rise and root

***

~*~*~*~



The Flame Haired Solstice Dreamer

Cold winter brings the Everfrost and jewels every tree
In a forest new as birth and old as old can be
A flame~haired dreamer wanders there and shelters from the wind
And spins her dreams around the trees to break the ties that bind
She takes her thread and spins anew and how the Greenwood smiles
As she spins a spell for freedom and for her spirit Wylde

The dreamer finds an ancient oak and shelters in his lee
In a forest new as birth and old as old can be
Tis summer now and birdsong weaves its magick through her spells
And humming bees drum drowsily in the foxglove's bells
The dreamer sits beneath the oak with yarn upon her knee
And spins and knits and weaves her dreams and sets her spirit free

***
"When birds fall from the sky and the animals are dying, a new tribe of people...shall come unto the earth from many colors, classes, creeds, who by their actions and deeds shall make the earth green again. they will be known as the warriors of the Rainbow"

Hopi Prophecy

my path

*~i am a dreamer, a wisher, full of fanciful ideas and ideals...a lover of earth, sea and sky...an eclectic- hippie, grungy boho soul treading lightly on a pagan path...following the old pathways of my ancestors from the midst of an ancient forest~*

~so it tells you on my home page~

yes i am a dreamer and wisher, a person with all kinds of fancies, steering a path of unconventionality through the modern world i wish was far away. 

***
i have been a pagan for many, many years.
i was brought up having no contact with established religion, my dad did not believe in it and so i was not christened or sent to church.

instead i was taken on long walks through the forest where we would carefully lift fallen logs to see what could be found underneath, we would take home fallen branches and decorate the walls of our house with them~i would climb trees and eat things foraged from the woods and hedges.
he would take me out of school and we would take off either by car or motorbike and travel miles to visit out of the way museums, ancient hill forts, roman villas, art galleries.
holidays were taken in the autumn at deserted Devon beaches where i would run wild along the shore exploring the many rock pools.

i was left to grow wild and form my own ideas on everything around me

~*~*~*~

at first i didn't think my path was even a path, i believed, still believe, in the earth beneath my feet, the sun and moon that travel the sky above my head. i didn't know, like many others, that what i felt, what i was, had a name~it was just me and what i believed in.

slowly i became aware, from hours spent in bookshops and with increased access to the Internet, that what i was had a name.
this then caused me to slowly branch into specific paths, moving my spiritual journey forwards.

its been a very winding path taking me through wicca to celtic reconstructionist, druidry to hedge~witchery

~*~*~*~

like many other pagan paths~there is no dogma, no sacred texts, no single god or pantheon~it is a spiritual path rooted in nature which provides a way in which to reconnect with our ancestors, the cycles of life, the spirits of nature.

it can be said that wichcraft goes deep into our past, back to european neolithic cultures and the need of our ancestors to understand the world around them although the name would not have been there it is a living spiritual tradition, a native spirituality that grew during the Iron Age almost 3,000 years ago, out of an even earlier belief system.
it connects with other earth~ancestor traditions around the world~the Native American, the Maori, the Aboriginal.

'In the old days all our power came to us from the sacred hoopof the nation and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people flourished.
The flowering tree was the living center of the hoop and the circle of the four quarters nourished it. The east gave peace and light, the south gave warmth, the west gave rain and the north with its cold and mighty wind gave strength and endurance.
This knowledge came to us from the outer world with our religion'


Black Elk, Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux 1863-1950

i honour the ancestors~the ancestors are those in spirit, those of my bloodline as well as those who have lived and died within this ancient forest. my spiritual ancestry is also honoured in all those who have practised within the spiritual tradition.

for the sake of argument, i would call myself, if pressed(!) a polytheistic,animistic hedge~witch~believing in many gods and goddess's of the Celtic pantheon as well as a belief in deities existing within nature~within trees and streams...the genius loci.

*this is my path*



All things share the same breath~the beast, the tree, the man, the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.



Chief Seattle






Johney Gaul~1915

Johney Gaul~1915
1890-17 september 1918~France