On Being a Witch

What does it mean to be a witch?

It's a question worth pondering. Coming from my strict Catholic background, there is still a part of me that feels 'rebellious' when I call myself a witch. Like I'm playing a role or defying my elders. Perhaps this was true when I was a teenager, and first became interested in the occult. (Occult means 'hidden,' incidentally, and refers to the entire, vast array of secret and forbidden knowledge - alchemy, magic, spirits, tarot, and the like.)

Today I had a moment that made me smile and think, this is what makes me a witch.

Dig if you will this picture of a startled and stunned yellow finch. I have a large picture window in the living room, and birds fly into it pretty regularly. Most often I hear them bounce off and never see any further evidence. On one occasion I got out there in time to see a sparrow with a broken neck take its last breaths. I buried it in the back yard.

Today, it was this gorgeous yellow finch. He lay there in the grass in front of the planter, taking rapid little breaths. I helped him upright and took him into my palm for a while to calm down and get his bearings. He flared his wings once, shifted around, didn't seem to have any severe breaks or injuries, but was clearly quite traumatized and made no effort to escape.

For about twenty minutes, I just held him in my palm. Eventually he got his legs under him and perched on my finger. So thrilling! This beautiful bird watched me from his tiny black eye as I got him to move from one finger to another (avoiding poop successfully two out of three times it emerged), just hanging out there, getting his wind back. I petted him with one finger and talked to him while we sat on the stump in the middle of my yard, next to the finch sock full of thistle seeds that hangs off the cottonwood tree. Two of his friends kept coming by. (Friends or rivals? Who knows.)

This went on long enough that I got tired of petting a wild bird and needed to find a place to put him down. I set him down in a pot of violas by the front door, got him a tiny cup of sugar water, and let him be. He was pretty badly shaken up even then, and needed more time to get back to himself.

About twenty minutes later I checked on him. It startled him, and he flew over to the trellis, then took off across the street, out of sight. I hope he's truly okay and recovered.

This is not the first time I have recovered a stunned yellow finch.

About a dozen years ago, I was walking to work at 5:30 am when a little bird flying across the road ran smack into a car windshield. Fell to the pavement and lay there twitching. Beautiful yellow finch, exactly this one. Exactly as today, I picked him up and saw he was still alive and unbroken; I took him to work (my restaurant, a block away), set him outside in one of the whiskey barrels full of flowers out on the patio, and about an hour later he flew off, apparently none the worse for wear.

Being a pagan, being a witch, is all about the connection to nature. To the land, to the animals, to the waters. I believe that the love a person bears for the living things around her is sensed by flora and fauna alike. The bird was stunned, yes, but it trusted me, long after it had gotten its legs back under it and could have flown away. It knew I meant it no harm.

I'm the Snow White of the neighborhood. Squirrels, birds and rabbits frequent here. Neighborhood cats come and go. A few weeks ago, that little gray one took a dump in my vegetable garden not twenty minutes after I dug up the soil for spring. Looked right at me through the window while she did it, too. It was so funny I couldn't even be mad.

Over the last few years, working in the garden, I have lost all fear of spiders and bees - though wasps still make me a little uneasy. Last week, when I mowed for the first time, I startled a little garden snake. Tried to take a picture but by the time I got my phone from my pocket and found the camera app, it had disappeared. Quick little buggers.

To be a witch is not just to have this connection, but to recognize it, celebrate it, be empowered and overjoyed by it. I can scarcely describe the thrill I felt gazing into the tiny eye of a wild bird that looked at me in perfect trust as I stroked its feathers. The connection.

I was raised to believe in other gods, other ways of thinking about the world, but I was born with this sensibility.

It's a gift.

Cold Moon

It seems this is the first full moon to fall on Christmas since 1977. Can't see it tonight, unfortunately. It's been cloudy for most of the night here in my corner of Colorado.

Interestingly, I moved from Florida to Colorado in 1977. I'd just turned six, so I don't remember it.

It snowed today, a relatively rare white Christmas. Only an inch or two, but it was welcome all the same - there's something about the crisp cold air and a soft falling snow that just makes the holiday feel more...authentic.

I grew up Catholic, but I've been Pagan for many years now, and no longer celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. Nevertheless, the day holds a special place in my heart and memories, and I struggled for some years with the dilemma of whether or not I could continue to observe it. I've decided there's no reason why I can't embrace the turning of the wheel at Yule and still enjoy the spirit of goodwill of Christmas.

There's a thousand articles detailing all the ways Christmas was stolen from pagan traditions, etc., and I have no desire to beat that horse here. Rather, I'd like to think about what it means to observe traditions.

Yule  - the long dark night, followed by the promise of longer days - is one of my favorite days of the year. Near my house is a park with a lovely little square, marked by standing stones at the cardinal directions and the sunrise and sunsets of the solstices. The markers aren't perfectly aligned, but I appreciate the spirit of the thing. This is the philosophy I carry into much of my spirituality; the spirit in which a thing is intended.

The value of tradition is found in its connection to the past. Generation to generation, we pass on beliefs and behaviors with the intention of keeping our families connected across the span of time. It's a beautiful thing, mostly. It's the reason I still sing Christmas carols, even though I no longer believe in the stories they tell.

In my journey, I'm looking to create new traditions. I've been a haphazard practitioner of my faith up to now, and as we move into a new year, new resolutions, one of mine is to embrace spirituality on a daily basis. This blog is the beginning of that journey.

To be continued!