We've always been witches @taigawitch - Tumblr Blog

All of creation is found in the beat of the drum

Inheritances

Today is the anniversary of my Mom's passing.

It's been some years now. Time has lent perspective, synchronicity and natural magic have woven their spells and I have had time to think about inheritance.

I look around and see her dreams continue though me. I am called to working and understand this is 'our' way.

She always dreamed of a cottage in the country and here I am in that whitewashed stone built house that's old enough to have a 'new stove' that's probably 70 years old.

A place that has a name close enough to one she loved in fiction that it could be mistaken for the same.

She foraged and gardened all her life, loved the feel of her hands in the earth, whispered to plants and knew their ways and histories and as I walk the tracks and woods I find myself hearing her point out flowers I had no idea I knew.

Other things she carried for her time have come too. Though she was not given to being open about her ways she told of some things - obliquely, cryptically. Those tellings, I understand now, were enough - She knew that just as she had inherited 'the ways' so would I in my turn and then I would understand; and in the same way I find myself telling my own daughter fragments that when the time comes will be enough.

It's the reason for the title of this blog - it's acknowledging lineage - We have always been a witch.

#witch work #personal #inheritance

Dreamworking

I dont know how it is for others - but its a thing for me. Sometimes its messages, sometimes its workings, sometimes its a teaching.

Its not always the most comfortable of things, and a real serious working dream usually means waking at 3 am soaking wet, ravenously hungry and with a raging thirst.

I think though its easier to talk about it descriptively, rather than try and talk about it as a structure.

So: A dreaming - a message from a person who had passed.

I'd worked with the woman before she passed. A few weeks after her funeral I was called in dream to a cabin in a very lush wooded area. Inside I realised that she was present, though I could not see her. (This is how it works for me - the deceased who have crossed over remain out of direct sight in dreamings, as though they are standing right behind me.)

She had an open suitcase on the floor with a Tarot Deck visible in it.

She asked me to tell her daughter, granddaughter and great-grandaughter that if there was anything they needed to ask they should ask her. That if it was possible to give an answer she would.

I recorded it in my journal and I did as asked. When I finally managed to get in touch with her granddaughter (who lives on the other side of the world) I sent her a pictue of what I'd seen. She let me know that she 'knows that place, I go stay there all the time'. And apparently the suitcase was like the blue one her greatgrandma had. And she reads the cards and knew which deck was being referenced from the colour.

The circle was closed.

#witch work #Dreamwork #personal practice

vitterdotter

to other folk witches: how do you engage in protection magic?

I've never been a heavily warded kind of person. if something is coming my way, I often dream about it, and get told the protective measures to take. if I feel off, I'll divine about it, and react accordingly.

taigawitch

I thought I didn't ward particularly - then I looked around. Elder, hawthorn, rowan and beech on our boundaries. Ritual sweeping, a collection of talismans that are continuously moving to where they're needed most, a red hair tie for protection when my wires 'go off'. A very particular pendant that I wear all the time, Allies who watch for me, good relations with the land around and it's many peoples. Smudges twisted from herbs grown on our plot.

Its an intuitive tending process, -and similarly like you mention - I usually get given what will be needed beforehand, a clear sign something is coming is an ally presenting or an object presenting itself.

taigawitch

A working for the Fae

I was called to work by the Fae just before the last winter solstice. I've hemmed and hawed about telling about it, so I asked permission - and it seems it is ok... Actually they seemed amused by the idea.

I've not had much dealings with the Fae, though they are very much present in this land. So this is really an exploration of my experience. Caveat : I'm old enough to know there is no one way in anything. This is just a 'how it was'.

Buzzard made it known I was to make a journey. I won't go into the detail, that's a tale in it's own right, but heeding the message I journeyed to meet Buzzard, who just kept dipping in and out of sight, leading me to the Faerie Realms, passing through their places until in a place of stone where horses were stabled, where buzzard perched on the gauntlet of the master of the hunt. Instinct had me look sideyways, not 'straight at', and in so doing perceive past the glamour. Even so the urge to run like prey before the hunter was very strong, but that is his nature I realised. He is the hunt. I declaimed 'i am a daughter of the mother, there is no chasing me anymore than you can chase the earth - what is it you want?'

What is your name he asked, so I replied 'i am sometimes known as (...) using a name given to me one time.

Very wise shaman he laughed. Then let me know that a 'way' had been blocked by human disturbance of a stone circle and this needed to be put right as the hunt needed it at the winter solstice. I agreed to open the way, honouring the agreements we have, and in return asked that the hunt observe the boundaries of my land. A bargain had been struck he said, so I opened the way and noticed for the work to be completed I would have to go there in the real.

Back, i jumped on the internet and called up the ordnance survey maps of our area and - there was marked a stone circle just where I had been shown. I looked it up, 'only a few stones by visible, the rest buried. I drove over and found it and indeed only a couple of stones visible, the rest buried in the field, and markers next to it showing recent work had been happening very close. I completed the ceremony then.made my way home.

The solstice was a wild night, racing clouds and yet within our boundaries, quiet, undisturbed.

A few days later I was intrigued enough to look up the name (internet can be so helpful) I had been given to use. It isn't a name as such, it's a word in a language I don't know but has some very, very ancient ancestral connection -and it means 'shaman'.

taigawitch

edit: I posted this last night. This morning I walked out to the place where I'd asked permission to tell of the working. There was a Buzzard feather.