There Are Witches in the Woods

Hey bestie, 

If I had a dollar for every time I ran into a witch in the woods, I would have a non-zero amount of dollars.

This is not a particularly lucrative spiritual practice, but it has happened enough times that I am beginning to consider it a pattern.

Last August, I went away to a retreat devoted to Hekate, led by the incredible Sandy from Avalon's Grove. You seriously need to come next summer. For several days, I was surrounded by women who pray to Her, make offerings, practice magic, know plants and songs and stories, and can have a perfectly ordinary conversation about witchcraft without anyone needing to explain why we are talking about witchcraft in the first place. For someone who moves through the world like a missionary saying “have you heard the good news about our Lady and Saviour, Hekate of the Crossroads?” this was extemely healing.

There were cabins and fires and altars, medicine walks through the woods, outdoor libraries and offerings, singing and feasting, fairy lights and bats and dogs and coyotes somewhere beyond us in the dark. It was beautiful, but what surprised me most was how profoundly happy I was.

I spend a lot of my life creating spaces for other people. When I facilitate ritual, some part of my brain is always watching the room. Who needs welcoming? Is the energy dropping? Does everyone understand what we're doing? Where are the drums? Did I bring enough candles? Why do I own this many candles?

In the woods, I realized that I was inside community instead of carrying community.

There is a difference between having a spiritual practice and living inside a spiritual culture. A practice can happen alone. You can read the books, light the candle, learn the correspondences, make the offering and whisper the prayer. Culture requires other people. Someone knows a song you don't. Someone tells the story differently. Someone tends the fire while you sleep. Knowledge passes hand to hand, mouth to ear, body to body.

I think this is one of the things modern witchcraft is hungry for. Not more information. We have more information than witches before us could possibly have imagined. I think we are hungry for culture.

I've been thinking about that weekend differently lately because I am crossing a threshold of my own, and I am grieving. One of the stranger things I am discovering about grief is how geographical it can be. I knew I could miss a person. I was less prepared for what it would mean to miss a place: the mighty oak trees, the secret groves for offerings, the hollyhocks, the crow that flies to the top of the tallest tree around 3pm every day, familiar roads, the ordinary intimacy of knowing a piece of land because you believed you had years left to know it. There are places where I thought I had years left to become familiar.

I have spent years devoted to a Goddess of crossroads, keys, torches and thresholds. And yet, I find crossroads considerably more compelling as a religious symbol when I am not personally standing in one.

But here we are.

Maybe that is part of why I keep returning in my mind to those witches in the woods. Places change. Relationships change. Communities change. We lose access to things we thought we would keep. Then, sometimes, another fire appears between the trees.

I've begun writing something called The Book of Blessings, a collection of blessings, spells and rites for the thresholds in women's lives that deserve ceremony: heartbreak and homecoming, rage and grief, birth and death, blood and bodies, friendship, beginnings, endings, the sacred dark.

And, because some of our foremothers weren't able to leave us one, a blessing for the woman who is tired of absorbing the cost of everybody else's bullshit.

Yes, an oversight. I'm correcting it.

Over the coming months, I'm going to share some of those pieces here first.

A Spell for Finding Your People

You will need a candle, a small bowl of water, and something gathered respectfully from the land where you live: a fallen leaf, stone, twig, dried flower, acorn, whatever calls to you.

Place the object beside the candle and light the flame. Dip two fingers into the water and touch them gently to your throat.

Temple Soundtrack: Listen to the Temple Soundtrack on Spotify

For this ritual,  hit up the Temple Soundtrack and play For Love of All Who Gather.

When you are ready, speak:

May I know the places where I am welcomed, not merely accommodated.
May I recognize the people before whom I do not have to make myself smaller, easier or less strange.
May I find fires I did not have to build alone.
May I learn the songs others carried here before me.
May I bring what is mine to bring, and may I finally receive what is mine to receive.

Sit with the candle for a few moments.

The spell is what you do. The blessing is what you receive. Read this next part aloud to yourself to close the ritual, or save it and return to it when you need to remember what belonging can feel like. I like blessing myself before bed, because nights with grief as a bedfellow grow dark and weary. 

A Blessing for Finding Your People

Beloved,

May there be a fire you did not have to build. May there be hands already reaching for the drum and voices willing to begin the song. May you find people who do not require translation before they can recognize you.

May the land beneath you become familiar. May you know where the light falls. May you learn the names of what grows there. May you bring what is yours without believing you must bring everything.

May you be held by what you have so often held for others.

And when you find the witches in the woods, may you have the good sense to sit down by the fire.

With love,

Sierra
Temple of Sound

From The Book of Blessings by Sierra Jamerson · Temple of Sound
Free spells, blessings, rituals and letters: templeofsound.co/the-temple-letters