Sweet Fern

I have been walking a bit, lately, various circuits around the neighborhood; and this plant caught my eye.  But it's odd, this time: it didn't shout at me, and it didn't really even 'catch' my eye; I just sort of slowly became aware of it.

I've lived in this neighborhood pretty much all my life; I live in the childhood home, which is mine now.  I've seen this plant all my life.  But I never really saw it, I don't think.

I never knew what it was called.  I knew that it sometimes grew right up next to bayberry, and that it was frequently in the company of oak trees and pines, so, it preferred sandy soil; and I knew that it smelled really lovely, similar to bayberry yet its own distinct thing, like cinnamon and cloves are similar yet very different.  I know, or I think, that it releases its scent with the afternoon sun.  But I didn't know its name.

I had a Hel of a time figuring that out.  It doesn't seem to have been studied much, and matching up the picture in my head to a Googleable description was pretty tough.  But after a couple of hours I found it.

It's Comptonia peregrina, also known as sweet fern.  It is related to bayberry, or at least in the same general family; it's the only Comptonia out there, though.  It is also, of course, not a fern.

Once I found the name I searched for herbal information on it and found very little.  It's not in any of my magical herb books, nor in my dye books; the internet wasn't much help, either.  It appears to have been overlooked a bit, just like I had overlooked it all my life while still recognizing it.  But there was a reason I was noticing it now, so I journeyed to See.

I found it growing in that little herb garden behind the Tree.  Well, it wasn't quite in the garden, but growing outside of it by the stone wall.  The stones were warm still from being in the sunshine; I sat down next to it and said Hello.

I asked then if it would be okay to talk to it; I got a feeling of warmth, so took that as a yes.  I showed it the picture I'd done (the one above), as offering.

Now, sometimes with these shamanish plant talks the plant's 'voice' is loud and clear; this time I got ideas and themes, not quite pictures but like pictures in that there was a lot of information without words that I then had to sort.

I first got the word 'exotic', with the picture of the sun shining off a golden coin necklace; then 'native,' which struck me as a paradox.  It is a native plant to the east coast and New England, unlike the invasive/European ones I've 'talked to' before.  But there was something of myrrh to it, like it was the local version of frankincense.  It was a paradox, and it made perfect sense.

I asked it what I wanted to tell me.  Yes, it was native, native like me.  Yes, it was familiar, and ordinary; yet when the sun came out and warmed the leaves that exotic fragrance was released.  There was a lesson there.

I feel I should point out that when I say 'native' that I don't mean Native American; I'm not.  That was the word I got, though, very strongly, and I take it to mean 'born here' (though strictly speaking I was born the next state over), and that I've lived here, in this neighborhood, almost all of my life.  I am native to this particular patch of land.  There is birth, and childhood, and growing up inherent in that word, native.  Familiar also is a good word: like family, it means.

It then told me to simmer the leaves as a tea, but only for the scent; she (it was a she, though not very strongly) said it would lift the spirits and clear the mind, and heal both mind and body.   Like athelas, I thought (that miracle weed Aragorn used for everything in the Lord of the Rings); I felt the sweet fern be pleased at that analogy.  So sweet fern is good against the Black Breath (in JRRT's secondary world) or against the Dementors (in JK Rowling's world).  And that I can definitely use, given that I live with an emotional vampire.

There was something else, though, something about it that allowed it to remain hidden or overlooked while still shining and being beautiful.  Something about it has a bit of misdirection to it, which given my circumstances is probably why it caught my attention.  It is hard to shine when you live with a vampire; they eat light, after all.   She then told me to put the dried leaves in a sachet with the sigil of The Closed Eye, which was new to me.  A 180 degree arc, like the bottom half of a circle (only with no diameter line), with small rays coming out of it, like a closed eye with eyelashes, or the part of the sun below the horizon at sunset.    That kind of concealment.  It shines, and very brightly, but not where a certain audience can see it.  And I can use that.

It said one more thing still; that it was also about having or making strong roots, especially in regards to place.  And that is also very helpful for me right now.

When it was finished I thanked it, and then breathed on it as a further offering.  I think it was pleased.

School of Magic

So a bit of silliness, then.

Somebody (she knows who she is) put the idea of sorcery into my head not that long ago. Since then I've been trying to figure out exactly what that means. Now, ceremonial magic doesn't appeal. Nor does sorcery's, well, dudely reputation. I'm a feminist and have long since lost my ability to put up with dick-swinging (as they say) of any kind. So I've been trying to parse out what a woman's sorcery looks like. There are plenty of examples, at least in legend. Kirke, Morgan le Fay, even poor Medea. Because sorceress is different than sorcerer.

It's not quite witchcraft; it's a little more studied, more educated, while at the same time rather more glam. Witches wear whatever's comfy, stains or no; sorceresses get all junked up with the astrological symbol-embroidered cape and about a billion rings. Lots of earrings, too. At least that's what's coming to my mind.

So I've been thinking about this, and what that means, especially about which avenues to pursue. Now for the silliness.

There is a thing going around Tumblr, a letter from Hogwarts announcing that you, the recipient, have been accepted. It has a list of supplies you'll need to get for the upcoming school year, as well as a list of classes.

Oh, classes. Now wouldn't that be fun.

So I got to wondering. If I were, say, running a college, a college where one studies some form of magic, what would the curriculum look like? We'll say a proper four-year secondary school education (Hogwarts is, in American terms, Junior High and High School).

Now I went to art school, so that's what I know, and that's the model I've got in my brain. Freshman year of my School we all took something called Freshman Foundation. There were four classes in it. There was Art History, which was an auditorium lecture paired with a weekly class with a teacher where you could ask questions, and then there were three studio courses which ran a full eight hours each (split up; they did let us eat lunch). Drawing, 2D and 3D, though looking it up I see the last two have been renamed Design and Spatial Dynamics, I assume to sound as pretentious as possible. Honestly and oh-for-fuck's-sake, I roll my eyes at you, Really Insanely pretentious School of Design.*

So I was thinking a year of basic magical lessons (though not eight-hour classes, I'm not crazy) followed by the electives one takes for one's major in the following years. I suppose that's what most colleges do.

So I wonder what would be the basics the first-year students would get taught? Things that all the majors would need to know.

Some of my ideas are: Herbs 101 and 102 (both semesters), The History of Magic (including a basic overview of the main systems of magic), Magical Tools, something maybe to do with focus/concentration/the Will? I'm not sure Spellcasting would be in there, honestly; I'd think knowing a bit about what you're doing and why, first, would be better (safer?) than jumping right in, but I could be a conservative type about that sort of thing, too.

For majors so far I've got Alchemy, Shamanism, Oracular Sciences (hee hee LOVE that name), Sorcery, and Astrology. I know Shamanism isn't quite the right word, but I was looking for a magical path that involves close interaction with the spirit world. I suppose Herbalist could be in there, but that's probably a real major somewhere else that means a bit of a different thing.

And some classes, without, hopefully, getting too Hogwarts-y, as the focus isn't quite the same. I'm thinking plenty of herb classes (this may be a requirement all four years depending on the major, and could have more in-depth classes like Solanaceae or Poisons or something). There might also be Entheogens, Stones and Crystals, Animism, various classes on a specific branch of magic like Enochian or whatever, Trance, all the Divinations, maybe a general course and then individual classes like Tarot or Oneiromancy, Sigils, Curses, probably some Protection Magic (which is I suppose Defense Against the Dark Arts), History of Symbols, The Elements, Numerology, and various history courses too like The Witch Throughout History: Changing Perspectives on Feminine Magic, which would be a Women's Studies class too.

So, readers (all three of you); if you were going to this school, or maybe even teaching it, how would you organize it? What classes would you teach, and/or would you like to take? What do you think are the foundational courses all first-year students should get, before they pick a major? What courses would be required for those majors? And what textbooks would you use?

Do please leave your ideas in comments! I'd love to hear!


*I see what I did there.

Ratty

I came back from grocery shopping the other night to find that Ratty the cat had somehow done something to his left eye. He was holding it closed and it was a bit teary, though when I tried to look I didn't see anything obvious. I don't know what happened (though I have a lot of guesses, mostly to do with his very frisky and fond of wrestling siblings) but given it wasn't any better the next day I called the vet, who saw him this morning.

He's got an abrasion on his cornea; it looks to be healing well so far, but the vet gave me some drops to put in his eyes to help things along.

One of the drops, the one that has to go in three times a day (good god wish me luck) is an antibiotic so it doesn't get infected. The other thing is something that goes in once a day and is used to dilate the pupil, because with the cornea injured the muscle of the iris tends to spasm, and dilating the pupil means relaxing that muscle and so it hurts less.

Why am I telling this story here on the hedgewitch blog?

Because that second medication is atropine. Which is one of the main poisons in belladonna, the deadly nightshade plant, otherwise known as the poisonous plant in witchy tradition. One of its other traditional uses, besides being a purported ingredient in traditional flying ointments (no thank you very much) was to dilate women's pupils to give them a pretty, doe-eyed look, back when that was considered a good idea. And here it is doing just that, though for medical purposes rather than cosmetic.

Belladonna. The famous, highly toxic, beautiful beautiful Lady with the big black eyes. The one that this beginning herbalist will likely always steer very clear from.

And there's Ratty, a walking Mercury retrograde of feline health (oh my god this cat), taking belladonna.

For some reason that's just the funniest thing.

Verticality

I've never really understood it, I guess. Oh sure I used it, plenty of times, but as a system it just seemed kind of random. I mean, yes, there are four directions, and four (classical) elements, and I can even see putting them together as they are both symbolic of the whole, a good idea when casting a circle. But they never felt like they fit together.

I tried shuffling them around a bit, until I found a way that grounds me in my location, my landbase as Hecate would say. It helped, a little. I've been putting water in the east, since the Atlantic Ocean is in that direction relative to me. And so earth has gone in the west, as the rest of the country stretches out in that direction. And fire in the south does make some sense, as does air in the north for me, the two being (respectively) hot and cold from where I am, and yes, in New England, air or wind is usually cold. When I use them like this, I can feel it rooting me here in this very particular space. I can feel the entire U.S. before me when I face west. It is very grounding.

But still, it does seem rather arbitrary to me. It feels like there were four of one thing and four of another so somebody decided they have to go together. It just doesn't resonate with me.

I don't have a problem with the elements themselves being earth, water, air, and fire; and it strikes me that that really is quite similar, at least metaphorically, to the states of matter, solid, liquid, gas, and plasma (of which the sun is a miasma, of course).

Not too long ago I was told in a meditation that connecting what was above with what was below would help me strengthen my memory. The image I got was that of a neuron or nerve cell, which looks a lot like a tree. Trees of course being a symbol of the whole, or the individual, or individuation, as Jung would say; but also a Tree is rooted in the earth and reaches up into the sky. It connects earth and air, below and above.

Since then when I am outside even for a moment I do a very quick visualization: I reach down deep into the earth and then far up into the sky and connect the two, with myself as the mid-point. It's the old grounding meditation, really, just the quick version.

But then I noticed something. Because below earth there was fire. As the core of this planet is molten rock, this makes sense. And then coming back up there was water, seeking the level, hugging the earth; and then above that air.

I find a vertical ordering of the elements makes so much more sense to me. Fire, even, can connect the inside and the outside--go far enough up and there are the sun and the stars, which are again fire. I like the circularity of it, as I've always felt that deep within and deep without are really the same place. And for me as an Aries (though a repressed one) fire being the connector really works.

I like the idea too of it being a pillar; I can feel myself in the center of things more easily than with the directions as horizontal, though I'm not sure why. Maybe because instead of sitting in the center with the directions around me I actually am the center this way. The elements are nearer this way, maybe, part of me myself.

So then from above to below it is air, water, earth, fire. I don't know quite how I would work this into the context of a ritual or creating a ritual space, but it very much resonates with me, so I thought I'd share.