Hope you all stay warm and cozy this Imbolc eve. I usually call it Candlemas (that's what my coven used to celebrate) and light plenty of candles as it grows dark in the evening. This midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox marks a turning point, the season shift towards warmer, lighter days. It's hard to feel like spring is on the way when it's freezing outside and the streets are covered with ice. But it will come again.
It's been a while, hello Tumblr!
Just wanted to mention three amazing films with witchy vibes I think you should all see.
MOTHER OF FLIES is an intense indie folk horror gem from the brilliant Adams Family filmmaking collective, just started streaming on Shudder. (my review will go up later today)
THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE is a spellbinding musical, the story of the woman who founded the Shakers) is still in theatres. (I saw this at the Woodstock Film Festival with director Mona Fastvold and incredible star Amanda Seyfried in attendance).
H IS FOR HAWK stars Claire Foy in the true story of a scholar who fights sudden grief by training a goshawk. (Just posted my review of this here: https://artsfuse.org/323420/film-review-h-is-for-hawk-stumbling-and-soaring/)
Be sure to check these out. I'm also working on my survey of the witchiest films and TV of 2025 for my blog "The Witching Hour" on Substack. https://themediawitch.substack.com/
A few weeks ago I started a series of posts on my Substack blog The Witching Hour consisting of all my media reviews from the early days of The Witches’ Voice (1996) through 2008 (after that I moved reviews to my blog). The first post, appropriately enough, is on THE CRAFT. I’m up to #8 (PRACTICAL MAGIC) and look forward to posting more reviews and commentary from that incredibly dynamic era of the modern paganism and witchcraft movement. Please feel free to subscribe to get these posts right in your email inbox.
It’s been over a year since I last posted! Strangely enough, I posted that Alla Tsank painting in my last post (October 2021) just YESTERDAY on Twitter and Instagram. I guess it moves me in this season of late autumn. So I have posted some more autumnal art here for you. Anyway with Twitter maybe going up in flames, I may resurrect my presence here. I like Tumblr; it’s gentle and beautiful, most of the time.
Some days just feel like this, don’t they? Happy autumn.
Love this artist I’ve discovered recently, ALLA TSANK. Very mythic and pagan vibe to her work.
Just thought I'd share this for my Tumblr peeps: a piece I wrote on the state of contemporary witchcraft, focused on Pam Grossman and her new book WAKING THE WITCH. Watch for a new Bustle piece on witchcraft coming from me soon...
To say witches are having a moment — as the teenage protagonist of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina did in a recent episode — would be an understatement. Between Sabrina and American Horror Story: Coven, Suspiria and The Love Witch, there sure has…
My first piece for Bustle! It was lovely interviewing Pam Grosssman about her fabulous new book WAKING THE WITCH.
This iconic horror film put George Romero firmly on the path to being a auteur, and gave birth to what is arguable one of horror’s most popular sub-genres. The film is a not-so-subtle send-up of the social mores of the era, and in Romero’s later films he revisits the themes of society in decay and the struggle for power and authority. I always felt the portrayal of the walking dead evoked the elements of society who were most dramatically “Other” at the time: hippies, people of color, women and the Viet Cong. “They’ll all messed up”--on drugs? The undead maul and devour the living: an expression of the fear of the unbridled sensuality of the “free love” generation?
Arguably the first mainstream American film to portray contemporary occultism in depth, Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby — released 50 years ago this month — premiered as a palpable fascination with the occult was taking hold. Based upon Ira Levin’s bestselling novel, various real-life occurrences surrounding the film added to its aura of evil, fueling fears that later …
My piece on the impact of ROSEMARY’S BABY (50 years old today!) on the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and beyond...
Zeus sits at the bar, he’ll buy a thousand and one drinks and the girls who he smiles at will raise their eyebrows and think of the pepper spray tucked into their sleeves.
Hera waits at home. She knows the numbers of all the girls and she has their facebooks open on the computer. Her hands hover over the keyboard., She wants to tell them that men will always lie. She wants to take her own advice. She never will.
Apollo and Artemis travel the world. They are chasing the sun. Chasing the moon. They will never catch up. Their hand are curled around each others hip bones. Never in public though. They look too similar for that now. Society has learned judgement and so they keep their caresses safe in the shadows.
Poseidon wanders the shore. He wears a plastic poncho and carries a bag of trash. His tears mix with the salt water. No one can tell the difference. A girl with hair that moves like serpents trails after him, retribution in her eyes.
Hades lies in bed, his wife curled around him. He smiles because people will always believe in death and finally, finally he has beaten his brothers at something.
Athena paces through college campuses, handing out pamphlets on architecture. She scoffs at professors who are simply going through the motions. She carries signs in her hands as she marches through the streets with the students, screaming about the newest problem. She laughs wild, these children, these fearless children are her people.
Hestia wants her family to come home. She waits in the doorway, arms outstretched and a smile like forgiveness waiting to embrace the siblings whom she knows will never return.
Demeter counts down the days until her daughter returns. She smiles when children cheer over the snow days she gives them. There was a time when she had a child like that.
Persephone kisses her husband and grins when people tremble. She is vengeful and wears flowers in her hair and she will make damn sure that the world will never forget her name.
Ares walks through the Middle East, picking his way around the ruins of an elementary school. He stopped understanding war a long time ago. This was not brave, this was not heroic. This was senseless.
Aphrodite narrows her eyes at boys in cars who yell obscene things. She’s long since stopped romanticizing love. She is gaunt and over worked but sometimes she sees a teenage girl handing her baby over to an older couple who had tried for years and she feels young again. Sometimes, she sees Ares from across the room as soldiers embrace their loved ones and they smile at each other.
Hephaestus limps through his shop, his hands are worn down, his back is still twisted but people don’t seem to notice anymore. He makes their furniture, their toys and trinkets and they thank him, they pay him.
Hermes runs through the streets of New York, Tokyo, London. He is young in this time, young and beautiful and slipping between business men, his hands finding their way into their pockets. He never stops laughing.
Dionysus mixes Zeus his drinks. He watches his family grin and cry and get sick in the back room of the bar. He holds back their hair and hands them another drink before they even ask. He’s been here a long time. He’s seen them drunk more often then he’s seen them sober. He is watching them flicker out and fade.
The gods are dying. The gods are dead. The gods are us.
The poem by Tom Hirons, read by the author. Now available, in higher quality, as an mp3 at https://shop.hedgespoken.org/products/sometimes-a-wild-god-sound-recording-mp3 Recorded…
Sometimes a Wild God
Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine.
When the wild god arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.
He will not ring the doorbell;
Instead he scrapes with his fingers
Leaving blood on the paintwork,
Though primroses grow
In circles round his feet.
You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides…
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry.
The dog barks.
The wild god smiles,
Holds out his hand.
The dog licks his wounds
And leads him inside.
The wild god stands in your kitchen.
Ivy is taking over your sideboard;
Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades
And wrens have begun to sing
An old song in the mouth of your kettle.
‘I haven’t much,’ you say
And give him the worst of your food.
He sits at the table, bleeding.
He coughs up foxes.
There are otters in his eyes.
When your wife calls down,
You close the door and
Tell her it’s fine.
You will not let her see
The strange guest at your table.
The wild god asks for whiskey
And you pour a glass for him,
Then a glass for yourself.
Three snakes are beginning to nest
In your voicebox. You cough.
Oh, limitless space.
Oh, eternal mystery.
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.
Oh, miracle of life.
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.
You cough again,
Expectorate the snakes and
Water down the whiskey,
Wondering how you got so old
And where your passion went.
The wild god reaches into a bag
Made of moles and nightingale-skin.
He pulls out a two-reeded pipe,
Raises an eyebrow
And all the birds begin to sing.
The fox leaps into your eyes.
Otters rush from the darkness.
The snakes pour through your body.
Your dog howls and upstairs
Your wife both exults and weeps at once.
The wild god dances with your dog.
You dance with the sparrows.
A white stag pulls up a stool
And bellows hymns to enchantments.
A pelican leaps from chair to chair.
In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.
Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.
In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds its fists on the table.
The moon leans in through the window.
The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.
‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’
Listen to them:
The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer…
The great un-nameable beasts
In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…
There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,
A bottle and a handful of black fur.
Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.
A black bear is sitting by the fire.
Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
And brings the dead to life.
The Media Witch @themediawitch - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
kianamaiart
snowghoul
kaledo-art
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
izzy806
theartofmadeline
dailybridgerton
