We have just published a wonderful book called Witch In Darkness, written by Kelly-Ann Maddox. I went to see her give a talk last week and she gave a masterful presentation. Her book is about witchcraft helping in metaphorical darkness, when the going gets tough, but it also struck me that witchcraft and paganism in general love the literal darkness, and Samhain could be called their equivalent of Christmas. It’s interesting also that Halloween, which occurs the day before on October 31st , but which forms the beginning of that festival period, comes close nowadays to eclipsing Christmas as a celebratory time of year, especially for children. It has already seen off Guy Fawkes’ Night, which takes place on November 5th , as the UK’s leading celebration of fire and darkness.
Christianity loves stained glass, bright shining gold and white or bright-coloured vestments. Witchcraft prefers black or darker-coloured clothing, enclosed rooms lit by candles and moonlight. For many centuries, it had to hide itself away because it was being persecuted. It doesn’t like frequent blazing of lights, so again this is its time of year.
They say that at Samhain the veil between the dead and the living is at its thinnest and that it’s a good time to speak with ancestors and other people who have passed on. I don’t know about that or why that should be so, but it’s good to have a time to celebrate that, to remember those who went before and did so much for us, to set a place for them at the table or give them food and to bear in mind that we too will become ancestors. What does that mean for how we act now?
Samhain (pronounced sow-in), along with the other major festivals, was kept alive for us within the Irish tradition, thus its Irish name. Many of the so-called Bog People, whose bodies were found amazingly preserved in the bogs of Denmark and Ireland, seem to have been sacrificed or even murdered at this time of year, so there are some sinister aspects to this festival. The great poet Seamus Heaney, in his poem entitled Tollund Man (the name given to one of the Bog People) refers to him as “Bridegroom to the Goddess”. Maybe it was a role that he willingly took on. Of course, what we now have as Samhain is to an extent a contemporary reconstruction according to fragments from the past, so the links between the festival and this violent behaviour are unproven.
However, it is a heavy time. It’s not for wild intoxication and abandonment, but instead for contemplation and deep thinking. Moreover, it is also a time for doing what paganism does best: for honouring the dark goddesses and gods, who are a part of life as much as the shining ones; for being aware of our ancestors and closer relatives, because if we believe anything it’s that death doesn’t irrevocably separate us; and for divination to explore some of the deeper currents underneath the ordinary march of everyday routines. It’s a time to feel special: Happy Samhain!
This blog was written by Adam Gordon, Cygnus Magazine Editor, Watkins Commissioning Editor and Watkins Media Office Manager.
This is my favourite Wheel of the Year festival. I think it’s because I was born (and have almost always lived in) the “moderate north” of Europe. So for me, the winter solstice and perhaps even the summer solstice would be special in the far north Nordic countries where things are more extreme, in terms of dark nights and endless days. I find the summer festivals are a bit more of a Mediterranean thing of heat and sunny delirium.
Where I am in southern England, I think we notice the turnings more – the subtle moments where things tip or pivot. It’s the flow that counts, more than the high points. So now – at this fulcrum when the nights are as long as the days and we have 12 hours of sun and the same of “darkness” – it’s a moment for looking both back and forward. We can be grateful for the more hedonistic summer and prepare for the mystical mysterious winter. Everything is in balance and we know we aren’t going to get any more stifling days but we also don’t have to deal with the sapping absence of light yet, either. The weather is perfect (or maybe just past perfect). Like squirrels, we can start storing things up for the assault of winter. I hope for all of us that it’s not literally food that we have to store, but more like reserves of resilience and careful planning that will get us through the deprivation.
For me it’s the time of the mushroom, that bizarre and beautiful life form that’s not quite plant and not quite animal. Of course they fruit all year but instinctively this feels like their special time when they smash out all the hits, especially the star fungus, the bright red fly agaric, which frankly to me just looks too stunning to be true. It’s especially hedged around by myth and folklore but it’s only one of many that look like they have come straight from our imaginations. As we know, much of the real life of the fungus happens underground in the thin strands of its mycelium – again a great symbol for this time of year when the prime energies are the more subtle ones.
I don’t know about you, but I find a strange consciousness lurks around fungi. To make a huge generalization, plants are showy and exuberant, while fungi – which of course can also be as exuberant as any species – seem to have a knowing and a subterranean awareness when they are live fruit. Perhaps that’s me getting carried away because, like many people, I love this time of year. If spring is the peak time for growing potential, autumn is the same for inner work, when it all feels possible, and you can plan for special projects and creative work. We feast a little bit, celebrate and then get on with it. We enjoy the harvest and we also share it, to make sure we are on the right side of the gods and goddesses – the forces we will need in the dark months to come.
This blog was written by Adam Gordon, Cygnus Magazine Editor, Watkins Commissioning Editor and Watkins Media Office Manager.
This August 1st festival has two major names: Lammas and Lughnasadh. A quick piece of research online (yes we all go there!) reveals that they might not necessarily be Christian and pagan versions of exactly the same thing, although they are related in our awareness. For once, the Christian version of the event seems to have a stronger identity. The word Lammas is derived from “loaf mass” and the festival often involves creating beautiful bread and visiting bakeries. Bakeries mean community. In lockdown, many of us started baking our own bread and it has a feeling of sharing about it because it’s something specialised that people can do for their friends and family to feed and support them. Even back in medieval times, it might still have been sourdough, before it was replaced in later centuries by purpose-cultured yeast. That’s something pagan people have always understood: what goes around comes around.
This is one of the quieter festivals. It doesn’t shout out its name like others. It’s the beginning of the land becoming more productive, when our ancestors could really start reaping and then baking. It’s a preparation for the time of bounty and of storing up for autumn and winter, which are starting to loom in the back of our consciousness. Again – what goes around comes around. In various parts of Britain there are open spaces which are known as ‘Lammas Land’. This meant that they were private property until this day – Lammas Day – after which everyone could use them for pasturage. I remember Lammas Land in Cambridge, which is now part of the city but which still retains an edge of wildness.
These ancient customs still linger in our subconscious. There is a celebration of many of these historical festivals in a book coming out from Watkins Publishing in October. It’s called Folklore Rising, written by artist Ben Edge. He is renowned for painting old, mostly pagan, festivals and mysterious sites such as Callanish, Wayland’s Smithy and Stonehenge. His vibrant paintings are reproduced in the book, along with text about his feelings and experiences in these places and as an eyewitness to the old rituals.
Lughnasadh is both the height of the summer and the turning of the summer. We remember dreamy days and dips in the stream under the shade. No matter how old we are now, we can still go out onto the land and forget everything that weighs us down. I always recall the old song John Barleycorn. He is a ritual figure who is sacrificed to ensure a good harvest and who rises again in the following year. The barley makes bread and beer and the two processes are closely related. John Barleycorn is often represented as a corn dolly and perhaps this season – if we have the skill – we ourselves can make corn dollies and be grateful and mindful of what we have, and be aware of the death that will always follow. The wonderful thing though is that life always returns.
This blog was written by Adam Gordon, Cygnus Magazine Editor, Watkins Commissioning Editor and Watkins Media Office Manager.
The four biggest festivals according to the old way of marking the year’s cycle are the two solstices and the two equinoxes. The longest day, the shortest day, and the two days when light and dark are in balance. These are the ancient ways of marking in time; “here we are – we have got here again.” After that, people of the past could break down the gaps between these greater markers in less grand ways, by counting the days for example, and thus create a calendar.
The great stone circles and the ancient monuments on these islands, and elsewhere in the world, were to varying degrees built to help us know when these crucial moments were coming and to celebrate them by orchestrating a grand luminous spectacle when the sun would touch a certain part of the structure. They would also of course provide spaces in which people could gather and enjoy the moment communally. Stonehenge in England seems to have had many functions over the centuries but among those are marking the two solstices, while Newgrange in Ireland, for example, seems more specifically to mark the winter one.
People still gather in these places on these festivals, and they can remind us of the heritage of the people who lived here before us and their technological skills. On this summer solstice we can remember the land and the sky where they celebrated, even if in our cities we can’t see that backdrop so clearly. There is more light today than on any other day of the year, and we can bathe ourselves in it as much as we can and perhaps even give thanks to the sun for creating and sustaining life here. People in other times and cultures have seen the sun as a conscious being or a god and it never does harm to show gratitude.
The summer solstice is a time for seeing the bigger picture. The world isn’t all about our social networks and our possessions. For all the interventions of big corporations and aggressive regimes, the sun is easily the most important thing in this whole solar system and life can’t exist without it. Let’s celebrate that.
This blog was written by Adam Gordon, Cygnus Magazine Editor, Watkins Commissioning Editor and Watkins Media Office Manager.
It’s the witching season and what better time to build a practice that looks, sounds and feels like your very own psyche?
Whether you’re an experienced witch or on the cusp of crafting your own spiritual practice, it can be a difficult descision to share your spiritual path publicly. In this extract from Rebel Witch, Kelly-Ann Maddox talks about ‘coming out of the broom closet’ and shares some questions to ask yourself before you do so.
How important is it to be “out and proud” about your witchy practice? There’s no right answer!
Every witch must explore this question for themselves, and for some it’s an essential part of the journey. Keeping such a significant spiritual path a secret feels weird and wonky for many witches. It can feel better to be transparent about spiritual beliefs. The whole process of publicly owning your witchy identity can be electrifying! Whether you’re just telling a handful of key loved ones or starting social media platforms to invite the world into your practice, revealing that you’re into the craft is a way of affirming your commitment to it. It often takes courage and confidence to step out of the broom closet, making it a meaningful rite of passage that demonstrates your sincerity. If you want to come out as a witch, you could start by speaking to one key person in your life about the ideas and practices you’re exploring. See how that conversation goes and lean into what you think should happen next.
Then, you might feel like doing any of the following:
• Tell more people.
• Start expressing your witchy identity through your clothing and accessories.
• Have an altar space and/or some witchy imagery on display in your home.
• Leave witchy resources on your bookshelves.
• Post something about the craft on social media.
• Join a witchy discussion group on social media and/or follow witchy hashtags.
• Attend a relevant local event, such as a mind-body-spirit festival or a witchy gathering.
• Bring your spiritual beliefs/practices up in a conversation.
For others, stepping out of the broom closet could be highly disruptive and even unsafe. The stakes may be too high for witches from deeply religious households or conservative communities, so in order to protect themselves, they may have to keep their practice clandestine. They might emerge from the closet to only a handful of people, asking them to keep the information private so that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Let’s face it, being able to open up to everyone in your life without any fear of reprisal is a massive stroke of good luck and not every witch finds themselves blessed in that way.
Having to keep a lid on your practice doesn’t make you a less efficient or legitimate witch. In fact, incubating your practice and its processes in secrecy can be beneficial. Sometimes, telling too many people what you’re doing risks encouraging their interference, or you might end up thinking overtime about how others perceive your path rather than focusing on what you need from it. Don’t convince yourself that you should be out and proud about your witchiness. If you’re the only one who knows about your path, then it’s often easier to experiment and explore, knowing that you don’t need to explain or justify anything. For some witches, stepping out of the broom closet would certainly incur a gigantic amount of judgement or a shit-ton of questions. So take all this into account before you decide how open you want to be.
You might want to ask yourself the following questions:
• Who do I want to tell and why?
• How do I imagine/hope that leaving the broom closet will turn out?
• What would the worst outcome be and how would I react?
• What are the potential positive long-term effects of coming out as a witch?
• What are the potential negative long-term effects of coming out as a witch?
• Why is it important to recognize that I’m not obliged to leave the broom closet?
• How can I ensure that I still value my practice even if I don’t leave the broom closet?
Don’t pressure yourself to leave the safe confines of the broom closet too soon. If you’re a brand-new witch, you’re about to learn what it’s like to be giddy about all the discoveries and experiences you’re enjoying, and you might want to bubble over like a cauldron full of fizz! It’s natural to want to share the stuff that’s putting a spring in your step, but all that enthusiasm can also make for poor judgement. You don’t want to end up wishing you’d kept quiet. If you fall in love with the witchy life, you’ll likely live it for many moons to come, so there’s no hurry to let people know straight away. Take your time and let yourself figure out the parameters of openness at a sensible pace.
Of course, we don’t just leave the broom closet once – we leave it many times throughout our lives. You might be a seasoned practitioner, well known among family and friends for your magickal antics, and yet you’ll still experience interactions that cause you to weigh up the pros and cons of openness. Maybe your instinct will tell you that you’re not in witch-friendly territory and you’ll refrain from mentioning it in the context of a conversation about spiritual beliefs. Perhaps you’ll want to wait a while before telling a new friend or colleague. Maybe you’ll keep a separate social media account for the more in-depth spiritual stuff so you feel you can really let loose without certain sets of prying eyes to worry about. Whatever you decide, it’s all about honouring your individual needs so that your practice can flourish without finding yourself in a pickle. No one is owed access to your spiritual journey. It certainly doesn’t have to be a matter of public record and you’re within your rights to calculate risk before letting the black cat out of the bag!
A truly contemporary take on how to be a witch, Rebel Witch is an antidote to the cookie-cutter witchcraft agenda that gives a new perspective on the craft, asking each reader to create a powerful, personalized practice that taps into the current mood of female empowerment and spiritual rebellion.
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