Tag Archives: hedge

I Joined the Fairy Circus

Posted on by
Reply

I Joined the Fairy Circus

Look at my face as a child. Do I look like I was ever suited to a “normal” life?

Obviously, I had to join the circus of life, become a fairground barker, jump on a magic carousel, perform in the Fairy Big Top, and travel with a carnival between the worlds.

Hard Traveling

William, the man who raised me, started traveling poor and hard when he was about twelve. My research indicates that his mom couldn’t afford to feed him, so he left home at age seven to work on a farm. A census puts him on a farm at that time, but not in his mom’s household. This is corroborated by a family member mentioning an “uncle” whose farm she visited as a child. The “uncle’s” name is the same as little William’s employer. There is also a relevant photo.

A census also shows that William (Bill) returned home, where his mother now lived with a new husband and his son. That unfortunate young boy stole milk from his front porch after the milkman delivered it because there was not enough food in the home. He would drink from the bottle and then add water to hide his theft. He told this to his daughter, my cousin, who passed the story on to me when I told her I suspected Dad had lived in poverty as a child.

It appears that young Bill left home again soon, to hit the road at age twelve. This was a common solution if a household had too many mouths to feed.

If my earlier writing about Bill contradicts anything here, it is likely because my research netted new information.

Request: It seems that the expression hard traveling predates its use in a Woody Guthrie song. If you know otherwise, please tell me. The expression is magical to me.

It might seem odd that a phrase describing hardship is magical to me. It might even appear callous toward individuals who suffer—or have suffered—on the road. I am in no way romanticizing hard traveling or otherwise minimizing it. My family history, including my own, is why the phrase is magic for me. I won’t didactically spell out further explanation here. The situation is nuanced, so perhaps explanations require an oral give-and-take dialogue. But this essay explains in part, not didactically but experientially and embodied.

A Witch Raised on Optimism and Descended from Society’s Hedge Rows

I wonder if Dad’s love of music came from traveling. His adoration of music seemed incongruent with everything else about him. He even loved musicals. But perhaps his love of show tunes came from his mother, who was a showgirl.

I descended from people who were on the edges of society, but they were not always what most people would imagine.

I assumed showgirl was the family euphemism for stripper. But later, I saw a family painting that I was told is a portrait of Bill’s mom. Curious, I went online, armed with the painter’s name: W Haskell Coffin. I discovered he was known for painting Ziegfeld showgirls. If the portrait is Bill’s mother, she was probably in the Ziegfeld Follies or a similar group.

That is not incompatible with being poor. Here are two reasons. Many performers experience economic hardship. As in any business, some people accumulate wealth, some people barely scrape by. If she did make decent money, she would’ve been past the age of a youthful Ziegfeld girl by the time she suffered poverty with young William. He was born six years after the Follies began. Her money could’ve run out by then.

I’ve spent decades researching my family history, trying to understand it. I’m not a trained researcher. My conclusions could easily be amiss. I tell the story best I can. That’s the job of a circus barker. Perhaps putting a family history together best you can is a necessity when you come from the margins. There were so many roadblocks. For example, I contacted an organization that archives material on Ziegfeld girls. The person with whom I spoke explained that a lot of material was lost because, after Ziegfeld died, there was no money to be made from the archives, so no one took care of them. Marginalized because of lack of money.

The following snapshot of the portrait isn’t great. I took it without great equipment decades ago at a family member’s home:

(Update: Further investigation suggests this might not be my grandmother, despite the family’s claim and all the time I’d already spent researching the painting. At least it opened my mind to her being a showgirl instead of a stripper. I hope I discover the group(s) in which she performed, and I am still looking into Ziegfeld. Research is a living process; new findings lead to—or suggest—new conclusions. Unfortunately, most people in the know have passed on. Of the few that remain, I only know one who is a reliable source. Speaking of new findings: After I wrote the above part of this paragraph, I spoke with that trustworthy source—e.g., when her source might be unreliable, she acknowledges it. She provided new history: She too was told Grandma was a showgirl. She was also told that Grandma was an actress. She added that it was implied—though not said outright—that Grandma was not well regarded by the family because of her work.)

Another example of outliers in the family: Bill was as close-minded as they come. But as a teenager, I brought home a stranger. He had no place to sleep, was due to enter the Marines the next day, and carried a guitar. I assumed Dad would angrily turn him away. That would’ve been typical of my close-minded, bitter father. But he gave the guy a bed. I imagine it was in part because the fellow was soon to be a Marine, but that the guitar had a lot to do with it too.

Dad, unexpectedly, adored folk music, not just show tunes. After his World War II military stint, he didn’t return from Europe to his wife and kids right away (I wasn’t born yet, but I know the story). He went south and hung out with hillbillies. Had they met as hard-traveling children? Thus far, I don’t know where else this extremely conservative man could’ve acquired a love of folk music. And unless he had experienced it rooted in his life experiences and worldview, he would’ve loathed it in the ‘60s when it was associated with radical politics.

I am 74 years old. Previous generations of my family are long gone. Their deaths impelled me to investigate old newspapers, public records, etc., long ago. That has been and continues to be fruitful and fascinating. I will keep at it to answer my new questions about Bill and the rest of the family. Plus, the family member who I know to be reliable remains, ever-ready to talk. And the beloved dead appear in visions to point out directions I might pursue or even tell me stories.)

More Lineage from Society’s Hedge-Row Edges

Bill was not my biological dad. DNA indicates my biological father likely descended from nomads. A family story: An Indian prince proposed to Mom but she chose Bill instead. I don’t know what the family meant by Indian. Mom aside, the family’s lack of education and abundance of prejudice means family members might have considered various peoples as Indian. Was my father Arabic? Iranian? Or?

Grandma a showgirl, Bill a hard traveler, biological father possibly a royal nomad, and Mom a fortuneteller from a long line of Italian witches. I was grown in the edges—society’s hedge rows. Add that I was raised on old musicals with their fantastically optimistic themes, and I had to become a performer in the Fairy circus of life—a nomad traveling for sheer joy, both the experience of it and the giving of it.

Hard Times Taught Me Unapologetic Joy

I am grateful to know a beautiful joy that you can learn from hard times. It is a joy you learn to nurture regardless of circumstances. It is a pure, untainted joy.

That’s one reason I love the circus. Circus artists focus on creating joy and wonder, whether as a clown or trapeze artist. Their shows embody unapologetic joy.

Run away and join the Fairy Magic Circus, for sheer joy:
Click the newsletter banner below for updates on
Fairy witch magic classes, freebies, and other sparkling happiness.

Urban Hedge Witch

Posted on by
2

Urban Hedge Witch: City Magic, Parking Lots as Mystic Thresholds, & Rose Mysteries

Urban Hedge Witch

City Magic, Parking Lots as Mystic Thresholds, & Rose Mysteries

Before I share what’s been going on lately, a few introductory thoughts:

What is a Hedge Witch?

In Britain, hedges between properties are considered liminal spaces—potent realms suited to magic spells. A Hedge Witch is a magical practitioner who takes advantage of such powerful spaces to do rites.

You can think of hedges not only as as thresholds between properties but also as thresholds between the mundane and mystic planes.

A Hedge Witch is a shaman who often walks between the worlds regardless of whether a physical hedge is nearby.

Liminal spaces also provide thresholds through which we can enter into a new life, such as a transition from poverty into financial well-being or from lack of self-esteem into self-confidence.

I Love and Hate the Term Hedge Witch

When I first heard the term Hedge Witch, I was delighted. It evokes magical green depths, mysterious going-ons, and fantastical activities. However, I hate the way the term is often used nowadays aka I am a Hedge Witch. I am not like other Witches. I’m better than other Witches.

When we define ourselves by our differences, ignoring our commonalities, we strangle ourselves with categories. Definitions like Hedge Witch, Fairy Witch, and Green Witch can be wonderful when they help us find and affirm who we are magically. But they tend currently to be used divisively and arrogantly, neither of which helps magic work well.

And—I’m only talking for myself—the divisions don’t make complete sense for me because I’m a Hedge Witch, Fairy Witch, Green Witch, Shamanic Witch, and other types of Witches. They are all part and parcel of Witchcraft as I know it. I cannot be one type without being the other types. In fact, in my case, shamanism and Witchcraft are synonymous, as they were traditionally in Europe.

Again, only speaking for my Witchcraft: I need phrases like Kitchen Witch, Hedge Witch, or Solitary Witch because they each invoke a special magic that I want. They are lyric—not definitive—terms. Were I to use them as strict categories, they become cages that trap my spirit and my magic.

What is an Urban Hedge Witch?

Urban Hedge Witch is a term I made up. In the spirit of what I’ve said above, I don’t want to give Urban Hedge Witch a definitive meaning. Rather than provide a glib category, I prefer to let you read this post.

End of introductory thoughts.

A Happiness and Prosperity Ritual Using Rose Petals

I am having the best time! A friend sent me boxes of fresh rose petals.

We were on the phone, and I told her I wanted to strewn petals throughout my new apartment and, still on the phone with her, I looked up how to buy fresh rose petals online. I was stunned by the cost. My friend generously offered to buy the petals.

I’m becoming an urban shaman again after almost two decades of living in the woods. The rose petals became part and parcel of my return to city magic.

The petals strewn all over the floor are just a third of what my friend sent!


That same third is swept up against the door, waiting to be used again in the ritual:

I decided not to dump all the petals on the floor. I loved the amount that I dumped.

I’ve been walking through it, sweeping it up as a ritual for happiness and prosperity. Later, I re-scattered the petals I swept up, strewn them all over the floor again, to finish the ritual. (I’m not giving complete details of the ritual I channeled because I want to move on with the post, but here’s lots of Rose Magic info: https://stardrenched.com/2020/11/24/rose-magic/.)

And then there’s a great big container that I dumped the rest of the petals in. I put my phone next to it for scale. So many petals!

The rose petals were part of returning to urban shamanism not only because I used them in a housewarming rite but also because they were a gift from a friend. Generosity is pure magic.

The Right to Love Life and Live My Dreams

I’ve been running my fingers through the container’s rose petals, loving the licentiousness of so many petals against my skin and how it gives me permission to love life and go for broke. I also crush them in my hands for the sheer visceral pleasure of organic matter in my palms when I’m no longer in the country but in the middle of the gray dusty city.

Ritual Is as Inherent to Living as Breathing Is

My new apartment is tiny. After I moved in, it was wall-to-wall boxes. It kind of still was after only a week and a half here, though it was much better already.

I almost asked my friend to wait, not send me petals until a lot of my boxes were unpacked. I thought gobs of strewn vegetation might be a big mess, what with the crowded space.

Then I realized I should relish the roses whenever they came, and if they arrived soon, they would be a beautiful tool to bless my unpacking and other nesting.

I try to practice what I preach, and I teach to not wait until the “right” time to do a ritual, for example not wait until you are focused, or until you know what you want to get out of the ritual. Ritual is part of life, as inherent to living as is breathing, it was as much a part of the first humans’ life as was hunting.

Thresholds Can Appear Any Time, Any Place

The time when I’m not fully unpacked is betwixt and between; it is a threshold, which makes it a liminal space, a realm in which all possibilities can come forward for my choosing.

This is a perfect opportunity for rose magic. Rose is a symbol of the deepest Mysteries. Sometimes, they are more easily touched when circumstances are new or uncertain.

Plus Mysteries transcend time and space, so are always available to us, whether we’re in the country, the city, the suburbs …

Thresholds can open anytime, anywhere. I can be a hedge Witch anywhere, anytime. Someday, perhaps I’ll open the wardrobe that peeks into Narnia. That door can appear if I watch for it, continue to believe in magic, and ever-acknowledge that life’s problems are constant opportunities for spiritual growth—thresholds, for example, from self-obsession to self-care, from fear-induced stagnation to self-expression, or from resentments to emotional freedom.

To play with rose petals when there was unpacking I might have been doing was gloriously foolish and magically potent.

For one thing, it distracted me from the studio being filled with boxes, and from my being knee-deep in the chaos of constantly figuring out this new dwelling’s basics—where is the light switch I need right now, how do I buzz the person in who is trying to deliver a package, oops there’s no longer a door to my right, a wall is there now. My focus instead shifted to the eternal, the joyful, the potential for all I want to be manifested.

I’m an urban shaman again, using the magic that’s here, and the rose petal ritual was part of my reentry into that.

Urban shamanism was crucial to me till I moved to the country 17 years ago. My book, Be a Goddess!, originally had a passage about city magic. It was taken out, right before the book went to press. We needed to cut page count, and the section wasn’t pivotal to the lessons in the book. But I hated to delete that section. Remembering how crucial it was is important because it affirms my connection to the song I hear from sidewalks.

Urban Hedge Witch at Goddess Diana’s TriVia—Three Roads

In the city, I tend to rent places on the margins between two parts of town. It happens without my trying. I simply find an apartment I like, and it’s betwixt and between.

Now I’m living on the exact border between Duboce Triangle and the Mission District. I am the urban equivalent of a Hedge Witch, a shaman dwelling in liminal city spaces, living at a threshold.

There are actually three realities that my building borders because the Castro is so near that, as soon as I go out, I’m walking alongside members of the LGBTQ+ community.

I am at my Goddess Diana’s archetypal trivia—three roads. (See Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia by C.M.C. Green for more information. Or click here: https://stardrenched.com/2020/03/25/dianas-crossroads-during-the-pandemic/ )

The junction of three roads in the wilderness, another liminal space.

All of San Francisco Is Betwixt and Between

The geological features beneath San Francisco are, for me, congruent with the definition of liminal spaces. The earth under the sidewalks enlivens them until they speak to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of serpentine stone—California’s State Rock—hides below this city. Serpentine, unassuming, yet rich with secrets.

When I first returned to San Francisco, I stayed at a friend’s place for a few months in a posh area—Nob Hill.

I opened my friend’s front door one day, prepared to walk down the steps to go on an errand. But two fellows sat on the front stoop, clearly setting up for a “transaction.” When they saw me, they immediately stood but instead of walking off as I expected, they ambled only a few feet away. Then one of these shady-looking fellows leaned against a car, while his companion relaxed nonchalantly against a tree. There, they continued to prepare for commerce.

This was not an unusual occurrence. All of San Francisco is liminal, betwixt and between.

Greed’s Heartless Threshold between Wealth and Poverty

San Francisco has a merciless border—a thin transparent line between wealth and a poverty reminiscent of my worst nightmares, ones that woke me up in terror and left a foreboding I could not blithely shake.

There’s no San Francisco street where you will not see someone unsheltered. It terrifies me: the American attitude of “I want it all so will ensure very little is left for anyone else” is starkly revealed in San Francisco, and that American greedy norm could easily catapult me into poverty, as it could anyone, even someone wealthy.

I am also petrified by the fact that, were I to take a financial spill, the threshold through which one might travel from poverty to financial well-being is often impermeable. So I try not to morbidly focus on it.

Instead, I strive to acknowledge the possibility of deprivation as an ongoing fact of life, and I choose to participate in life. I must view my enormous fear and the possibility of destitution as thresholds for spiritual growth. I must face this fear yet leave it behind me. None of this is easy for someone who has known deprivation. But I have no choice. Fear will destroy the song in my soul.

I must also remember magic removes barriers (though my fear would tell me otherwise and can be hard to shake off) and take life’s ever-present possibility of pauperization as a threshold in which magic abounds—enchantment that I can embrace as a tool to, among other things, manifest prosperity.

Magic is miracle, so I can let go of the self-defeating belief “The deck is stacked. Success is impossible” and replace it with “All goodness is possible. All thresholds into plenty are possible to traverse.”

My Home in the Hedges

All San Francisco residents are liminal dwellers, but this current apartment stands at so many crossroads and borders, more than I’ve already mentioned. For example, the range of incomes demonstrated by the homes on my one block is remarkably wide. And then there’s the large parking lot by my building.

The lot accommodates a few businesses—a Fed Ex, a pet supply store, and a law office. The lot is a beehive of wildly disparate activity all day, ranging from elderly individuals carrying packages (usually well-off elders, or so their vehicles would imply), to truck drivers who I suspect are long-haulers taking a break, to drug dealers, to teenagers whose cars blare loud tunes, to elegant young gay couples with their dogs.

Unsheltered individuals go to and from the parking lot, as they do throughout San Francisco, though the proprietor of one of the stores makes sure no one sets up camp there.

One day, I looked out to see a homeless man whack back all the overgrowth that had come through the lot’s back fence. I don’t know why he did that. Did the owner of the parking lot hire him? A huge pile of cut-down brush is there now, weeks later. I don’t think it’s all from that one incident. I’m surprised no one’s taken it to build shelter.

Another day, I looked out and, in the corner of the parking lot right below my kitchen window, a homeless man performed obsessive and compulsive movement patterns for about ten minutes. … Well, I’m not sure he did it the whole 10 minutes since I walked away from the window and returned only briefly to peek surreptitiously.

Last week, I happened to notice a woman in the same spot below my kitchen window. As I said, it is not only homeless people who come to that parking lot but San Francisco residents of all kinds, constantly. Beautifully dressed and sharply focused, she was exiting her car. Then she placed a small rug on the ground. After removing her shoes, she stepped on the rug and knelt for, perhaps, Islamic prayer. I backed away from the window, not wanting to disturb her worship. I returned to the window moments later to see her put her shoes back on, pick up her rug, get in her car, and drive away.

This week, a man appeared in the same spot, with his own car, prayer rug, and fulfillment of sacred obligations. Like the woman who had been praying, he appeared to be well-off.

That spot below my window is the parking lot’s most recessed corner, so has become a haven for city dwellers.

How could a parking lot not be a mystic threshold, with the constant comings and goings and potential for anything to occur?

My Home Is in My Heart

I think the Old Gods sent me to this apartment to grow spiritually, become more prosperous than ever, indulge in glorious Mysteries, hone my urban shamanism, and dwell in my full power during my elderly years (I turn 73 this fall).

I may not remain in this apartment for more than a year. It might be a transition. Yet another liminal space.

But my home is in my soul and in care from my Gods, including Gaia and Mother California.

I do not feel rooted into this apartment. I feel rooted into the land beneath it. This plot of earth loves me. As did stony Nob Hill when I briefly lived there.

My roots extend deep. My roots extend wide throughout the West Coast. Uprooting myself to move to Pennsylvania was awful and unsuccessful. I felt like my legs had been cut off, my roots still here. In my 18 years in Pennsylvania, there wasn’t a day I didn’t miss being here.

Children Understand Magic and Liminal Spaces

I grab a huge bunch of rose petals. It is a small amount compared to the exuberant quantity in the container. I drop the bunch back in, I repeat this—grab and drop, over and over, the feel of the petals in my hand, then I squeeze the red velvet as it heals my weary eyes, squeeze, drop, squeeze, drop, then press my face hard against the vegetative red.

One of my favorite childhood memories appears—my father clipped the hedges (oh my, hedges, I never made that connection until right this second) then put the clippings into a huge barrel, after which I found a long something, stick he had chopped from the hedge? Shovel? and I used it to stir the clippings, stir the leaves, pretending to be a Witch, one of my favorite childhood memories, my young heart delighted by the fancy.

The delight made child-me as big as a fairy tale.

All my rose play now and the memory remind my belly and soul that anything is possible; I have all the power I need to achieve what I want.

Taming the Wild? I won’t Let That Happen!

My father, who was a terrible man, burnt down my mother’s rosebushes. (Roses! Everything is connecting. Mom’s beautiful womanly magic in the backyard.)

When he cut the hedges, he must have been trying to tame them, sculpting them into typical bourgeois rectangles. I suspect my child self felt, deep down unbeknownst to herself, that she was rescuing that liminal space, freeing it to be wild again.

I have all the power I need to achieve what I want.

So mote it be! Thank you, thank you, my Gods, my California, and my friend who sent me rose petals!

Click this banner to subscribe to my Fairy Witch newsletter.

What Sort of Witch Are You?

Posted on by
6

For some individuals, witchcraft is a journey of finding one’s unique style of magic, own cosmology, and personal philosophy.

This post was on Witches and Pagan in 2016, at http://witchesandpagans.com/sagewoman-blogs/a-faerie-haven.html

Have you seen the popular lists of different types of witches—e.g., traditional witch, Gardnerian witch, Faerie witch, eclectic witch, hedge witch—with precise definitions for each category? These charts help some beginners. Learning you fit a certain style can be validating and reassuring. It also makes some newcomers feel they belong.

But this post is for beginners who find the categories make things really difficult. Everyone else, I’m not naysaying what works for you; this entire post is simply ideas and methods that work for me, in case they’re useful to someone. I don’t want the charts thrown out. They’re great for some people. And with that:

There are individuals whose witchcraft entails a journey of finding one’s unique style of magic, own cosmology, and personal philosophy. Being new to Pagan community and being told there are specific witch types, each with very specific definitions, can box these folks in, lead them to think they won’t fit anywhere in the Pagan community, and ill-legitimize personal self-discoveries that transcend the categories.

What if you come from a traditional witch family, talk to fairies, and enjoy practicing Gardnerian magic occasionally? Sure, that might classify you as an “eclectic witch,” but that term is redundant historically speaking; it was once a given that witches were eclectic, because witches understand the connectivity of all things. To me, the term “eclectic witch” robs me of my heritage. My witchy heritage fuels spells, making them powerful.

As to connectivity, the Old Gods unite me with the enchantment that flows through the entire universe. That current carries me, its sweep making me joyful, as it bears me toward even more joy. But “eclectic witch” implies magic is not in everything around me and thus denies what’s inherent to many folks’ witchcraft.

In the same vein, I see witches as wild creatures, transcending every limit. I’m a child of the Gods. Their infinite powers are mine. Mind you, I’m not suggesting I can successfully cast every spell anyone else can cast. I believe witches can have specialties.

In any case, categorizing keeps some people from developing specialties. These are folks whose process demands they look not at definitions but into their own selves and, despite how scary it might be, journey into seeming formlessness until it becomes recognizable as their special gift—their specialty.
WildCreaturesI love—and use—the different terms for types of witches. They’re great jumping off points, e.g., for connecting with like-minded individuals.

They also can be pointers. But I use the terms the old way: to evoke—lyric speaking to our wild witch hearts and whispering of the undefinable and unlimited—rather than as part of quantitative charts, mapping magic out so exactly as to be … boringly limited for some folks.

I love magic so much it makes me sad to realize charts might crush certain people’s magic.

Also, poor scholarship defines witch types incorrectly. For example, it’s sadly a current given that Gardnerian Wicca bears little resemblance to traditional witchcraft. I lived in a Gardnerian household in England with one of Gerald Gardner’s students and, as a traditional witch, I can tell you people living in that house practiced old-fashioned witchery. Furthermore, I met members of the family tradition that greatly influenced Gerald.

Lack of scholarship also portrays traditional witchcraft as consistently the same. It varied, village to village and family to family.

And many a scholar will say “eclectic witch” makes no historical sense. Global travel is not a modern occurrence. Various ancient cultures shared their rituals constantly.

Are you dismayed by witch categories because they make you feel the magical Art has been divided up like slices of a pie … and you feel like the whole pie? Be the whole enchanted pie.

If you’re a fledging witch who resonates with what I’ve written, I support you not by giving you categories to validate you, but by validating who you already are. Like most of us when we come into Pagan community, you’ve always had Paganism in your heart and life, perhaps without having named it as such. So trust what you already know and build on it. You have the intelligence and insightfulness needed to do so.

Enjoy the names for all the different types of witches, or use none of them. But claim your path as valid.

By “valid,” I’m not saying everything you do currently as a witch is always safe and effective. No one is perfect. Also, some spellcrafting requires substantial training. Get a teacher if you want. But don’t worry about what “type” of witch a prospective teacher is. Choose someone whose spirit calls you and who honors your spirit in turn, whether or not you know how to describe your path. Witches used to work together in all their differences and likenesses, getting along just fine, learning just fine.

I teach. Classes are mostly via group phone calls (aka telesminars): you don’t need a computer or any special technology to attend; just dial the phone. Subscribe to my free newsletter, which gives details about upcoming classes: https://outlawbunny.com/newsletter/

What sort of witch are you? You’re you! So mote it be.