“F” is for Forest Witch

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

John Muir

I am a Shamanic Witch, and my love is the Forest. 

The Forest is symbolic of the unconscious and its mysteries. It is an entryway into the Lower world, the world of shadow and transformation. In fairytales, the heroic Princess often has to travel the forest to transform herself. She meets here the Baba Yaga, the challenging Hag, the Evil Queen, the Dark Goddess, The Black Madonna, Our Lady of the Dark Forest, Our Lady of the Great Place Below…

As I continue to explore in life, I am the naïve Princess, still. And, as an initiate of the Mysteries of the Descent, I am the dark challenging Witch as well. Both sides of me roam the Wood, in the daytime and the Night, under the New Moon, the full, and the Dark. 

 I am Raven totem; the photos posted here by Pamela Joye show a ritual done in the Salem Woods under the influence of the Crow Moon. I wear a skirt by Wings of Sin depicting the Full Moon with the Black Corvid Goddess. I am The Morrigan.

 The Moon that day was in Virgo. Virgo is Virgin, “whole unto the self”. I am the Black Madonna, Our Lady of the Black Woods. She is "black, but comely", as in the Song of Songs. The unknown one. 

Spirit of Wind blesses and clears

Calling the Quarters

Bowing to the Black Madonna

I chose this time to do Magick that protects and heals, that clears away that which no longer serves, that purifies. To this end, the Great Wind Spirits, element of air, blew with mighty force, clearing away all that was destructive to this Wood. 

 The Witch of the East pulled off my hair ornaments and blew them away, challenging my vanity. 

I walk the Forest; I hold my hands in prayer for the dispossessed, the ones who can’t speak for themselves. The Coyotes who live in this Woods, raising families and hunting for food. They are vilified, but they are here because they belong; they take the place of the Wolf who once lived here. It is the absence of the Wolf that has caused the debilitating Lyme’s disease; the Wood has its lessons, if we but listen. It is the Black Madonna that holds the Coyote and Wolf close in Her arms, protecting, respecting, cherishing.

I speak with the Spirits of the Invisisbles, the Ancestors who lived in this Forest as Natives to this land. I can only guess at and envision your powerful magic and medicine.

Also to the Fae, who live and play in this Wood.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
~William Butler Yeats, "The Stolen Child"

The Dark Lady is also Mother to the Swans and Geese at the Forest Estuary. She protects and provides for them. And the singing birds in the trees. And the trees themselves; it is said that those who understand the trees, understands herself.  Here is where the World Tree lives. All of us ARE the World Tree, and we do best to protect and love the Forest and Her gifts, to love ourselves in our complexity. 

The Forest is a kind of sanctuary, a place to become whole again. Entry in the Online Etymology Dictionary: sanctuary 

mid-14c., "...set apart for holy worship," from Anglo-Fr. sentuarie, from O.Fr. sainctuarie, from L.L. sanctuarium "a sacred place, shrine"... . General (non-ecclesiastical) sense of "place of refuge or protection" is attested from 1560s; as "land set aside for wild plants or animals to breed and live" 

Many Blessings on you, O Great Forest!

The Grey and the Shadow

I am a Wolf mother. And I am pissed.

I just heard today about the release of a movie called The Grey. It stars Liam Neeson and is about a group of men who brave the Alaska wilderness and are attacked by a pack of Grey Wolves.

I understand that like all fictional movies, it is supposed to be fantasy. So here is what I have to say about this particular fantasy: it sucks.

Over the last few centuries wolves have been terribly persecuted, tortured, killed, and used for all sorts of reasons, including entertainment. At one point in the continental United States there were only 200 wolves left after many thousands were wiped out. For such a huge area of land that's a pitiful number. While Native Americans lived harmoniously with wolves, learning from them with respect and honor, white Europeans generally did not. In some instances wolves were captured and  their mouths wired shut and re-released into the wild to die a slow, excruciating starvation death. At one point in the Western United States there was a road made of wolf skulls. Right now there are only 2000 wolves left in the United States and they are fighting for their very survival.

In truth wolves are loving and family oriented. They shy away from humans in the wild and you'll rarely even see a wolf even in wolf country. Attacks on humans are very, very rare. At a time when they are in desperate need of our support, the release of this movie is highly irresponsible and mean.

Like women and people of color, wolves have had to bear the projection of Shadow onto them. They are depicted as dangerous, vicious, cruel, wiley, the qualities that I would say actually belong to the Sarah Palins out there who enjoy hunting them. But that's what shadow projection is, it's the pot calling the kettle black, it's a way to deny that one has qualities that they don't like to see themselves. And it's easy to project the shadow onto the voiceless. So it is up to those of us who love wolves to be their voice.

Please make your voice heard and sign the petitions by White Wolf.

And make your voice heard with your wallet, too. Do not pay to see this movie.

And as I am finishing this article, I have heard an even more gruesome thing about the harming of wolves in relation to this movie: Liam Neeson stated in an interview that he ate wolf meat as part of his preparation for filming The Grey. Read more here: Liam Neeson and ‘The Grey’ Cast Ate Wolf Meat. 

Whoa. Anybody still want to say that this is just "fantasy"?