tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25468420918334107772024-02-19T17:21:19.248+00:00Step Away from the Cauldron...Ramblings from the Old Kitchen Witch's Old Kitchen.Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-9197510375110456862017-01-30T21:24:00.001+00:002017-01-30T21:33:53.638+00:00In Which I Consult The Oracle…<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I bought Stacey DeMarco’s
Halloween Oracle a couple of years ago, after falling in love with the artwork.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Gorgeous, isn’t it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I’ve never actually read with it, but then I have a lot of decks I haven’t read with. So sue me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Anyway, the lovely Lyn Thurman posted a spread for 2017 <a href="http://lynthurman.com/hello-2017-tarot-spread/" target="_blank">here</a>, and something made me hunt out the Halloween Oracle and DO THE SPREAD. I'm normally a pull a card, read it, and keep pulling until I make some sense of it kinda gal, but hey, a bit of variety is good.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">First spread of 2017, first reading in my new house, first time using this Oracle. Three firsts. It felt right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">And this is what I got:</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">CARD 1</span></strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">: Goodbye 2016, this is the lesson I take from you because I’ll need it in 2017:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Barmbrack (sweetness and synergy)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">A barmbrack is a sweet loaf, normally baked with things in like money, a piece of cloth, a pea, a stick and a ring. A bit like a traditional English Christmas Pud. If you got an object in your piece, that was your fate for the coming year. So I think the lessons of 2016 must be viewed together as a complete learning experience. Nothing viewed in its individuality. The whole is greater than its parts. I take from this that I must learn to embrace change, because I can survive it (even though I HATES IT.) Organisation is key; being prepared and following a plan, but being able to roll with the punches and amend that plan at a moment’s notice is essential. To enjoy the sweetness of success, hard work and a good foundation (ingredients) must precede the results. </span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">CARDS 2,3 & 4</span></strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">: Hello 2017, you and I are going to experience:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;">Ancestors (the love and legacy of our DNA)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;">Whatever happens, I’m the result of the love of thousands before me. They deserve my reverence for (at the very least) my DNA. More Ancestor work will present itself this year, whether on a mundane or spiritual level.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Ghost (regret)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Worries about what SHOULD have been done, or COULD have been will be a factor this year – but as usual, regrets are a waste of energy. I cannot change the past, but I can change how I react to things that happen over the coming year. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; text-align: start;">Trick or Treat (mischief and play)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; text-align: start;"> More playing is indicated for this year: last year was intense in my mundane world and I lacked the time or enthusiasm for the things that bring me enjoyment. I will need to carve out time to do those things that nourish and heal my spirit this year. Hey, more blog posts, right?</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">CARD 5</span></strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">: 2017, our biggest challenge together will be:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; text-align: start;">Vampire (emotional intelligence)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Oh, those pesky vampires, draining one’s life essence… yeah, there’s been a lot of that over the last few years. So my challenge is to put up better boundaries. Protection and shielding work, methinks. Ooooh, learn to say no. (There’s a challenge, indeed.)</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">CARD 6</span></strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">: But I have a secret weapon that’s going to help me leap over obstacles:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; text-align: start;">Owl (Wise seeing, wise action)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; text-align: start;">Wise counsel. Too often I internalise problems, not asking advice through a sense of pride (or shame). I do have a propensity to react in a knee-jerk fashion without consideration at times. This year, I need to think and ask advice of those who I consider wise friends and mentors before I act. </span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">CARD 7</span></strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">: 2017, our greatest blessing together will be:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">The Veil (the future)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Whilst the veil thins at certain times as the wheel of the year turns, there are places where the veil is always thin. My connections to my land-base were weakened last year, as time did not permit me to visit my local places of power as often as I wanted. But I can reach through the veil at any time, I just need to prepare myself and my place. Time well spent. So more time with the cards, the plants and the oracles. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><strong style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">CARD 8</span></strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">: This is what I can bring into 2017 to make the world a better place:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Joy (rejoicing in the present)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Oh boy, that made me laugh. Joy? Dark-hearted, bone-obsessed, friend-of-Death me? Bring joy? Bwahahahaha! And then… a boy I work with for weekly interventions at school brought me a bunch of daffodils with a tag thanking me for helping him. He handed them to me, and told me that he loved doing maths work with me because it was so much fun! I will grudgingly admit that I can bring joy to the kids I work with (and kids learn far better when they are having fun, y’know!)</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">CARD 9</span></strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">: And this is what 2017 will give me in return for shining my light and living my purpose:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Skeleton (strength)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Bones. Of course, bones. Our skeleton gives us strength (or we’d be a sloppy bag of internal organs squishing all over the floor.) I really hope that I don’t spend all of 2017 muttering “Give me strength,” under my breath. The booklet that accompanies this lovely deck says that “There is an incredible strength in showing vulnerability. It can often be the bravest course of action and the most frightening… a powerful catalyst for personal growth.” Ouch. Sounds bloody painful to me. Much as I love bones (and I adore the image on this card), I’m feeling a tad gloomy over this bit.</span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">CARD 10</span></strong><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">: Overall, 2017, the theme for our year together is: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Scrying (intuition)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">Don’t rely on the
rational and practical for decisions. It’s
a balance; wisdom will come with a mix of logic, facts, leaps of faith and
intuition. More consulting the cards,
then. And keeping on top of the
practical things – checking the bank balance, budgeting, work prep, that
dreaded organisation stuff!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">This isn’t the full
transcript of the notes I took while I did the reading (hey, a witch has to
have some secrets, ‘kay?) but I’m going to revisit this here at the end of 2017
and see what I think of this Three Firsts reading. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I’m loathe to read for
myself, as a rule. I can normally see
all sorts of possibilities, quite often contradictory in nature. I’m generally too close to the situation at
hand to see the wood for the trees, so to speak. But this house is so new to me, and it feels
such a fresh start for us all, that I haven’t got any expectations. It feels full of promise. Full of a better future. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Yeah, get ME being all
optimistic! <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Oh, and if any of you lovely tarot-y type people out there want to chime in with any insights you might have on the cards I've pulled (or anything else, of course!), do feel free.</span><br />
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Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-77516227184137327472016-12-30T10:59:00.000+00:002016-12-30T11:00:28.576+00:00In which I return triumphantly. With excuses.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9YBjCAwGQwQDQugd63A0Us05F3VkFc3bgs2E_UL5Ks2OTGmEbnNZVYtfKGCqLyVxVGpR9DQqYUXBlzE3Bkmf08UowkxpwROUJ9CLAJ2kh36QCgbZlj15Recb8-rxYX2Nexl35ceDtD-0/s1600/witch-4-clipart-clipart-witch-4-clipart-clip-art-Gj5BbK-clipart+%25281%2529.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9YBjCAwGQwQDQugd63A0Us05F3VkFc3bgs2E_UL5Ks2OTGmEbnNZVYtfKGCqLyVxVGpR9DQqYUXBlzE3Bkmf08UowkxpwROUJ9CLAJ2kh36QCgbZlj15Recb8-rxYX2Nexl35ceDtD-0/s320/witch-4-clipart-clipart-witch-4-clipart-clip-art-Gj5BbK-clipart+%25281%2529.gif" width="229" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Magic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Woo-woo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Witchwork.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yeah, it went by the wayside this year. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I have reasons… but frankly, they are just excuses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As Witchlet Two is fond of saying, “Don’t give me excuses,
GIVE ME RESULTS!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(She’s going to be a complete diva, that one.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I’ve been a witch for over 25 years, and this year was the
first time I’ve let my woo-woo lapse. No
divination, no seasonal celebrations, and no serious Witch Work. This was the year I let it all go. Let it slide away. The Witch gave way to The Frazzled Working
Grown-Up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">No walking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">No growing green things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">No foraging.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">No brewing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">No hooching.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lots of working though.
Working within the school system.
Studying to be able to help those students with extreme literacy
problems. And then sliding headlong into
to the wall labelled MANAGEMENT OF SCHOOL FUNDING which meant that although the
funding was there to pay me (a pittance) to work additional hours, I didn’t get
to spend the hours with the kids that would get the most of those hours. Because of Ofsted, you know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(As you can see, I’m more than a little hacked off about
it.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I didn’t throw witch-work at it. I moaned, groaned, whinged – and got on with
it. No, it didn’t get better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And in October, this happened.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">See that? It’s a
house. And guess what?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I own it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yes, you heard me. OWN IT.
NAME. ON THE DEEDS. IT’S MINE (and The Hubster’s). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And although the process of getting the house was incredibly
stressful and expensive, now I’m sat here on my old tatty sofa in my new
lounge, it was worth it. Financially, a warehouse operative and a teaching
assistant in their forties can’t raise enough money via mortgage to buy a house
– even in this relatively cheap area – and we were extraordinary lucky enough
to get a loan from my parents. We are, and ever shall be, incredibly grateful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So, it’s a new beginning.
Goodbye rented house, with a landlord that wasn’t willing to spend any
money raised in his last re-mortgage of the property on the place. Goodbye endless cleaning off black
mould. Goodbye back boiler that our
lovely gas engineer nursed for ten years, warning us every year that this one
could be its last. Goodbye laminate
floor laid directly on concrete. Goodbye
bent guttering, pissing water down the walls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And yet… and yet… I leave behind a garden and plants that
were my friends. I leave behind bees in
the chimney, bats in the attic, hedgehogs and mice under the shed and so many
birds who visited every morning for toast crumbs, fat and seed balls, to hang
off the thistle seed heads upside down gorging themselves. My friends. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But here I am. New
house. New start. It’s time to dig out the woo-woo. To rediscover the magic. To find the witch I need to be in this new
home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Wish me luck.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Witch clipart found <a href="http://www.clipartkid.com/witch-4-clipart-clipart-witch-4-clipart-clip-art-Gj5BbK-clipart/" target="_blank">here:</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-18809839198379061542015-12-31T17:55:00.000+00:002015-12-31T18:01:30.476+00:00In Which I Wax Lyrical About TreesWell, one tree in particular. My apple tree. Fifteen years ago I planted three apple pips, just for the hell of it. They all grew. Two of the seedlings I gave away, and the third grew in a pot in my gardens and yards for the next seven years. Then we moved to our current property and I planted it in a corner of our garden. Where it grew. And grew. And suffered with mildew, rust, greenfly infestation and wind deformation from the prevailing sou'westerly.<br />
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It never bloomed. And therefore never fruited. It was a bit of an embarrassment, actually, and there were several occasions when I seriously debated digging it up and planting one from a nursery. I didn't, because it was MY deformed, rusty, mildewy, pest-ridden tree. Then four years ago, I decided we would wassail our pitiful tree on Twelfth Night as part of our Yuletide celebrations. The Witchlets made noise with rattles and drums and shouting, I sang (which apparently counted as noise according to Witchlet One, thanks for the ringing endorsement, son!), and we soaked toast in cider and stuck them in the branches. </div>
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Four solitary buds bloomed the next Spring. Two fertilised, but the apples dropped off before they matured. That year, less greenfly. No rust. Less mildew. Of course, that had a lot to do with the wormwood growing in a pot under the tree than the wassailling... Or maybe not. I took to going out and touching the tree, talking to it, leaving offerings just as I do at certain trees in 'my' woods.<br />
<br />
I have wassailed my tree every year since. The next year, I had a tree covered in blossoms. And it gave me four full size fruit. This year, thirty clean, green, shiny apples. It's still misshapen. It leans. It gets the occasional patch of rust, powdery mildew and greenfly. But it's mine. Nurtured from seed, for fifteen years. It has produced fruit, beautiful, blemish-free organic apples, and that was something I was told it would never do. Master gardeners, books, websites, they all told me it was a waste of time. It will never fruit. It might fruit, but the apples will be poor, and disease prone. Dig it up. Here, buy this grafted variety.<br />
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They were wrong.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQfQTFybQSF7gnXIw1n22lriFjsU0XWQqAYnVixryi8q8A3d5c4X8T6FQnCmIyJ73JUY0RiODj2K7L_pKY0CL1AE_b49l_euzyFpzJSx9GHYCLmQNQ8giVW1Ni05dS7q3-AW2IZvSRuIk/s1600/FB_IMG_1451583789852.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQfQTFybQSF7gnXIw1n22lriFjsU0XWQqAYnVixryi8q8A3d5c4X8T6FQnCmIyJ73JUY0RiODj2K7L_pKY0CL1AE_b49l_euzyFpzJSx9GHYCLmQNQ8giVW1Ni05dS7q3-AW2IZvSRuIk/s320/FB_IMG_1451583789852.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<br />
Was I just lucky? Maybe.<br />
Was it the wassailing? Can't have hurt.<br />
Was it the offerings, and acknowledging this tree as a vital part of my life? Who knows? (Only my tree, and she's not telling.)<br />
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But there's a lesson in there somewhere. Sometimes, don't give up. Don't listen to all the advice. Take your time. Trust your instincts. <br />
<br />
Prove the nay-sayers wrong. </div>
Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-87256317967986341072015-12-27T22:37:00.000+00:002015-12-31T18:02:18.175+00:00In which I am a dim-witted thunder-twonkSo, the Old Kitchen Witch is really starting to feel every one of her forty-five years. Bits of me ache. Some bits of me bloody hurt. Injuries take longer to heal. Insomnia is a bitch. Anxiety doesn't lessen with age. Hot flushes are horrible. And obviously my brain is slowing down, because I have herbs that will HELP, for pity's sake. I know how to cook and eat healthily. And I know how to ground, centre, cleanse, shield and protect.<br />
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Sometimes, my sheer dim-wittedness amazes me. Because I know Lots Of Things to help me, and I'm currently doing None Of The Things. Not even One.<br />
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So, I've instigated A Plan. It involves daily yoga. Daily grounding and shielding. Sage and Lady's Mantle tea for the hot flushes. Lemonbalm tea, Rescue Remedy, lavender essential oil and meditation to kick the shit out of the anxiety. Decent food, lots of fruit and veg and plenty of water because eating well helps everything. And today began with making a salve with meadowsweet infused oil, frankincense, lavender and rosemary essential oils, with a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper thrown in for good measure. I've made this before for my Dad and a couple of work colleagues, and they swear by its pain-relieving abilities. So it's about time I started using it on my hands and knees, which are beginning to show signs of arthritis.<br />
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I rubbed about half a teaspoon of the salve into my hands before donning my rubber gloves and doing the washing up. By the time I'd finished the sinkful of plates, my hands had stopped aching.<br />
<br />
It's been six hours, and my hands are still pain-free. I didn't realise how much they hurt, until they didn't.<br />
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My lesson for the day: it doesn't matter what the hell you know if you don't put it into practice. Anyway, here's my recipe for the meadowsweet salve.<br />
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Meadowsweet Pain-Relieving Salve<br />
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1 cup meadowsweet-infused oil (I used a mix of 1:1:1 olive:almond:coconut oils and double-infused fresh meadowsweet into it in a bain-marie last summer and stored the oil in a clean glass bottle in a dark cupboard)<br />
1/2 cup grated beeswax<br />
20 drops lavender essential oil<br />
10 drops rosemary essential oil<br />
10 drops frankincense essential oil<br />
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper<br />
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Add the beeswax and meadowsweet oil to a bain-marie and heat gently until melted. Stir well.<br />
Allow the mixture to cool very slightly, add the essential oils and cayenne pepper and mix well.<br />
Immediately pour into clean, dry jars or pots.<br />
<br />
The salve turned out quite solid, which was what I wanted, but you could use more oil (or less beeswax!) to get a softer consistency.<br />
<br />Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-44001765351662477132015-10-05T21:14:00.000+01:002015-10-05T21:14:40.640+01:00In which I intend to work Thirty-one Days of Magic
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Bob the Skull having more than a little fun with the last few Calendula blooms.</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A recent post from Velma Nightshade (one half of the
fabulous duo responsible for the podcast Inciting a Brew-ha-ha and the Chief
Witch of <a href="https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/MagickalMiscellany?section_id=16092499&ref=shopsection_leftnav_5" target="_blank">Magickal Miscellany</a> online shop) piqued my interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In it she suggested getting witchy with
thirty one days of magic this October.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of course, I am late to the party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For which I would humbly apologise, but hell,
I’m not sorry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve decided not to
regret things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Every day must have something woo-woo in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether it is getting back into daily
devotions, divination, spellwork, meditation, research – anything woo-woo
related is fine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So it may be the 5<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> of October, and my
thirty-one days is either going to be only twenty-six days, or I’m going to run
into November, but here we go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s Monday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moonday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A day of beginnings (it’s
the start of my working week, the beginning of the school week for the
Witchlets). The moon’s silvery reflected light glimmers and shows us
illusions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or perhaps it shows us a
different way of looking at a situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A perfect time for divination.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have decided to forgo Tarot cards for the time being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have been wanting to use cartomancy for
quite some time, and as I have a
brand-new-never-used-knew-it-would-come-in-useful-for-something pack just
hanging around on the bookcase, I’m going to have a go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The indomitable Cory Hutcheson has written a
wonderful book called <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fifty-four-Devils-Folklore-Fortune-telling-Playing/dp/1491225785/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444075971&sr=8-1&keywords=54+devils" target="_blank">54 Devils – The Art & Folklore of Fortune-telling with Playing Cards</a>, and it’s going to be my guide as I plunge, fairly helpless,
into this rather compelling art.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Check back tomorrow, and I’ll have an update on my first
night of Witchy-Woo-Woo October!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-4516684063911890792015-10-05T19:53:00.002+01:002015-10-05T19:53:47.991+01:00In which I have been through HUGE STUFF
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the last eighteen months my life has changed
dramatically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am now gainfully
employed in a job I love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
incredibly pressured in some ways, intensely rewarding, and I put in a lot of
hours (way more than I’m paid for!) which has, in turn, had a knock on effect
on the day-to-day running of this mad household and the night-to-night
witch-duties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the past year I have also achieved Cronehood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, not so much achieved, rather I’ve had
it thrust upon me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew it was
coming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought I would struggle with
the emotional aspects, and I was completely certain that the physical symptoms
would be horrendous (both my mother and grandmother had suffered terribly – my
Mum was on HRT for years) and I was dreading it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I started having hot flushes early on this year, and they
woke me at night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would wake up, not
knowing why, and within a minute the heat would spread outwards from my chest
across the rest of my body and I’d leap out of bed, panting, desperate to cool
off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not the best recipe for a good
night’s sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exhaustion was my
constant companion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dear friends
suggested Lady’s Mantle and Purple Sage Tea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I started drinking a mugful morning and evening, and within a week the
symptoms eased almost completely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m
now down to a mugful every other evening, and I’ve been symptom free for a
couple of months (YAY!) I'm hoping that the worst is over, and that my transition to being the REALLY-OLD Kitchen Witch is pretty much over.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">On the emotional front, I think the lack of monthly hormonal
upheaval has eased any depressive symptoms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I get anxious, but not in that I’m-frozen-in-time-can’t-move-can’t-breathe-can’t-live
kind of anxious, and days where I wish I didn’t exist haven’t happened in a
very long time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a GOOD THING.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Witch-stuff has taken a back seat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Devotions have been sporadic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Getting out in The Old Man’s Woods has
happened, but nowhere near as much as I’d like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Foraging has gone ok; one of the joys of the Witchlets being older is
that they join in and can walk much further.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(It all starts with lots of whining that they don’t want to go, and ends
with whining that they don’t want to go home because they’ve had fun.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Serious workings have been almost
non-existent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much as I have noted the
change in seasons, I haven’t observed them, nor celebrated them with feasting
and merriment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Hubster is also happily ensconced in a new job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is now nocturnal, which is superb for
family arrangements such as getting the Witchlets to and from school (he drops
them off, I pick them up, thus saving a not-insignificant amount of money spent
on child-minders). It is not, however, conducive to us spending much time
together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we make the most of the
time we do get.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I did think that I’d get lots more done, witchcraft wise,
than I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But by the time 10 pm rolls
around, I am battling exhaustion and the energy for workings elude me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hell, the energy for housework generally
eludes me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The good news is that we are no longer living hand to
mouth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last week of the month is not
referred to as ‘porridge and soup week’ – we get to go shopping every weekend, and
having to buy all new uniform for both of my growing Witchlets this August
didn’t have us terrified we wouldn’t have enough money for the monthly
bills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Money may not buy happiness, but
not lying awake at night having financial panic attacks makes me much less
unhappy, thank you very much.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But I’m hoping that I can squeeze in some more esoterically
inclined activities in the coming months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am being pointed in that direction, for certain, and one thing I
learnt a long time ago is that when the Divine pokes you with unmistakable
requests, you comply, or face the consequences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Negotiation is currently in progress (while PL seems to understand
completely that we mere humans need sleep, Hekate is seemingly unimpressed by
the fact) and hopefully we’ll come up with an acceptable timetable… I hope!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Well, that’s my current situation in a nutshell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m probably wittering to just myself here,
as it’s been so damn long since I’ve written, but you never know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I’m wishing anyone out there a pretty awesome October. </span></div>
Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-1192897104900947992014-02-22T17:01:00.001+00:002014-02-22T17:23:40.383+00:00In which First Spring arrives<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div>It's been a WET winter. Pretty much the wettest on record, here in the wilds of Yorkshire. Living on top of a hill has its advantages in this sort of winter. All this water has, even on our hill, caused problems. I've lost a lot of the alpines that were dotted about through the herb patch, as they hate sitting with their roots in water. The Cinquefoil I planted in our first year here has also succumbed. And yet there has been magic afoot, even in this strange weather. Mother Elder may not have have graced us with snow, or even more than a couple of crisp, crunchy, frosty mornings, but I'm glad to see the back of the short days and long nights nonetheless. <div><br></div><div>So, First Spring arrived with the first snowdrops. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbzv4cqzpq5P_F_iR3dutX4_t6Bjc7qCKe22Q4DgpOhq2Hfav5fijigXEkGPbKdQFtnAcEH5EF14-rVkJIzeyrzsaWxNvTep2mmqc4a1ppX1hA7I2FfFPdNKrHOmdOSRLs7s-udhuqd4E/s640/blogger-image--229921960.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbzv4cqzpq5P_F_iR3dutX4_t6Bjc7qCKe22Q4DgpOhq2Hfav5fijigXEkGPbKdQFtnAcEH5EF14-rVkJIzeyrzsaWxNvTep2mmqc4a1ppX1hA7I2FfFPdNKrHOmdOSRLs7s-udhuqd4E/s640/blogger-image--229921960.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The family altar was decorated for Bride, with a bed for her, wrapped in ivy, the Bride doll made of fresh Rosemary, dried poppy seed head crowned with rowan berries watching over a cauldron filled with this years seeds, and offerings of mead and poppy seed bread were given to ask for the blessings of fertility on my garden this year.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7p8RCzZ1bBbCHK_XS4F-hBXh4BkElJt9WEjdrl8ImI6P896p5-tW-nULrzjluj61kIcZ-UmsXXC4oQHG9J6BRkB12wE5kMcpPyHRCvMsb5gRpqOLMH053oZ1qYHv8s-Wyac3sXFwEzxk/s640/blogger-image--118848952.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7p8RCzZ1bBbCHK_XS4F-hBXh4BkElJt9WEjdrl8ImI6P896p5-tW-nULrzjluj61kIcZ-UmsXXC4oQHG9J6BRkB12wE5kMcpPyHRCvMsb5gRpqOLMH053oZ1qYHv8s-Wyac3sXFwEzxk/s640/blogger-image--118848952.jpg"></a></div> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I even managed to fashion my own Brighid's cross from last year's wheat stems. Not bad for a first attempt. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzTEx5vmoSHqhXfr0lGf0KPDL7cLnzC0lNlFcLpBJ_tn3lwD3xk_lSN4hqdYFuoZTM4pTAQWyQO2djod6oEbV5hEXAse-NUKdNGElYCOrx1MObWA3JVsWgQOEC6mPBwhTlOdy_GfWprPo/s640/blogger-image-320378989.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzTEx5vmoSHqhXfr0lGf0KPDL7cLnzC0lNlFcLpBJ_tn3lwD3xk_lSN4hqdYFuoZTM4pTAQWyQO2djod6oEbV5hEXAse-NUKdNGElYCOrx1MObWA3JVsWgQOEC6mPBwhTlOdy_GfWprPo/s640/blogger-image-320378989.jpg"></a></div><br></div>For some reason, this year didn't start in January for me (I can't quite get my head around it starting at Samhain/Last Harvest, either) and it seems as though First Spring is the real beginning for me. </div><div><br></div><div>The last few months have been a period of frustration and stagnation for me, personally, (I promise to share more on this next time) and it seems now things are moving again. </div><div><br></div><div>At long bloody last. So hopefully I will feel there's something worth posting more often this year!</div><div><br></div><div>Got to love my hellebore this year, too. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJOaR2GcYNMhS4LS84OC87aplCWAXBfetN7J80nDYarZUX11ST90aMalAU3mNc7BO2lOmBuoTCOz4qJCx2OP5f04p-2mDd8PVBjCnxyRIeY2_CzICr03ZRlJE0iw8Xims0cmoSD8EHHbo/s640/blogger-image-1328257676.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJOaR2GcYNMhS4LS84OC87aplCWAXBfetN7J80nDYarZUX11ST90aMalAU3mNc7BO2lOmBuoTCOz4qJCx2OP5f04p-2mDd8PVBjCnxyRIeY2_CzICr03ZRlJE0iw8Xims0cmoSD8EHHbo/s640/blogger-image-1328257676.jpg"></a></div><br></div>Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-33800526091668628432013-12-27T19:24:00.001+00:002014-01-25T12:45:32.146+00:00In Which I Catch My Breath and Catch a ColdEvery year the madness that is my silly season begins a week before Samhain/Hallowe'en/Last Harvest and continues to 27th December. By this time, I am usually recovering from the immense physical and emotional stress and swearing I'm never doing it again. This year, I sat with my feet up on the sofa, CraftyCat One on my lap, toys and games piled up on the floor, a pile of washing to be folded and put away at my side, and feeling remarkably chilled - and dare I day it, actually SMUG - about how well it's all gone.<div><br></div><div>There's a first time for everything!</div><div><br></div><div>It didn't start off that well. All the decorations for Samhain/Hallowe'en/Last Harvest went up (and looked fab; if I do say so myself), and I was all ready for the Witchlets' annual Hallowe'en party when they both went down with 'flu. Yes, proper 'flu, not a nasty cold, real, horrible, bone-achingly painful 'flu. For a whole fortnight. Party got cancelled, school was missed, sleep was a luxury nobody got much of. Normally this would have thrown me completely out of whack, but they recovered well enough to go out trick or treating for half an hour, all dressed up warm under costumes, although they didn't really want to eat their haul of sweets for another three days. (How to tell if the Witchlets are REALLY poorly - if they refuse chocolate, make sure you've got Calpol on hand.)</div><div><br></div><div>My solitary ritual to call back the Ancestors was due to include a full night's vigil, but after two weeks of broken sleep that wasn't a sensible proposition. I've given up beating myself around the head for not being able to give the gods and spirits what I want to give them, including time, because that's all I end up doing - giving myself grief because I think I should be doing better. One thing Hekate really has managed to drum into my head is that She doesn't want me as her Devotee, that my path isn't as her Priestess. There's more to come on Her plans for me, but that's for another post. Anyway, this year's ritual was extra important as it was the first Last Harvest since my Grandad died, and I needed to call him and my Nana back - I've missed both of them terribly since she left her ethereal post hanging around my kitchen to escort Grandad from this world. </div><div><br></div><div>I set up a space for them in my bedroom, somewhere I would have to make the effort to go and spend time. I didn't want it to be in the kitchen, although that is my usual spot for the ancestors, it had to be a little more special. Each night for a week before Last Harvest itself, I would spend a few minutes sitting quietly with their photos, Nana's Swiss Cottage music box, Grandad's Little Mermaid ashtray, along with the names of as many of my ancestors that I know. Finally, after sunset on the 31st October itself, I lit the candles, burnt a smidgen of ancestor incense (from the marvellous House of Ellegua, now Camino de Yara) and called back the ancestors, and specifically Nana and Grandad.</div><div><br></div><div>Never in my entire life has an empty room become so crowded. And there, just at my shoulder, they stood. Nana and Grandad, side by side. Welcome back, dear ones. </div><div><br></div><div>Last Harvest Supper was prepared to be a feast for all the family, Witchlets included, and we delayed it until the weekend after the 31st to give the poorly little ones time to fully recover. Presided over by a grinning pumpkin, we ate roast chicken, the last of the sugar snap peas, roast swede wedges, roast potatoes, carrots, a and the obligatory Yorkshire Puddings (Witchlet Two doesn't consider it a feast unless there are Yorkshire puddings), and home-made wine and a plate of food was left for the ancestors to enjoy. We told the Witchlets stories of all their ancestors that we know, and made them laugh, (the tortoise in the tree, how I really believed that dachshunds were really greyhounds that had run too far and worn their legs down, and how to pick a five year old up by her ears) and go wide-eyed with wonder at how many years ago some of those stories were from. </div><div><br></div><div>Things continued apace with lots of school activities, birthdays, and frantic Yule prep. The Hubster now works for a different company which shuts down for two weeks at Christmas, so the Witchlets were delighted to have him home. The Solstice was celebrated with feasting, candles, and a procession around the house with (battery-powered) candles in lanterns, and of course a visit from the Yule Faerie. (It's our Yule, I have absolutely no qualms about making up new traditions to mix in with old ones if it makes it more magical for the Witchlets!)</div><div><br></div><div>So, there's a brief recap. Oh, and I got a cold (you try keeping up with all the madness I put myself through between Last Harvest and Twelfth Night without YOUR immune system saying "Fuck this, I give up!") but hey, it was worth it. </div><div><br></div><div>And I started this post three weeks ago. Bad BlogWitch. So I'm going to post this before I lose another three weeks!</div><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigEkANgcP4PVpuJK1bJJh64UvLp7PFpsH-7gvZMiJPQt58SQ4539Vn3dW0svDFdVInWkml3U6vUTBWjvp8CNJyZob8sKuql4G3eCOREq87os7S8hPfv8CH5BnmLgu7GOCxuSR5pDZk-kw/s640/blogger-image-1642229427.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigEkANgcP4PVpuJK1bJJh64UvLp7PFpsH-7gvZMiJPQt58SQ4539Vn3dW0svDFdVInWkml3U6vUTBWjvp8CNJyZob8sKuql4G3eCOREq87os7S8hPfv8CH5BnmLgu7GOCxuSR5pDZk-kw/s640/blogger-image-1642229427.jpg"></a></div>Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-75863204399949806872013-10-25T14:01:00.000+01:002013-10-25T14:01:00.097+01:00In Which Hallowe'en is Fast Approaching<span style="color: #d9d2e9; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last Harvest/Samhain/Hallowe'en is almost upon us again. The veil thins, and even my fairly impenetrable head seems to be poked by the gods, the odd spirit, and the ancestors. This weekend was due to be my Annual Hallowe'en Bash for the Witchlets, their friends and our family. It always throws me into a tailspin because everything has to be clean, decorated, cooked from scratch and on a budget. Every couple of years a spanner gets thrown into the works - normally in the shape of someone getting sick. Mostly it's been me, but over the years we've had a dose of the noro-virus (Witchlet One) and various stages of man-flu (The Hubster). This year, both Witchlets have gone down with both a sickness bug and a bloody awful snot-monster of a head cold. I gave up on the party idea yesterday, knowing full well that even if they were miraculously recovered by this morning, I still wouldn't have enough hours left to do what I needed to.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #d9d2e9; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This has given me a bit of breathing space to organise a family Last Harvest celebration. With the Witchlets off school, I've been able to go through some family pictures and tell stories about people they will only see in photographs. They've watched, pale and wan, from the sofa as I string up decorations, telling me what bits they like best. And they've appropriated two plastic skulls to cuddle up with while watching The Nightmare Before Christmas. I've had time to spend on the sofa with them, having cuddles Witchlet One normally eschews but craves when he's poorly. We've printed off the<a href="http://www.pookapages.com/MagazinePage.htm" target="_blank"> Pooka Pages</a> and read the stories. Downloaded freebie children's Hallowe'en stories on the Kindle.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #d9d2e9; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course, there is unlikely to be time to visit the cemetary before Hallowe'en, but I'm pretty certain I can squeeze in a visit the first week in November. And if this bug buggers off, the Witchlets are off to their Grandmother's on Monday and I'll get a chance to visit the Old Man of the woods - I have mead for him this year, and decent bird seed for his beloved feathered inhabitants. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #d9d2e9; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This year is the first year I've set up a distinct ancestor altar. The death of my Grandfather in September has made this essential. On it I have a photograph of Nana and Grandad on their wedding day, along with the photos of the pets that have passed from my life through the years. A copy of the poem I wrote out in calligraphy for my Great-Aunt's funeral. My Nana's Swiss Cottage music box. My Grandad's ashtray. Tail feathers from my budgie. I don't have any special ritual for them; I'm just hanging out there for a few minutes daily going through memories before I call them home for Last Harvest with incense, wine, millet, cat biscuits, soul cakes and a bloody decent cigar (that last one is for Grandad, he didn't smoke for the last twenty odd years of his life, but when I was little, he and Dad used to have a decent cigar or two on Christmas Day after lunch - I smell cigars, and I'm back to being an excitable eight-year old opening presents and squealing with delight!)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #d9d2e9; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We won't be having a dumb supper at Last Harvest - hell, the Witchlets can't keep quiet for longer than ten seconds - but we will be having a dinner with some of the vegetables from this year's harvest, a bottle of wild cherry mead, apple crumble with our neighbour's apples, and we're going to tell the Witchlets stories of their ancestors. The time their Great-great Uncle Roy put their Nana's tortoise up a tree and convinced her it had climbed up there. How their Great-great-great Nana lived in a thatched cottage that burned down, and that Grandad was one of the fireman that rescued her. How their Gramps planted by the moon, swore at seed potatoes to make them produce more shoots, tipped his hat and wished solitary magpies "Good Day!", and had eyes the very same colour as Witchlet One. Lots of stories, ones that I must write down before they slip away and are forgotten. Hopefully, my ancestors will join us and whisper long forgotten incidents in my ears as I tell the stories.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #d9d2e9; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This year, Witchlet Two will definitely help me make Soul Cakes, some of which we will leave in the hiding places of the garden and local wild places where she knows the Fae live. We will start making bird-seed fat balls with vegetable suet to hang in our pair of Elder trees, and I will pour Elderberry wine on their roots to welcome the return of Mother Elder with her bitter wind and icy shawl.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #d9d2e9; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Divination will be done by candlelight at midnight, offerings will be made to Papa, Hekate, Hermes for clarity and guidance. (Yeah, I know, good luck with getting anything less than awkwardly cryptic out of THEM.)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #d9d2e9; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Protection powder of home-grown ground garlic, cayenne pepper, ashes from our summer fires, graveyard dirt from Papa's grave, my own blood and rose thorns will be sprinkled along our boundaries to keep out the nasties. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #d9d2e9; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Protection amulets of red thread, rowan twigs and berries, sacrificed aloe babies will be hung over doorways.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #d9d2e9; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And once that is done, I really have to knuckle down and sort out this effing shadow work that I keep putting off. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #d9d2e9; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Note: Soul Cake recipes are regional. <a href="http://recipewise.co.uk/soul-cake" target="_blank">Here's</a> one I always make, and <a href="http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/8607/soul-cakes.aspx" target="_blank">another</a> I haven't tried yet. And <a href="http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/recipes/view.cfm?id=1378" target="_blank">this</a> is an interesting bit of background on Soul Cakes I stumbled across - on a Catholic website no less!</span>Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-11187394124964782412013-10-24T13:32:00.000+01:002013-10-24T13:33:19.456+01:00In Which I Get My Arse Kicked For Moaning and Whining<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I try very hard NOT to be that whinging bitch that everyone wants to slap, but I've wanted to sit down, pout and scream "Why me? Why do I have to do this/feel this/endure this/sort this shit out while every other fucker in my life seem to get a break?" pretty well most of the time this year. Of course, my head says that every other fucker isn't getting all the breaks (I can think of a hell of a lot of my craft-sisters who have had much more shit to handle than me this year), but my worn-down heart and soul still wants to pull a temper-tantrum and make it ALL GO AWAY.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, this year so far has seen me get two jobs, one of which I love, one of which I hated and nearly sent me to the nut-house. Both jobs have now ended, one of which I'm really sad about but hopefully it will resume soon, and the other is classed as "thank the fuck for that, minimum wage is not enough for me to spend ten hours twice a week being verbally abused". The Hubster got sick after working seventy hour weeks and eventually had to leave a job he originally loved. (The upside is, he's got a job closer to home, less hours, no phone calls 24/7 - but the pay is poor.) Money is, as ever, elusive. And then my beloved Grandfather died very suddenly.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm still constantly chasing my own arse never actually managing to quite catch up with all the jobs that need doing. I keep failing miserably at keeping all the Hekatean observances. I just about manage to keep PL in coffee, but I've still not started on the shadow work I KNOW has to be done before my head implodes.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And then in my mundane wife/mother/daughter role I am running like a friggin' idiot just to keep up with cooking, washing, cleaning, organising homework, listening to parents' issues, volunteering, and every other little thing that needs doing EVERY DAMN DAY like feeding the cats, cleaning out the litter tray, emptying bins.... oh, you know the sort of thing.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What I want to do is waft around purposefully, priestess-like, calmly and assuredly carrying out my solemn duties, or ecstatically dancing through the woods, disappearing into undergrowth only to reappear with baskets of foraged gifts. Or being a gleaming naked woman lit by candle-light, celebrating the turn of the season by shagging the Hubster senseless.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yeah, and somewhere in all that lot I have to squeeze in a bit more than five hours sleep a night because I'm starting to look haggard.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now I'm pretty impervious to gentle direction from the gods. They do have to slap me around a bit before I pay attention. (Honestly, I'm pretty certain they sometimes regard me as a particularly ungainly, slightly stupid puppy who they get exasperated with but are rather fond of, because she does TRY, bless her...) So I don't expect them to turn up in my dreams, which I very rarely remember anyway. But oh, oh, oh..... this dream hit me with a sucker punch that whacked it straight from short-term memory into the box that says "Never to be forgotten even if you damn well want to".</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In this dream, I was sat on a park bench. Looking at litter and wishing I had a bag so I could pick some of it up. It wasn't a park I knew, but next to the bench was a huge rock, half buried in the ground, which was hollow and open on the side next to me. Someone had dug a flower bed that went under the cave of the rock, and in a semi-circle outside of it. Planted in it, in regimental concentric circles, were bright red salvias and black petunias. Either side of the rock were two lit torches. </span><span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A woman with deep black hair and 'Hollywood Diva' style sunglasses that covered most of Her face pulled the torches out of the ground and came and sat next to me. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Here," She said, "Hold these."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I held a flaming torch in each hand, and the sky went dark. The torches reflected in Her glasses.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"You can't ever be my Priestess," She said, without preamble.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I didn't say anything, but the feeling of not being good enough - YET AGAIN - became overwhelming. It became a struggle not to cry.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"You do know why, don't you?" She asked.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I didn't move.</span><br />
<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Because you need to be needed. It's in your blood, your genes, your soul. You're always like this. You WANT to be Mine, exclusively, but you simply can't. And so you make sure that you are needed. You DO the mundane, the essential but ultimately unnoticed work that you need to do. That others need you to do. You mop up the shit, you take out the bins, you scrub the floors. You bear children, and devote yourself to their well being. You can't have the focus you need to be My Priestess, My Torchbearer."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Part of me wanted to argue, frankly, because at that point I was holding Her bloody torches.</span><br />
<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"You're not cut out for ceremony, for regimented practice and devotions I request of My Devotees. You never have been. You never will be. However hard you try, whatever else you do - in this you will always fail."</span><br />
<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm not proud to admit I wanted to shove those torches into any orifice of Hers I could reach.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At that moment, the torches flared, and I was sat in a garden chair in the middle of my vegetable patch. Somehow, the driveway in front of me led straight into the entrance to 'my' woods, and behind me I could feel 'my' cemetery.</span><br />
<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She was no longer visible, but Her voice vibrated from everywhere. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"You are My hidden one. You learn from the ground beneath your feet. You learn from the spirits I send to you. You make offerings to Me every time you serve this land, these people, these plants, these creatures. Death holds no fear for you, and never has. I marked you many lifetimes ago, yet still you learn this not. Frankly, child, I'm fed up of waiting."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Two disembodied hands in black gloves materialised in front of me, and took the torches, which extinguished with a guttering crackle, leaving me in complete darkness.</span><br />
<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"I can wait no longer. Now you will see."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And I could. Everything looked a bit like the end of The Matrix, when Neo finally sees all the computer code in the illusions around him. But instead of green letters and numbers, it was red circles, spirals, helices, that gradually faded back into the dim shadows of plants.</span><br />
<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course, before I could open my big gob and start with the questions, I woke up to two huge yellow eyes in front of my face and cat-food breath up my nose (how the hell that cat opens the door and gets upstairs every night eludes me.)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So. Stupid puppy dog that I am, I've apparently been putting all my efforts (my apparently bloody useless efforts) into duties that are not mine to do. And all the shit/crap/boring stuff? Is what I'm supposed to do. The not-fun-stuff. The stuff of service to lots of people that generally either don't notice or don't appreciate the stuff I do. And I'm guessing I'd better stop bloody moaning about it, and get on with dinner, the washing up, and hoovering the lounge floor that seems to have more cat fur on it than the cats. And work out what the fuck were all those red spirals, circles and helices about.</span><br />
<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #ead1dc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am Hekate's friggin' housemaid. </span><br />
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Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-83511976088480302992013-10-07T21:31:00.000+01:002013-10-07T21:31:02.617+01:00I Used To Wear Red<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I did, you know. A lot. I had a wardrobe full of red dresses. And purple, green, pink, blue, patterned, spotted, striped, lace encrusted, crushed velvet - well, it was the early nineties. I loved colour. I wore it with flair, with matching shoes, bags, flamboyant jewellery, makeup, a brisk highlighted bob. A beaming smile, and sashaying hips. I did. Look. Proof.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I opened my t-shirt drawer this morning, after putting on my black jeans, grey socks and mismatching underwear to be greeted by a uniform dullness of grey. I now own six t-shirts that are grey. Three black ones. Two navy blue. Three brown and one a dull beige. In shock, I pulled out the three (other) pairs of jeans I've been wearing. One grey, another black pair and a faded dark blue. I looked at the pile of work clothes. Varying shades of black, grey, beige, brown, dark green, navy.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Where the hell did my colour go? What the bloody hell has happened to me?</span><br />
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You see, it's not just the colour of my clothes. I can't remember the last time I wore make-up. I can't recall properly drying and brushing my hair until it shone. When I had a bath to relax, rather than quickly get clean before the flies liked me more than the Witchlets did. It seems I'm rather neglecting myself. Not only that, I think I'm subconsciously trying to disappear. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have some half-formed ideas as to why; I have so much less solitude than I used to - volunteering at two schools now, college one day a week, working at lunchtimes at school as well and just about to take on ANOTHER volunteering role - this is not ME. Or rather, it's not who I used to be. I'm now very much The Neighbourhood Witch, who is known by at least ninety local kids (the joys of being a dinnerlady - I can't go anywhere without hearing my name being called by little soprano voices!) and associated families. They know me at the library, the childrens' centre, the local shops, the post office, the church - I KNOW! ME! THE LOCAL WITCH! ON FIRST NAME TERMS WITH THE LOVELY LOCAL LADY VICAR! - and The Hubster laughs as we walk along the road and I interrupt our conversations to say hello to at least ten people on the two-hundred-yard walk to the Co-Op. Who I Used To Be would have rather curled up and DIED rather than all these people know her, but Who I Am Now is mostly enjoying it. </span><br />
<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And yet... I'm apparently trying to hide, chameleon-like, in full view. Of everyone. In black/brown/grey/one-size-too-big-for-me clothes. Unremarkable. Nonthreatening. You'll see me, enough to raise your hand and say Good Morning - but you won't quite notice much about me. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I do have self-esteem issues. (Doesn't everyone? To some degree?) I have never been 'good-enough' - not for a lot of people, and certainly not for me. If I fuck up, I can't just shrug it off, learn from it, and move on. I obsess about it, worry constantly, pick every minute detail apart until I'm a wet puddle of angst, railing against my failings in the middle of the bathroom floor. I'm constantly questioning my motives, my agenda, my thoughts, my feelings, until I have no idea what's real, what's paranoia, what's me, what's everyone else, and what the hell way is up out of this damn ocean I'm drowning in.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And so I make myself busy. Busy cooking, baking, volunteering, gardening, foraging, growing, cleaning and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. And with two Witchlets, two and a half cats (that's a whole other story I'll get into later), one husband and a house full of STUFF, there is ALWAYS cleaning to do. It's all distraction. Things to do to stop me doing the one thing I should be doing, the one thing Hekate and PL and The Old Man and Mother Elder and my own (small) internal voice of reason are telling me to do: sit my fat arse down in front of a mirror and face myself. Call it what you will - shadow work, internal travelling, plain old reflection work - I've got to damn well do it and I DON'T WANT TO. The last person I'd ever want to invite to a dinner party I'm throwing is me. Me and I just don't get along. I make Me want to shudder. Me gives I the creeps (fuck Me, I don't half whine on and on). But I've got to do it. Because I've given Me one hell of shit year so far, and I'm not carrying this crap any further if I can help it (or I'm going to end up parcelling up sacks of shit for the Witchlets to carry as they get older and notice this is how I treat Me).</span><br />
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Today was shit. I suffered from paranoia, rage, fear, hormonal mood swings (fuck you, menopause). Today I wore my black jeans, scraped back hair, no makeup, no jewellery, flat shoes as normal. But I found a red t-shirt to put with it. Visibility returns. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is gonna hurt, isn't it?</span><br />
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Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-69014561829068501182013-04-03T20:06:00.001+01:002013-04-06T20:41:38.454+01:00In Which I Get A Gift From The DeadYou'll have to excuse this post. I'm writing it from my phone, having recently installed the Blogger app on my phone. As a touch typist, it's utterly annoying, but The Hubster is playing Zynga Poker on the laptop and I'm reduced to using the phone, on the sofa, while snuggling under a blanket and watching the last ever two episodes of Charmed. (Cheesy, but I DON'T CARE, and anyway I missed these episodes years ago!)<br />
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The Hubster took a couple of days off from work so we could venture a little further afield for a trip out. We started off at the park, playing hide and seek with Witchlet One. He always cheats - he can't stick to one spot and always moves, and when you do find him, there's always a reason why it "doesn't count"! The park is next to the cemetery, so I lifted Witchlet Two over the wall and we had a wander. The first thing we noticed was a brand new memorial stone at the back of cemetery. This was near the untended grave that <a href="http://stepawayfromthecauldron.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/in-which-i-finally-make-it-to-cemetery.html" target="_blank">Papa led me to eighteen months ago</a>. It's a memorial for four generations of a family, and it seems rather poignant that someone is honouring their blood ancestors in this way so very close to where I've honoured my ancestors. <br />
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Witchlet Two and I went to check on "my" grave, especially to check on the <a href="http://stepawayfromthecauldron.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/back-to-cemetary.html" target="_blank">snowdrops I planted last year</a>. The leaves had come up, but no flowers this year. Which is perfectly normal for transplanted snowdrops the first year; the important thing is that the bulbs have survived. I bet there will be flowers next year. <br />
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Witchlet Two decided she wanted a flower at this point, so I explained why she couldn't take flowers from the tended graves. She nodded solemnly, and then I spotted a large patch of crocuses under the willow right in the middle of the cemetery. No harm in picking two or three crocuses for Witchlet Two amongst the hundreds of blooms there. So I did, and she was thrilled. <br />
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She then deliberately chose three graves to put a flower on each. Like a complete bloody idiot, I didn't take note of which three graves, I was just so fascinated to watch her choose carefully, tipping her head to one side, tapping her chin with one finger while deciding. She placed each flower down gently, patting the ground as she did before skipping off to the next one. We met up with The Hubster and Witchlet One as we went back up the hill. (It's always struck me as mildly silly to have a cemetery on a hill, all the gravestones eventually keel over and start a slow procession down, but it does make for a spectacular view!). Witchlet One doesn't like the cemetery much. He's very aware of his own mortality, which is odd for a seven year old, and it scares him a little. Plus they play "Zombies" in the school playground (shockingly, some of the kids in Witchlet One's year seem to be watching The Walking Dead - which scares the living shit out of me.). Time to leave, then. <br />
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We headed out to the local RSPB sanctuary for a walk after that. The Witchlets were charged with the job of looking out for signs of spring - they duely found fresh leaf shoots on the hawthorn - and then to look for "treasures" - stones, feathers, anything that sparked their interest. This of course soon resulted in me weighed down with two pockets full of stones and carrying a handful of sticks!<br />
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As we walked by a small stream, I spotted the remains of a swan on the other side. I really wanted to cross the stream and pay my respects, but I didn't want to bring it to the attention of Witchlet One - he would have been inconsolable. (A common belief about autism is that autistic kids have no empathy. Witchlet One has empathy in spades, and can be devastated when people are hurt, or upset, but dead animals are the worst for him.). I wanted a feather or two from the swan, and as I turned to walk on, there on the path in front of me was a large white feather. Thanks, swan, gifts like that are so meaningful. Not sure what I'm going to do with it as yet - but there's some potent magic there, I'm sure of it. <br />
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Oh, and it's taken me four days to write this damn post on my bloody phone! <br />
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Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-31734788500125451742013-04-03T17:28:00.002+01:002013-04-03T17:28:57.477+01:00In Which I Remind Myself To Ask....<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In which I scream "UPG Alert! This is purely my PERSONAL EXPERIENCE and OPINION!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">UPG. Three letters almost guaranteed to strike fear and loathing in hearts far and wide and make many of us click off before we've read any more. So feel free to click away, what follows is pure UPG and I have absolutely no references to back any of it up. For those of you still here, I'm not about to apologise for any of this.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The gods are limited. Their hands are tied. They cannot interfere unless you invite them to. No-one is messing with my shit unless I let them. Nope, not even Papa Legba. Yes, he does mess with my shit but that's because I've already welcomed him into my home, my life, my thoughts, my dreams, my practices. He pulls pranks, he makes me aware when I've not been upholding my end of our bargains, and we have a very good balance, him and me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I know he has my corner. As does Hekate, of course. I spend a lot of time on my duties and responsibilities to them. Sometimes I'm a little remiss, but both seem to give me more slack than I've seen them give other practitioners who have a working relationship with them. Maybe it's because I might miss something only when I'm up to my eyeballs with work/Witchlets/house stuff. It's not because I've decided to watch Grey's Anatomy instead. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The opposite side to this is they will not do a damn thing for me unless I ask them. If I'm just providing wine/coffee/water/sweets/cakes/eggs etc etc, they will happily take that. And more. (I'm pretty certain they never say "Oh no, thanks but I've had enough wine/coffee/water/sweets/cakes/eggs etc, I'm watching my waistline.") But I have to ask before they will act on my behalf. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I sometimes forget this. Because I'm human, and therefore utterly thick at times. </span><br />
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Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-70783886094777281642013-02-22T13:42:00.001+00:002013-02-22T13:46:48.831+00:00Book Review: Herbs of the Northern Shaman by Steve Andrews<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Herbs of the Northern Shaman - A Guide to Mind-Altering Plants from the Northern Hemisphere</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">by Steve Andrews, with photographs by Katrinia Rindsberg</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Second Edition</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">ISBN 978-1-84694-369-0</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I was supposed to be reading Witchcraft Medicine when this little gem arrived in the post. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Originally published in 2000 by Loopanics Unlimited, this book was out of print for quite some time before O-Books re-published it with some re-writes by the author and completely new illustrations. It's now looked after by the sister imprint of O-books, Moon Books (both are subsidiaries of John Hunt publishing).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I say illustrations, but those of you who have read more than the odd book on herbs and plants - especially books aimed at the more esoteric uses of them - will be familiar with the old woodcuts and line-drawings that are used to illustrate them. Unless you know what you are looking for, it's almost impossible to recognise any plants in the wild from those woodcuts! Not so with this book. Every single entry is accompanied by the most spectacularly beautiful - and easily recognisable - photograph taken by Katrinia Rindsberg. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Frankly, the rest of the book could be utter drivel and I would buy it for the photographs alone, but it isn't! Bonus! Steve Andrews writes with authority, revising some of his earlier entries, including medicinal uses, mythology, as well as physical effects. There is a bibliography, botanical and medical terms glossary as well as a useful index. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've already read this straight through twice, and it will probably live in my foraging bag when I've not got my nose buried in it. Utterly brilliant.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Buy it from Amazon UK <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Herbs-Northern-Shaman-Steve-Andrews/dp/1846943698/ref=la_B003VNES8S_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361539583&sr=1-1" target="_blank">here</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Buy it from Amazon US <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Herbs-Northern-Shaman-Steve-Andrews/dp/1846943698/ref=la_B003VNES8S_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361539583&sr=1-1" target="_blank">here</a></span><br />
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<br />Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-12050243845837835442013-01-21T18:03:00.001+00:002013-01-21T18:03:25.231+00:00In Which I Get A Snow DaySo this was the sight I woke up to this morning. My heart sank. On Friday, I left out the bowl of last year's snow and a shot of whiskey out on the doorstep for The Old Woman, who had passed over us leaving an inch of snow in her wake. I was hoping to show her some appreciation, in return for her NOT dumping more snow. <br />
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So, whilst the rest of the country seemed to be suffering under the white stuff, we only got a couple more flakes at the weekend. And by Sunday night it appeared to be evaporating in the wind, rather than accumulating. <br />
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So I was more than a little stressed to see the five inches that fell last night. Any other day? No problem. But now I have A JOB. Actually I have two, but it's the weekend one I'm talking about. Yes, I'm well aware that today is Monday, but they wanted me in for two days in the week to train me. Today and tomorrow. So I have myself all psyched up to get The Witchlets into school, booked a taxi to take me from school to work (way faster than the bus) and booked another one to take me from work back to school to collect said Witchlets at home time. Simple. <br />
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And then The Snow. The bloody sodding effing snow. That was it; deep breaths required. Ok, Witchlets fed and into uniforms (act like the snow isn't there). Make packed lunches for us all (act like the snow isn't there). Check local council website. No schools closed. Oh wait, one school closed. No, make that three or four. See on Facebook that bus services are suspended. Then see half a dozen status updates about people trying to get taxis - "I've just been told they can't get to me for two hours!" - and start hyperventilating (long past acting like the snow isn't there). Check council website again. School opening as usual. Ring work, and tell them I may be delayed in getting there as transport may be an issue. Get Witchlets into gloves/hats/scarves/wellies. See Facebook updates that the school is closed. Check council website again - no, according to that it's open. Ring school. Phone engaged. By this time I'm starting to hit a major panic attack and am cursing the lack of Valium in the house. It's now five minutes past the time we should have left the house. Ring school again. Phone rings. <br />
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"Are you open today?" <br />
"No, we're closed."<br />
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ARRRRGGGGHHHH (internal scream)<br />
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I've got no-one to have the Witchlets at this short notice, so I have to ring work and tell them I can't make it in. To give them credit, they are fine about it. I tried for an hour to cancel the taxi - if the phone wasn't engaged, it wasn't being picked up. After an hour of hitting redial, the battery on the phone died, and my heart was trying to batter its way out through my ribcage. <br />
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If you've ever had panic attacks, you know how they leave you feeling. I had all the cortisol and adrenaline still running through my system, so I had a cup of tea to try and calm down. And chased it down with two more in quick succession. <br />
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We did eventually have some fun in the snow, and Witchlet Two and I baked cookies and made Snowman Soup (hot chocolate with marshmallows in). Witchlet Two sneakily filled her coat pockets with snow and I didn't notice until it all melted and the coat started dripping, and they did have a major fight over a stick: "It's MY stick, give it back!" "No, MY stick, go 'way!" (And breaking it in half to give them a piece each did NOT go down well). But all in all, they were mostly just happy, excitable and covered in snow. <br />
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So now I have to face my first day at work all over again tomorrow! (And I'm fucking terrified.) <br/><br/><div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLpVHw53xBp8tIfZmmuJFrkSa6e5xQAKJJO594FceCfeMD3NR77bY-FlNhbfT3dYjdqTkkbA38j23gyhOeRSGxCNIOwRPLrW8Ek7I47PelanL1mu6R5s0FkSE1P9nFjVqsJuqqZ1isiNk/s640/blogger-image-1995541265.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLpVHw53xBp8tIfZmmuJFrkSa6e5xQAKJJO594FceCfeMD3NR77bY-FlNhbfT3dYjdqTkkbA38j23gyhOeRSGxCNIOwRPLrW8Ek7I47PelanL1mu6R5s0FkSE1P9nFjVqsJuqqZ1isiNk/s640/blogger-image-1995541265.jpg" /></a></div>Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-13637223911453499912013-01-09T20:12:00.000+00:002013-01-09T20:12:00.827+00:00New Year Witchy Workings<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Goodbye 2012 (and good bloody riddance, frankly, you were a pain in the arse) and hello 2013 (so full of promise and potential, and you don't have to do that much to put your predecessor in the shade).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">New Year's Eve saw me setting up two Witchy Workings. Yes, I do bugger all Witchy Work for ages then two things come along at once. It's a bit like British buses. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The first Working was to get rid of all of the things I wanted to leave in the old year. Goodbye, good riddance, and don't show your face around here any more. Black candles, burning paper, simple magic but hey, I'm a simple sort of girl. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My black candle sputtered out just as I heard the neighbours begin the countdown to the New Year. For once, my timing seemed to pretty good!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The remains have been packaged up and have been taken to the crossroads and buried just after sunset (or rather, when the miserable grey day turned into a miserable grey night.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The second Witchy Working was another bit of candle magic, requesting abundance in health, prosperity and happiness for the New Year, and it was lit as my clock chimed in the New Year, to the backround noise of local fireworks and cheers. Again, simple, but sometimes the simple things work the best. I'm not blazing a (pagan) trail here; I'm just doing what I can, when I can.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of my most treasured posessions is a Janus candlestick, given to me by my Mother-in-Law. It's old, battered, but the two faces on the opposite sides of the candlestick are still in good condition and I've been intending to light it on New Year's Eve for the last three years (and never have managed to organise it.) This year I did, and I hope I will continue to do it each year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Very little of my planned Yule/Christmas/Twelfth Night rituals happened this year. After the Poxy Christmas, I was hoping that Twelfth Night Wassailing of my apple tree would at least be the one thing I could organise - but then the outside drain blocked and overflowed, and there was no way I could get it cleaned up in time for the Witchlets, The Hubster and I to parade to the tree with hot cider and toast, bells, whistles and drums. Fortunately it's just the drain from the kitchen and washing machine, but it's still icky enough for me not to want them treading in it. I'm not going to beat myself up over it. Sometimes, you just have to let go of these things and realise that life is going to throw you off track. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This morning (January 9th) I woke, checked my messages as always, and was shocked to discover that one of my dearest friends lost her husband in a motorbike accident the previous day. Life is so short, so fragile, and our relationships and security can be turned upside down in a second. Tonight I will be petitioning Hekate to light his way from this life to where he may rest, and for Her to shine her twin flames in the darkness for my friend and her young son. Wherever you are, take time to tell those you love that you care for them. </span>Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-7942776998050137892013-01-04T20:28:00.001+00:002013-01-04T20:45:57.709+00:00In Which I Re-Hash 2012<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’ve tried VERY HARD to embrace the whole Samhain as New Year thing. But it never feels like a new start for me, whatever I do. January 1st however, always does. It draws a line under the whole mania that is New-School-Year/deal-with-stressed-Witchlet-One/harvest/Samhain/Hallowe’en/frantically-make-presents/school-party-concert-Christingle/Yule/Christmas/where-the-fuck-do-I-put-all-this-stuff they’ve-been-given/the-house-is-a-bloody-mess which starts in September and steamrollers over the top of me until the end of December. It’s at this point I feel the urge to purge crap out of my body/life/brain/cupboards, and take a few well-deserved minutes to take stock and try - TRY - to plan the next twelve months.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So with this in mind, I’m going to do a short re-cap of 2012, and then leave it behind. It’s gone, I can’t change it, I’m going to do my level best not to dwell on it, and do my Scarlett O’Hara impression:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2012 started off ok. The Hubster was finally out of temporary employment and in a job he was damn good at, and off minimum wage. Throughout the year he’s continued to excel at it, but his employers are pretty bloody good at exploiting him, so his hours and workload have increased gradually this year (for no extra salary, I might add) and he’s on-call on the (fucking annoying) mobile phone pretty much round the clock, seven days a week. The Nokia ring tone has got to be the most heinous bloody sound inflicted on mankind. He can be at work for twelve hours from 4.30am, finally getting in the door at half five, only for that bloody phone to keep ringing until 11pm. He’s shattered. I’m shattered. Every now and then we talk about having sex, but one of us falls asleep (or has to answer the bloody phone) before we can get around to it. We remember it fondly though. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The gardening started out well this year. Seeds were planted, plans were made, I kept on top of all the jobs and I was VERY PLEASED WITH MYSELF. All went swimmingly well, until the surfeit of rain meant all went, well, swimming. I got a decent onion harvest, some good garlic, a few beans, lots of tomatoes, some fantastic radish, wonderful raspberries and some decent strawberries, but the sunflowers, courgettes, pumpkins, cucumbers, squashes, sweet corn, salad leaves and spring onions were either drowned, eaten by slugs or never did anything. The leeks are still out there, and I have high hopes for them. Herbwise, I finally got my lavender hedge planted, the mints were spectacular as was the sweet cicely, the sages were hit by powdery mildew, two of my thymes ran out of time and keeled over, the fennel spread everywhere, I rescued a St John’s Wort from the council workmen who were weeding in the park, I pinched a tiny piece of pennyroyal from Pontefract Castle which rooted, the garlic chives were so amazing when they flowered, and my self-heal is spreading happily which suits me JUST FINE. I never did get a chance to put the garden to bed for the winter though; the constant rain has made it impossible to get out there and doing anything other than create a quagmire. I’m expecting the dahlias, my last begonia and the only surviving pelargonium to succumb by spring.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I made lots of jams and preserves this year, from foraged fruit, pick-your-own strawberries, what I’d grown in the garden and from extra crops I was given by neighbours. Some hooch was made; cherry brandy, plum brandy, spiced plum rum, peach vodka. I’ve even had a go at making some absinthe. And still cider, elderflower wine and apple wine. All this (apart from the absinthe) has been jarred/bottled and decorated to put in hampers for the in-laws/outlaws for Christmas. I’ve obviously upset my sister-in-law who stated in an e-mail that “There’s no extra points for making things from scratch; we all like shop-bought things.” I smile at this sweetly and remember her comment about my home-made giant cupcake (for Witchlet One’s birthday): “How hard is it to make a cake?” Not hard, my love, although it seems to be beyond you judging by the sunken thing you made for your daughter’s birthday. Good effort trying to cover the three inch dip in the middle with Smarties, though. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the middle of the year my parents came to stay. They offered us a way out of renting. Then they took the offer back. The way they did it enraged me so much I finally - after 42 years - blew my stack. It turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened. I worked my arse off with Hekate to cut the unhealthy connections I had with my mother. After six years of crippling depression and anxiety, a huge weight was lifted. I found a huge chunk of myself all over again. This was good.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Finances have continued to suffer this year. Bills have gone up. Rent, electric, gas, bloody-effing-sodding petrol, and the fact the car has cost us nearly £1200 just in repairs this year (add on to that tyres, MOT, service and bloody road tax and I’m starting to consider feeding it £20 notes). So, having done the sums, I need to get a job. Now there’s no way I could get back into my old career, and I have no transport apart from the glorious bus (please read that phrase with as much sarcasm as you can muster) and childcare is a problem, so it has to be within school/breakfast club/afternoon club hours or weekends. There is stuff out there, but I’ve been out of the job market for six years and I’m not holding out a huge amount of hope. I’m also going to try to sell some of the stuff I make, mostly locally, although I know that won’t bring in anywhere near as much as we need. And by stuff I make, that will be little creative projects, not anything that will be in competition with the other witches out there, 'kay?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And as for my Witch-Work - I refuse to be cowed by cultural appropriation. I’m far more fucking scared of upsetting Papa Legba, Hekate, Maman Brigitte and the local spirits than I am of the bloody Tumblr crowd. Although I’ve given up Tumblr as a bad job because they do scare me a bit. More hate and vitriol on there than at a bloody Westborough Baptist protest. I do my devotions, I (grumblingly) do as they ask/command and I’m not stopping now. So fuck you, Tumblr! (she says, cowering in the corner.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We ended 2012 with two lots of chickenpox (the Witchlets), the norovirus (the Hubster), some worrying news from one of the in-laws which meant we had to keep the virus-ridden family away from the normal Christmas celebrations, and more hospital appointments for several other family members (fortunately not for me, the Witchlets or The Hubster.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Oh, and the laptop collapsed, the washing machine broke AGAIN, the roof is leaking slightly and the gutters are staying up there by sheer force of will alone. I’ve had zero chance in six months to pay my respects to my lovely woods, although I did get to the cemetery just after Samhain briefly. I was a red-head for a while this year, which I absolutely loved. And as soon as I can afford to dye it that colour again, I will do. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, that was 2012. Good riddance, but as Nana always said, “If this year’s no worse, then at least we know we can survive it.” Thanks for that Nana, optimistic advice as ever.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’ll detail my end of year witchy shenanigans (WITH PHOTOS!) in my next post!</span>Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-11638756073494668072012-10-24T13:43:00.000+01:002012-10-24T13:43:22.083+01:00In which Samhain creeps up on me again...<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It’s crept up on us again. The nights draw in, the air chills, the leaves change colour and fall. The Witchlets are at school, and Witchlet Two is now full-time. Harvest has been erratic; whilst I did well with tomatoes, onions, green beans, garlic and chilli peppers, my blackberry foraging ended up being just one afternoon, my elderberry foraging was non-existant and conkers were snaffled by everybody else. Still, I found a crab-apple tree, untouched by the foragers, and plenty of rosehips. The wet weather is hampering my fennel seed harvest, but I’ve got the last of my mints in and hanging up to dry. My next-door-neighbour had the best year ever for apples on his little apple tree (it pays to live next to a witch, folks!) and he’s graciously given me six huge bags full of the precious round fruit (which are killing my hands - all that peeling, coring and chopping has left blisters, aches and pains, but we know the value of sacrifice so I’m not complaining that much) to be turned into cider, wine, sauces, pie fillings, cakes, and chutneys.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Inside the house I’ve sorted out all the herbs and witchery-woo-woo bits into labelled jars (alphabetically sorted, of course) and got down to some work with Hekate. I hesitate to call it shadow-work, or underworld work, it’s more of an internal, perception altering kind of work, and I‘m sure someone has trademarked the term (or it‘s being culturally appropriative… groan). I’ve had to cut some ties, emotionally, mentally and physically this year with the one person I was once literally, viscerally connected to. But after 40-odd years of this becoming more and more corrupted and literally poisoning me, the relationship came to a head with one, final, awful, very-nearly-destroying-me-in-the-process confrontation at the beginning of the summer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It changed nothing on her side. It changed everything on mine. I knew the only way to survive was to go deep, acknowledge the good stuff, exorcise the bad and cut the cord. And it scared the crap out of me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">So, the Witchlets were despatched to The Hubster’s lovely Mum for a few days. The Hubster was warned that this could get ugly. And I got down to work with Hekate, letting Her - no, INSISTING that she take me below, and back in time to face every little thing (and big thing) that needed to be dealt with. No more bottling up. No more being the victim. I was afraid I would lose my mind in the process and make everything worse, but I simply couldn’t continue with the way I was going.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Offerings were made. I fasted, made lists, re-visited things that had been said and done, bathed, drank, sweated, bathed some more. It didn’t hurt. I cried a lot, but not through pain, but through the weight of it being lifted. The Hubster and I laughed, drank, had sex, talked. I slept a lot. And after 48 hours, I woke up feeling refreshed. Which doesn’t sound like much, but I haven’t felt like that for years. I wake up and either immediately want to go back to sleep, or I can’t go back to sleep and have to drag myself out of bed. But this time, I woke up, and bounced - BOUNCED - out of bed. After six long, hard, painful, stressful, shitty years, this depression lifted so bloody quickly it made me light-headed. I expected hell, and I got release. And through all this I got “You only ever had to ask me. I’m here, I’m always here, but I won’t do it, I will not help until you ask me.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">So the times, they are a-changing. I'm not at someone's beck and call anymore (well, apart from two demanding Witchlets). I’ve got much more on my plate, I’m going to be doing some volunteering (hello, society, I’m-a comin’ to reintegrate myself into y’all!) and I’m working like stink to get stuff done for Samhain/Hallowe’en. Which for us, begins Friday night when the Witchlets come home from school for a week off and find the house decorated.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Friday night I will be re-building the ancestors’ altar, from the little shrine to the big shelf. Names will be recited. Incense will be burnt, and Hekate will be invoked to bring the ancestors home. Gotta thank the marvellous Carolina from <a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/mooncamelbazaar" target="_blank">Moon Camel Bazaar</a> for the ancestors’ kit - the very last one she had and I was lucky enough to get it - and a lovely couple of gifts too!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> Welcome drinks and nibbles will be provided, then on Samhain itself we will have our big meal (not a dumb supper, unfortunately, because The Witchlets can’t stop talking for more than thirty seconds if their lives depended on it!) and to round off our week we are having our Annual Hallowe’en Bash where we’ll all be dressing up, inviting lots of the Witchlets’ friends over, and eating, drinking and playing silly games. And I’ll be giving my hands even more abuse by carving pumpkins.</span></span>Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-38955464623234827052012-03-07T14:00:00.000+00:002012-03-07T14:00:33.182+00:00Mother/Wife/Witch<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Whoever invented the phrase "work/life" balance needs to be shot. No, forget that, they need to be hung, drawn, quartered and their remains dragged in front of me so I can fucking stamp on them whilst screeching like a banshee. I have no work/life balance. My life IS my work. I am Mother, I am Wife, I am Daughter, I am Sibling-in-Law, I am Queen of the Household, Empress of the Garden and fucking OVERLORD of the Housework. Somewhere along the way I lost me. I can't remember who I am. Sometimes I get a chance to be me, to be Witch, to be Odd Person, to dance in the kitchen singing to old songs and pretending that there is someone there, looking at me, seeing a REAL PERSON. Not a title. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">My reality is cleaning, cooking, washing, scrubbing. It's the school runs, the homework, the Parents' Evenings, the small-talk in the playground. It's the smiles I plaster to my face when I Skype my parents and hear how they are struggling with their lives. It's the shirts I wash, the beds I make, the meals I cook, the socks I pair. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">My world has been reduced to a tiny fraction of what it was. Half a mile up the road to the school and back. A couple of miles to the Cemetary or the woods maybe once every six weeks. A trip food shopping on Saturday morning. Visits to the in-laws. And now my mental health has deteriorated to the point that I can't PHYSICALLY cope with going any further than that (hell, there are days even just the thought of having to go to another "do" with the in-laws has me breathing into a paper bag and taking valium). It's a descent into something soft, squashy, and suffocating. Even if I do try to do something for me, the anxiety fuelled by guilt makes it taste sour, tainted.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">I'm not looking to escape. I love The Hubster, and I love the Witchlets more than anything I've ever known. But there are days I fantasise about NOT EXISTING. I can't want to not LIVE, because that would mean dying - and that would cause such pain and difficulty for my darling little family. But if I never had existed, then neither would they. The Hubster would never have known me. I couldn't hurt them if I NEVER EXISTED.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">So I'll keep putting on the smile, keep scrubbing away. Mother first, Wife next, Witch last. Maybe one day, I'll turn and look at myself in the mirror, and find I'm not there any more. </span>Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-85166024117210430412012-02-25T22:01:00.000+00:002012-02-25T22:01:49.360+00:00Back to the Cemetary<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Back at Imbolc/First Spring (yes, three weeks ago, more or less), when I was baking my Bride’s meditation Snake Bread (oh, all right, the Phallic Turd Loaves), I was given the nudge that taking one down to the cemetery and leaving it as an offering for Maman Brigitte would be a GOOD IDEA. So I wrapped the second one in tinfoil, shoved it in the fridge, and planned my trip (had to be a school day, or a day I could leave the Witchlets in the capable hands of The Hubster). I’d take along silver coins to pay my way in, take the snowdrops I’d brought in for Bride’s altar to plant by The Old Man’s Grave, share a cigar with him, offer him some Blackcurrant Hooch and then tentatively introduce myself to Maman Brigitte.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Old Hag’s blanket of snow and then half term put paid to any prompt visits, so MB’s bread went in the freezer. Once the Witchlets were back at school, I had time to visit. Now the cemetery is only a couple of miles away, so I always walk there. I guess I could go on the bus - if I could get on a bus without having a panic attack and puking on anyone sitting next to me - but part of the whole ritual of cemetery visits is the walk there, rucksack on, one step at a time, deep in thought. Only this time I was probably slightly too deep in thought - I nearly stepped out in front of a bus, and tripped over the uneven pavement twice (honestly, you would think putting one foot in front of the other would be something I’d have mastered over the last forty-two years) so I gave myself a bit of a shake, stopped thinking deeply and carried on. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The walk is pretty much all past residential houses, and most of them were originally temporary structures put up in the sixties to cope with housing needed for the mining community - pre-fab houses. They’ve since become permanent homes; bought and sold and mortgaged. They are cheap, and not so cheerful. But there are many now with beautiful gardens, lovingly tended, the pre-fab structures painted, conservatories put up, double glazing put in, walls, hedges and fences painted, clipped and maintained. Some others have just been left with the gardens full of rubble, old toys, dog shit and rubbish. Others were once nice, but now have overgrown pathways, shrubs clambered over by brambles and bindweed, peeling paint on the walls and cigarette stained net curtains. It makes me wonder what people think of our house, with the gravel drive, dodgy rendering and (currently) dirty front door and windows. I made a mental note to get outside and clean the front door, sweep the step and clean the lounge window. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFua64Sr0qcG8a2VJPGz3dqg2h8n0YGLUP0nPyNG9pfdfO1sGXN9Nmpm-MT1vB0KSo1fOnnZSuyirTt5ZBq87kEn57a_4KvQM-vnDAtfsdOvB1GG7p58EFwyB5wmapBst4ov4Jgf-SxZ8/s1600/21022012768.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFua64Sr0qcG8a2VJPGz3dqg2h8n0YGLUP0nPyNG9pfdfO1sGXN9Nmpm-MT1vB0KSo1fOnnZSuyirTt5ZBq87kEn57a_4KvQM-vnDAtfsdOvB1GG7p58EFwyB5wmapBst4ov4Jgf-SxZ8/s320/21022012768.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the top of the hill past the houses I turned on to the playing fields, walking the path that runs alongside them until I got to the Victorian Park. I love this place. The planting is so different to what would be done now. Monkey puzzle trees grow near twisted hazel trees thirty foot high. Rose gardens and perennial borders, bowling greens and rockeries. Huge horse-chestnuts, Japanese Acers, juniper, beech, silver birch and ash. A young oak tree, planted by the Royal British Legion to remember those killed in action. A rowan tree, planted by grieving parents for a baby boy “born asleep”. It reminds me of my own seedling trees, a rowan, a walnut and a holly, all grown from berry and seed, planted in memory of my lost Witchlets (all planted by their big brother with a very green thumb!)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I got to the back of the park and clambered over the back wall. My heels were hurting, but not so much that it bothers me; the new boots had been comfortable all last week. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYy2mNRrKhCMYGnuH16Rmv6uAUnv4riGzic4BSP7lS0Lez8QbKHjRjyCCq7m4hvNlfSAA3qtYD9fxxZKAXfZFYxobyMkcMmGRzvCwFbel8HHegRXeFgx5Vd59Wo4TICUZjdlbY0UDGGfM/s1600/21022012772.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYy2mNRrKhCMYGnuH16Rmv6uAUnv4riGzic4BSP7lS0Lez8QbKHjRjyCCq7m4hvNlfSAA3qtYD9fxxZKAXfZFYxobyMkcMmGRzvCwFbel8HHegRXeFgx5Vd59Wo4TICUZjdlbY0UDGGfM/s320/21022012772.jpg" width="179" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I leave a silver coin on the wall. This time I go straight to the grave the Old Man pointed out to me last time. I brush some fallen oak leaves from the granite, and perch beside the grave. I’ve brought the blackcurrant hooch again (it looks like blood when I pour it on the granite; dark and slightly thick), and I light a cigar. The Old Man is so much more formal here; none of the joking and poking fun. He still laughs; but he shows his serious side here. We talk. I ask questions. I get some answers, and some admonitions to work harder. Doubt never creeps in here. Here I feel at peace, I feel whole, refreshed, assured of what I’m doing and how I’m doing it. I re-light his cigar; I light one of my own. As I breathe in the smoke, I remember the laughter of my Dad and Grandad, related only by marriage, but bonded by being the son/father each never had, having cigars and whisky at Christmas. A sense of well-being and protection surrounds me. I’m a small child again; the only child in a room full of adults who love me. I have no fear, no worries, just the sense of being in the moment when everyone is happy, everyone is loving, everyone loves ME. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Remember this.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’m a little shocked to hear the words so clearly, but he’s right. Sometimes I forget how good my early childhood was. I mustn’t. They gave me that security; it was only circumstance that took it away. It wasn’t their fault. Illness took it away. My mother’s, then my Nana’s. And without learning to fend for myself, I wouldn’t have survived much that came my way later.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi91U4k4QEnHllu44m3YTyD44zFuwiAbYI2Y2gs8XE4ho8r7LZdYU1WJ4qbuXXXWjp5PJkJakVql-RtyLSoUfdf8GJ3D70uP3ZCrByDtNKH_0omD6WXph4RK05fRTSvV3YigeOKml9vKio/s1600/21022012774.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi91U4k4QEnHllu44m3YTyD44zFuwiAbYI2Y2gs8XE4ho8r7LZdYU1WJ4qbuXXXWjp5PJkJakVql-RtyLSoUfdf8GJ3D70uP3ZCrByDtNKH_0omD6WXph4RK05fRTSvV3YigeOKml9vKio/s320/21022012774.jpg" width="179" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I finish the cigar, dousing both mine and his in blackcurrant hooch. I watch the deep coloured liquid soak into the granite. I’ve brought the snowdrops from Bride’s altar - snowdrops originally transplanted from my Dad’s garden, and before that, from my Grandad’s. I prepare a space next to the headstone, and plant them. The ivy wreath that surrounded the pot is placed on the grave. A movement catches my eye. A solitary ladybird walks past the snowdrops. The Old Man approves. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj00MpiU17vSpUU1vdymGieOcYDosHPuCjTJWRuFrDGTBT5IE-qoObOttTPDXcY2QAkJ3ghEZvsDZehssUw7CtJeaJldJnqFP1k1gp4JsjOY9Mqmyc6YCDk_km821xJVB91JKjGZfYrGA/s1600/21022012777.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj00MpiU17vSpUU1vdymGieOcYDosHPuCjTJWRuFrDGTBT5IE-qoObOttTPDXcY2QAkJ3ghEZvsDZehssUw7CtJeaJldJnqFP1k1gp4JsjOY9Mqmyc6YCDk_km821xJVB91JKjGZfYrGA/s320/21022012777.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I ask him for an introduction to Maman B. I’m nervous; I’ve not approached her before. I lay the second meditation snake bread next to the tree. The wind blows, and the trees whisper. I introduce myself. I listen. Can you hear a nod? I don’t know, but something has happened. The Old Man seems happy. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcq4eAdVO7WTHMRiYEVfggE7x9iqBTeK40s0-_kIOF3bmy9mEA-k5NPNX_bnF-CgAM4ejlg9dyufobM9Ssg_bhfG6VHxENfOG2hKHk8OQNRNLn_s8_3AUQwlg97njDRHtJQ7p5Qr0zbuQ/s1600/21022012776.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcq4eAdVO7WTHMRiYEVfggE7x9iqBTeK40s0-_kIOF3bmy9mEA-k5NPNX_bnF-CgAM4ejlg9dyufobM9Ssg_bhfG6VHxENfOG2hKHk8OQNRNLn_s8_3AUQwlg97njDRHtJQ7p5Qr0zbuQ/s320/21022012776.jpg" width="179" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Leave birdseed.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I do. I decide to take a wander around the cemetery before leaving. There is a new headstone on an old grave, put up by the grand-children and the great-grandchildren. It’s new and tended; I will not photograph it. Cemetery etiquette - I do not photograph or tend any grave that looks like it has visitors. Only those hidden, old, forgotten, unadorned are permitted. You tread carefully around grief. I get to the bottom of the hill, and I realise my heels are hurting, hurting very badly indeed. I take off my boots. Blisters on my heels. I’m at the furthest point of my wandering, dammit. I put the boots back on, and start the trip home.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I leave another silver coin on the wall.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I stopped by the juniper tree; one can never have enough juniper berries, in my opinion. Wonder if I plant any, whether they will grow. Might ask Witchlet One to plant them; he’s never failed!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By the time I got home, the torn skin of my heels was bloody and stuck to my socks. Blisters the size of fifty pence pieces, deep, bloody and painful. So be it; I wrap them in sterile dressings before heading up to the school to claim my Witchlets. I put on my old trainers and leave the boots on the shoe rack. I’ll rescue my old boots from the bin, and apologise to them. Profusely.</span></span>Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-13216144826290260132012-02-23T10:20:00.000+00:002012-02-23T10:20:39.275+00:00Traditional Witchcraft for the Seashore - Melusine Draco<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><a href="http://www.moon-books.net/books/traditional-witchcraft-for-the-seashore" target="_blank">Traditional Witchcraft for the Seashore - Melusine Draco</a></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>Disclaimer: I was sent this book by the publisher for review. This in no way influences my opinions; but it does increase the strain on my already heaving bookshelves.</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was born within spitting distance of Poole Harbour, and spent the first thirty years of my life living a stone’s throw from the Solent. I grew up loving the sea and the shore, and now I’m in the heart of Yorkshire, I miss it. So I was really keen to read this particular book, prepared for some seriously nostalgic moments and hoping for a few new ideas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">All in all, I wasn’t disappointed. The nostalgia was evoked by page two, with a quote from the BBC shipping forecast, the names of which I can still quote from heart after hearing them on Radio Four several times a day in my childhood! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is a lot of concrete information crammed into this small volume. None of it is exhaustive, and much should serve as an appetiser to those who are looking to work traditional-style magic at the sea shore. From geological explanations for the creation of rock formations, through descriptions of cloud types and the Beaufort Scale, to fishing-folk superstition and folk-lore, the author has provided a firm basis for a budding sea-witch to base research and further work on. She provides practical exercises to synchronise your magic with the ebb and flow of tides, and with specific parts of the sea shore, from rock pools to sea caves. She has taken time to research and include some traditional charms (and, unlike many authors I have read recently, quotes her sources.) Her prose is lyrical without becoming insipid, and is pleasing to read. Even the chapters are named after sea-inspired classical music pieces - another titbit of information for you to build on (go listen to the music while you read the book!) She also includes an bibliography at the back of the book as further reading and sources.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The author is at pains to point out the danger of the sea in a physical manner, and continually reminds the reader to maintain awareness of incoming tides, inclement weather, and personal safety when working alone on the beach - this is not the place to lose sight of your surroundings and float off to a higher plane; you might find yourself in deep water. Literally.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is one inaccuracy I spotted: on page 115 she quotes the lunar cycle as 27.3 days (it is in fact, a little over 29.5 days), but this does not detract from the great volume of other information she has provided. One thing that does NOT sit well in this otherwise enjoyable and useful volume is on page 9, where the author advocates throwing “an unobtrusive plastic container… containing your charm into the tide and let the natural currents carry it where they will.” This is littering, pure and simple, and humankind has poured enough rubbish into the oceans - I would urge any budding sea-witch to refrain from using this suggestion. Aside from this, I really enjoyed this book, and it did inspire a trip to the North Yorkshire coast for this witch!</span><br />
</span>Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-27351496923341428102012-02-17T16:44:00.000+00:002012-02-17T16:44:25.613+00:00A bit of personal history...<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I spent years trying to get a personal connection to the Gods. Years. Way back when I was in my early teens, I flirted briefly with British evangelical Christianity. That ended abruptly; the “pastor” decided he liked looking at magazines imported from Europe catering for those with a taste in younger women. I was outta there like a shot - although my boyfriend of the time stayed for a while. Proves that the Catholic Church doesn’t have a monopoly on priests with paedophile tendencies. When I was 18, I discovered Wicca. And Silver wotserface. This appealed to me; no more listening to what others told me I should believe in, time to do it FOR MYSELF. I still have all the original journals and writings I did back then. (They are embarrassingly naïve, on occasions I have forced myself to read some of it, but the cringing gets painful after a while.) I don’t know why I keep them, perhaps just to prove to myself how far I’ve come (and maybe I don’t read them all just in case I realise I haven’t come nearly far enough).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anyway, I tried hard to work within specific pantheons, starting with the Greek, and then Roman, and then back to Greek. The Egyptian pantheon was next, driven by my obsession with all things Egypt as a small child. Then I tried the Norse gods - and pretty much got absolutely nothing. So for the next eight years I stagnated into working with “The God” and “The Goddess”, with occasional forages into specific archetypes (as they seemed to me) now and then. Any magic I did seemed very ineffectual. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In 2002 I was in a stinker of an abusive relationship. (Bear with me, this may look like another of my tangents, but there is a point to it.) One day in the August, the bastard had thrown me to the floor, beat on the side of my head with his fists and kicked me so hard in my left kidney I was left pissing blood for three days. Like many abused women, I had no control in the home over anything. I was the bread-winner; I had a really good job (a majorly, seriously, wonderful career) but he wanted more. His spending was out of control - but he was spending all MY money, running up debts in MY name. I finally started to make plans to leave him. He worked out what was going on, and turned on the charm. I wavered… and then, one last time, he showed his true colours. Fortunately he was too drunk to do much more than scream at me, and I barricaded myself into the spare room. As I sat there, in the cold (he’d spent the money I gave him for oil on fuck knows what else), in the beautiful converted barn I loved, I knew something had to change. And that’s when I heard my name called. Not in my head. Not from another room, but all around me. And again, and again. The voice was insistent, starting out full of sorrow, and sounding increasingly pissed off. I knew I was being spoken to by the Divine, and I knew precisely who it was.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The following morning, as I tried to creep out of the gothic arch oak door (honestly, this was my dream place, and I still can’t think about it without feeling a real pang), the bastard sat up on the sofa. “I’ll see YOU when you get home.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He never did, because I never went back. Eventually the dust settled, and, with the help of friends, the company I worked for and my Grandfather, I rented a small terraced house and worked out a plan to deal with the debt he’d left me in. Selling my home cleared most of it; the last few thousand cleared by my redundancy payout I got when I lost my job ten months later. In that year, I had to move twice, lose the job I loved, get shafted by the Managing Director of the company I worked for, find another job (a fairly shit one, but it was all I could manage as I was teetering on the brink of a breakdown), get treated like a piece of crap by my boss, find my boss dead one morning (I don’t THINK I had anything to do with that, but you never know), work for his bloody partner (a total bitch) and listen to that bloody voice call my name every fucking time I had to make a hard decision or was facing major upheaval. I didn’t sleep beyond three or four hours a day. Things went a little weird. My life-long little OCD tendencies went into overdrive. Cleaning became an overwhelming obsession (and I lived in a house that shed brick dust and plaster everywhere like a cat sheds fur) and I couldn’t relax until every room was clean and tidy. And then I couldn’t relax anyway. I kept the television on every minute I was in that house, even when I was sleeping.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">All the way through this, I continued some sort of eclectic, half-arsed Wicca. I developed decent Tarot skills. I tried finding all the love and light the fluffy bunnies spouted (I haunted the Mystic Wicks forum for hours, spouting copied invocations to Aphrodite, Diana, etc, and trying to give up doing my own Tarot readings as they invariably had The Tower, 9 and 10 of Swords and Death appear.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And still the voice. Drowned out by the television, it started in my dreams. I could never find the source, but I’d be running down gothic torch-lit corridors of locked doors (and purple patterned carpets; still haven’t figured out the significance of purple patterned carpets) hearing my name being called over and over and over.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I knew who it was. But to me She was fucking scary, Queen of the Damned style scary. I knew Her name, I knew what little was written about Her in Bullfinch’s Mythology, and I knew only that most people saw Her as an old crone, harsh and malicious. But in the end I had to stop running, stop avoiding Her and take my childish fingers out of my ears and stop doing the “La la la la I’m not LISTENING” thing. I had to accept Hekate had an interest in me, and that she wasn’t about to take no for an answer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The minute I did that, it was like a switch being thrown - my life turned around. I found a little home, I found the man that was eventually to become The Hubster and progenitor of The Witchlets, and I got my sleep back. Once I acknowledged Her, once I was back on the right path again, the way was smoothed. It would be another five years before I started working with Her, and another two years more before I began to honour Her in a way that has evolved into my relationship with Her now. Don’t get me wrong, life has been rocky in places these last (nearly) ten years, and She’s called my name in the same way a few more times, (once bringing me back from the brink of handing over Witchlet One to The Hubster and telling them they’d be better off without me and walking under a bus) but She has never, ever let me down.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She’s always been approachable, but we have a very specific relationship. I honour Her, I give Her offerings, I craft stuff I think She will approve of, I give money to an animal charity every month, and I petition Her when I am in great need. I occasionally ask Her to bless magical workings, but not THAT often. I have occasionally honoured other Greek deities with Her. It’s not that She’s stand-offish, or aloof, it’s just that we have set boundaries. She looks after me (fairly jealously, in the past), and I don’t race around nekkid having sex with The Hubster in front of Her shrine. (I wouldn’t call Her a prude, as SUCH - fuck me with a stick, I like living WAY too much to say that - but She’s not about to go all Dionysus on my arse.) All the mucky stuff (as the Hubster likes to call my herb, feather and bone-work) was purely witchcraft, not so much mixed with deity worship. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So the last thing I bloody expected was for her to invite a member of the Lwa into my life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’d started working with a land spirit in the local woods. He’s very powerful, has a right grumpy side to him (boy, was I made to feel VERY unwelcome the first time I explored his woods) but he’s softened up a lot since I’ve taken him offerings, and litter-picked every time I go. I started getting the impression there were two sides to him, as sometimes he could play tricks, laugh like a drain at me. Yeah, yeah, I didn’t get it. This was somebody else entirely. This was Papa Legba. In the end he had to go all typecast and BLACK at me before I got it (took an awful lot of ‘Yo, woman,’ and frankly unintelligible patois being whispered in my ear) but within a month or so I’d raided my Hallowe’en decorations for items for a shrine/altar for him. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I did have some doubts, of course. I mean, Hekate had pretty much prevented me from getting any involvement from any other deity, why on earth would She suddenly start inviting other metaphysical beings to come fuck with my sanity? I’m guessing that working with Hekate, a liminal Goddess that is a guide to the underworld, got Papa Legba’s attention (after all, he must be invoked before other spirits; he is the gatekeeper, so he has similar attributes to Hekate).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It didn’t end there. I’ve since been up close and personal with somebody else’s guardian angel, an Archangel, a dragon, the Queen of the fucking fairies for fucks sake and an ancient Witch. It can get kinda crowded in here.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course, I might be completely fucking nuts.</span></span>Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-72990287410974397742012-02-12T21:57:00.000+00:002012-02-12T21:57:29.444+00:00In which I get kicked in the butt by the Old Woman<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So there I was, checking the snowdrops and sure enough, one was open. Cue squeals of delight from the Witchlets, who were virtually upside down checking out the little green fairy footprints on the inside of the flower (snowdrop fairies dance on the lawn, then go to bed without wiping their feet, ya know!) and excitement from me (Spring’s nearly here!!) Time for me to make a Bride doll and place her in her maiden’s bed (ready for deflowering… and/or ready to return to the world after forty days of “laying in” after the re-birth of the sun at Midwinter - can’t quite explain it, as I haven’t got it straight in my own mind yet and I’m working with stuff that is coming to me through some very vivid dreams and intuitive shit. I’ll get there, eventually.)</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUPGlm8iX9b8xn_3avJzEtd_U8hTuOGvCwTHOLVooTCUpP8m16r-ZV08-QtIRwy7cJFpdaVxwZc_rcggHUJgsDqfah0u-WCcZuX8pOLND9XdHpMffFo6aY_8LghRZZn84eLCZCXA6Qq2U/s1600/IMG_3912.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUPGlm8iX9b8xn_3avJzEtd_U8hTuOGvCwTHOLVooTCUpP8m16r-ZV08-QtIRwy7cJFpdaVxwZc_rcggHUJgsDqfah0u-WCcZuX8pOLND9XdHpMffFo6aY_8LghRZZn84eLCZCXA6Qq2U/s320/IMG_3912.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><em>Bride, made from rosemary and pine branches, wrapped in yellow silk, resting in her ivy-wreathed bed</em></span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There’s a local modern stone circle near me, and four times a year a very good Wiccan friend of mine holds an open ritual there, which I try to help out with. This year I was tying white ribbon around sprigs of rosemary (from my garden, always so chuffed when it’s something I’ve grown/made/cooked that’s required), and making some <a href="http://www.stepawayfromthecauldron.blogspot.com/2012/02/first-spring-and-im-shivering.html" target="_blank">almond riciarellis</a> for the ‘feasting’ bit, and taking two thermos - one full of hot Oolong tea with vanilla pieces in, and the other with hot elderberry cordial with rosehip syrup. I should have fucking known things weren’t going to plan when on the morning of the ritual I woke up to the period from HELL (precisely eight days early; damn my perimenopausal hormones) and freezing temperatures. So I got all the ritual stuff to the circle, but had to go home to my hot water-bottle, fluffy blanket and sofa to wallow in self-pity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Never mind, the following morning I woke up feeling better, only to discover Witchlet Two was going down with a vomiting bug. After a cup of tea, it transpired we both had it. Neither of us could keep anything down for twelve hours, although we both felt fine in between puking episodes. Witchlet One helpfully ran a temperature so he could stay off school with us. Finally, forty-eight hours later, normality returned. Food was consumed and not regurgitated, temperatures stayed within normal ranges, and I decided it was time to bake Bride her snake bread offering. Ok, here’s a tangent for you: if you have Witchlets of your own I SERIOUSLY recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Circle-Round-Raising-Children-Tradition/dp/0553378058/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329083267&sr=1-1" target="_blank">“Circle Round”</a> by Starhawk et al. It’s great for ideas to bring into witchy practice with your mini-witchkin. The Bride Snake Bread Meditation is in the Imbolc section, and it had been pecking away at the back of my mind as THE RIGHT THING TO DO (and I’ve slowly learnt to take that pecking-type-thought process bloody seriously.) I’m not going to post it here; if you really want to do it - buy the book, or borrow it from the library. It’s basically a soda-bread type dough, with jam/jelly and raisons in the centre. There is a meditation to go with it, which I did faithfully (I do sometimes follow book instructions, you know) for the first one, and then Witchlet Two and I made two more.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYKdBclxrpff2lKCCr3lKsQ6I37WmyxiPF-BxbWZ-eUrhaJzD8YjcYGs8BNtdtqd1X7NybO_SG4xdGU451GeozLOIJ7wbJRJLelbXrPmsoTz4I8W76AoXHAVgVJoacej70KiRhp8m90c0/s1600/419407_10150756205043989_598713988_12527724_1612536926_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYKdBclxrpff2lKCCr3lKsQ6I37WmyxiPF-BxbWZ-eUrhaJzD8YjcYGs8BNtdtqd1X7NybO_SG4xdGU451GeozLOIJ7wbJRJLelbXrPmsoTz4I8W76AoXHAVgVJoacej70KiRhp8m90c0/s320/419407_10150756205043989_598713988_12527724_1612536926_n.jpg" width="179" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I should have REALLY FUCKING REALISED THINGS WERE NOT AS THEY SEEMED…. when the fucking snakes came out of the oven and looked like albino turds with eyes. Or as my lovely Twitterpeeps eventually decided - Phallic Turd Loaves. Even decorated with ivy and hyacinth flowers, it still looked like something a sick Great Dane had produced. Nevertheless, I placed it carefully under the forsythia, next to the snowdrops, to honour Bride and to welcome back the spring.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Less than sixteen hours later, the Old Woman dumped six inches of fucking snow on it. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_iIfKTclWGkrq0S01C5MLze7gWoZ-9gQl6MNrQ9Nk4cV4zWZQ9fuW7XI5-ULSnvU325sHC2wTuT9ZHzvDpxsS3Wcrygc94Qj8o8JjWsLZNxCPu5bAdcvMiKaIcXKxJvp3R6WHspc5q_Y/s1600/157256_100000352342806_2056868280_q.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_iIfKTclWGkrq0S01C5MLze7gWoZ-9gQl6MNrQ9Nk4cV4zWZQ9fuW7XI5-ULSnvU325sHC2wTuT9ZHzvDpxsS3Wcrygc94Qj8o8JjWsLZNxCPu5bAdcvMiKaIcXKxJvp3R6WHspc5q_Y/s320/157256_100000352342806_2056868280_q.jpg" width="179" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><em>I had to build a snow-witch, didn't I?</em></span></div><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Apparently Winter was not over, I’d jumped the fucking gun and she was not happy. It took a week for the snow to melt enough to expose Bride’s Offering.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9u1P_7QDuwMrOX2PaYMbbyD8qGLvGeE8vavdJW_Lmo6LFi7Uh7rCRneN4r5efjlzNX_uxpxkQHtQswsZ_KmYcnmzLuM4SR0pUeKht6M6Dc13xRZDkHGLGOXUKF5UxsA-MAG3M-dSfYak/s1600/402054_10150783823103989_73673199_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9u1P_7QDuwMrOX2PaYMbbyD8qGLvGeE8vavdJW_Lmo6LFi7Uh7rCRneN4r5efjlzNX_uxpxkQHtQswsZ_KmYcnmzLuM4SR0pUeKht6M6Dc13xRZDkHGLGOXUKF5UxsA-MAG3M-dSfYak/s320/402054_10150783823103989_73673199_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><em>Bride Snake Bread/Phallic Turd Loaf looking a bit worse for spending a week under the white stuff</em></span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(I’d got tired of waiting for Old Hag to leave, so I decided to take matters into my own hands, put the last of my good malt whiskey outside the patio doors, packed the Witchlets off to their Grandmother for the weekend and shagged The Hubster senseless.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hello Spring.</span> </span>Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-84308861184598192382012-02-02T11:56:00.000+00:002012-02-02T11:56:50.333+00:00First Spring... and I'm shivering!<span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Blessed Imbolc/Imbolg/Oimelc/Candlemas/St Brighid/Brigid/Bride’ Day! (Have I got everyone there? Did I miss anything out?) </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXDkhMYYkmpZWpIqw-7G6T24ZNoabrYdACmuFfysBhJdI_IkQ0BmbmnG5pcdxbSDz8ViLcqnFsr8-VT38CBk6B0vIh1ZE7SFjlMuAEHDycA3T7E9qwb7Yrfl8zC42yNxOfX7wvKgK5KSA/s1600/417723_10150749679023989_598713988_12512940_439679407_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXDkhMYYkmpZWpIqw-7G6T24ZNoabrYdACmuFfysBhJdI_IkQ0BmbmnG5pcdxbSDz8ViLcqnFsr8-VT38CBk6B0vIh1ZE7SFjlMuAEHDycA3T7E9qwb7Yrfl8zC42yNxOfX7wvKgK5KSA/s640/417723_10150749679023989_598713988_12512940_439679407_n.jpg" width="356" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well, First Spring here is when the first snowdrop opens its delicate flower enough for the Witchlets to scream that they’ve found green fairy footprints up inside the flower (snowdrop fairies like to dance barefoot on the lawn, and they NEVER wipe their feet you know!), and this year the first snowdrop opens - and we’re hit with the coldest bit of weather we’ve had all winter. Ha! The Old Woman has a sense of humour, you know, you think you’ve welcomed the Bride, the blushing maiden, back into home and garden, and the Old Woman whips her backside with the wind-chill factor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’d wrapped sprigs of rosemary for the local open ritual, baked almond riciarellis (recipe below; I love these because they are so pale and are gorgeous dipped into hot frothy milk), and made a Bride doll of rosemary and pine sprigs, wrapped in a white, yellow and green floral printed silk scarf. I’d even sowed some chilli seeds, made room for lots of seed trays, and planted out some rhubarb. I get the distinct impression this has displeased The Old Hag. Frankly, she’s hardly held up her end of the deal - up until this week I’d only had one decent hard frost out there. I had lobelia and the hypericum still blooming from last year in the back garden, and the grass has got so long I really thought I’d have to get the mower out. Witchlet One was most put out at the lack of snow: “But it HAS to snow, Mummy, it’s WINTER, it’s the RULES!” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So now I’m freezing my effing tits off, we’ve all picked up a sickness bug (I’m writing this between dry-heaves) and I have just put out a VERY GENEROUS shot of whiskey for the Old Hag. Hope this will appease her somewhat.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(I still say it’s all her own fault for turning up late. But I do so *shush* <span style="font-size: xx-small;">very quietly</span>.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Almond Riciarellis</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">150g ground almonds</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Pinch salt</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1 large egg-white</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">115g caster sugar</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">¼ tsp vanilla essence</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">½ tsp almond essence</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Icing sugar</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Preparation:</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>Beat the egg white and salt until stiff and dry</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em> </em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>Slowly add the caster sugar and beat until smooth and shiny</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em> </em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>Stir in the almond and vanilla essence and the ground almonds</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em> </em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>Take teaspoons of the mixture and roll in your hands, then shape - you could do a flattened circle, a crescent, a diamond - whatever you fancy. Just keep the shape about a centimetre deep, or it will over-cook. Dust your hands with icing sugar if the mixture is too sticky.</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em> </em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>Place on a lined baking tray, and bake in the oven at 140 deg Celcius for approximately 20 minutes or until they are just starting to turn golden. Allow to cool, and dust with icing sugar before serving.</em></span></span>Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546842091833410777.post-47960927131027590622012-01-30T12:34:00.000+00:002012-01-30T12:34:28.570+00:00Sir Pheasant and The Witch<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Back at the end of last year, the immensely talented <a href="http://www.graveyarddirt.com/" target="_blank">Ms Graveyard Dirt</a> offered oven-ready road-kill pheasant for those who were brave enough to try it. I jumped at the chance; I haven’t had pheasant since I was a kid and my Great-Uncle would bring them home (illegally, mind you, he was not averse to the odd bit of poaching!) and hang them up. I used to stare at their iridescent feathers and long to stroke them (although I could only ever reach one fingertip to the end of their tail feathers, and the gods help me if my mother ever caught me doing it - “DON’T TOUCH!!!”)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(My Great-Uncle was good at bringing things home for dinner. He married a townie, who had never prepared food from fresh before, but she soon got to grips with plucking, gutting and stuffing. Until he came home with a rabbit, dumped it on the kitchen table and announced he was off to the pub. Two hours later, he came home to find my Great-Aunt in floods of tears, fluff and fur floating everywhere, and she wailed “I can’t pluck all this fur out!” Poor Great Aunt, she didn’t know she was supposed to skin it. She had to put up with that story being told for the rest of her life - and now beyond, because I’m telling it again.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anyway, imagine my delight when I got an e-mail from Ms D after New Year to tell me she’d found her first pheasant of 2012, a <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/graveyarddirt/6643326211/in/photostream" target="_blank">lovely cock-bird</a> - did I want it? Too effing right I wanted him. She gave me advice on cooking him, and asked if I wanted the head and legs - ooooh yes please - and I asked whether I could have a tail-feather or two?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Big excitement from Ms D, she offered me the wet skin to preserve, the heart, and the full crop of grain to go along with the pheasant. SERIOUS good juju for the start of the New Year; I’m kinda restricted to a tiny area at the moment as I have no car, I have to walk to school and back three times a day to take the Witchlets to nursery and primary school, and time is VERY SHORT, so getting my hands dirty doing something practical sounded like heaven.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sir Pheasant (as he came to be known) arrived, beautifully sealed and packaged, in due course. I removed the head and feet, the head to be cold-water macerated, and the feet to be dried. He was carefully butchered into pieces and braised in the <a href="http://gourmettraveller.com.au/red_winebraised_pheasant_with_polenta.htm" target="_blank">most marvellous way</a>, and consumed for dinner by me (and also Witchlet Two, who can’t help herself but want anything I have on my plate). Hubby eyed it carefully, and twenty four hours later (after it was clear that I wasn’t going to get sick!) polished off leftovers. Sir Pheasant was incredibly tender and delicious (braising makes all the difference when it’s an older bird) and I definitely want to do THAT again! The cooked bones were cleaned, even the gorgeous tiny vertebrae of his stunning neck.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The skin, meanwhile, had yet to turn up. Mild panic stations for 48 hours, but finally the Royal Mail got its act together, and the rest of Sir Pheasant arrived. Pathology’s loss is this Witch’s gain; Ms D’s surgical skills are amazing and the skin was perfect.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I burned copal and passed the skin through the smoke, thanking Sir Pheasant for coming to me, offering the work I was about to do as a time-sacrifice for his spirit. Over the next three hours I reverently cared for the skin and feathers, collecting the odd pheasant feather and down that escaped the skin as I worked with it, until I could finally run my fingers through the whisper-soft feathers, just as I had wanted to all those years ago. I must have sat there for an hour, just stroking him, somehow building a connection with this bird I had never seen alive. My heart was both singing and breaking, shedding tears for the manner of his death, but smiling for him coming to me, to allow me to finally touch him. Waves of emotion flooded me, and I found myself seeing through fields of barley, rising up into the sun briefly, then back down into the stalks, rustling, brushing against me. Connection made? Yeah, I think so.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sir Pheasant’s skin is now curing away on the highest shelf at the back of the kitchen. Every day, Witchlet One and I get up on a chair to say hello and see how he is doing. In a few weeks, once the skin is completely cured, I shall share photos of him. In the meantime, here is a photo of him during my work…</span><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHbVW_2QU-_QoKjkTewyxegWB3TWYLn3FUwVUgNq1lZcesujpvtoq7tjNLcShx1YABOWrioD1B_q5167xdjF9-6NAMRUrwclC0wilm4lbVasWcvrnFGitQDTlX8H1ZNn5OGw6XGgxmL80/s1600/IMG_3886.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHbVW_2QU-_QoKjkTewyxegWB3TWYLn3FUwVUgNq1lZcesujpvtoq7tjNLcShx1YABOWrioD1B_q5167xdjF9-6NAMRUrwclC0wilm4lbVasWcvrnFGitQDTlX8H1ZNn5OGw6XGgxmL80/s320/IMG_3886.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">...and if you want to see more, check out my <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/stepawayfromthecauldron/sets/72157629097383269/" target="_blank">Flickr album.</a></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN"> </span><span lang="EN"> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I decided that cold water maceration of the head COULD NOT BE DONE INDOORS. When you’ve got Witchlets whose aim in life is to touch EVERYTHING they are not supposed to, AT LEAST ONCE, then having a decomposing pheasant head in the house is probably not the best idea. But leaving it out in the cold wasn’t probably going to be a great idea either. In the end, I’ve settled for putting him in a jar, covered with muslin, at the back of the top shelf in my little greenhouse, which backs on to next door’s extension and is right next to our patio doors, so will keep reasonably decent temperatures. Sure enough, the water is turning ripe, so things are HAPPENING. </span><br />
</span><br />
<span lang="EN"><h6 class="uiStreamMessage uiStreamHeadline"><div class="actorDescription actorName" data-ft="{"type":2}"><span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;"><em>"Passing seed corn through the smoke from Copal that was dressed with sacrificial blood before being burned is said to increase its viability and productivity. Copal is used by the Maya to induce trances and in rites of divinations, such as one where fourteen grains of corn are passed through the smoke, then cast on the ground, and the patterns they make are read to foretell the future." - from the entry on Copal in Hoodo Herb and Root Magic by catherine yrondwode.</em></span></span></div></h6><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I separated fourteen grains from Sir Pheasant’s crop, and the rest were passed through Copal (mixed with a bit of OKW blood) smoke and planted in a container outside the back door. Grain magic is heap-big magic, and if these grains grow, I’ll harvest the grains produced in the Autumn and keep the cycle going. The other fourteen were washed with my blood in water, left to dry, and passed through more Copal smoke, after which I tossed them on a spread cloth for divination purposes (whilst decidedly tipsy on donated Armagnac from hubby’s birthday; I bought the bottle for him, he’s married to a witch, it’s polite to share with a witch…) to see what I could make out for the year ahead.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am going to be FUCKING BUSY, it seems.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Big thanks to Ms Dirty for making this possible. She’s damn well suggesting I do the WHOLE thing next time, skinning it, the works - and I’m more than up for this! (Starting to feel…. well, a BIT like an apprentice. It’s good. So you CAN teach an Old Witch new tricks…)</span></span>Old Kitchen Witchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15357739313567392970noreply@blogger.com1