truths and a lie" to introduce yourself. It was so bad I literally said two truths, and " I can't lie". And they looked at me like LOL well there's the lie, and I was like no...no really I can't. And I nearly had a panic attack because they even questioned it. Ironically, this was a mental health first aid class; I can't imagine what they thought about me. Anyway, it's taboo.
I figure this is enough talking about my weirdness for now. I don't like talking about myself because I doubt anyone cares about all that but I'm hoping that maybe possibly someone will resonate with a number of these and I don't have to sit here and wonder what on earth the 'label' is for something like this. I'm...actually wondering if Steward is a term I should consider. Or something. For now, we're going with witch because that's my practice.
I'm so grateful that you are who you are with all the "weirdness"!
ReplyDelete