To Fly By Night<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!William Butler Yeats,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/06\/to-fly-by-night.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"To Fly By Night\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!William Butler Yeats,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/06\/to-fly-by-night.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-01T22:33:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-ItIPEcFbmfI\/TecDh_FEH8I\/AAAAAAAAAmw\/oKDglQ6LdU8\/s320\/to+fly+by+night.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/06\/to-fly-by-night.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/06\/to-fly-by-night.html\",\"name\":\"To Fly By Night\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-06-01T22:33:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-06-01T22:33:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\"},\"description\":\"Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!William Butler Yeats,\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/06\/to-fly-by-night.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/06\/to-fly-by-night.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2011\/06\/to-fly-by-night.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"To Fly By Night\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"description\":\"Musings of a Druid, Pagan, and Unitarian Universalist.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"John Beckett\"},\"description\":\"I grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside my back door. 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Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!<\/i>
William Butler Yeats, quoted by Beth Hansen-Buth<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t read many \u201chow-to\u201d books anymore. I have maybe a dozen on my shelf \u2013 most of them were bought long ago. They were helpful when I first read them and I still refer to them occasionally. But it\u2019s rare when one of the many new how-to books covers material that wasn\u2019t covered quite well by one of those dozen I\u2019ve already got. <\/p>\n

To Fly By Night \u2013The Craft of the Hedgewitch<\/i><\/a> is one of those rare exceptions. It\u2019s not a \u201cWicca 101\u201d book \u2013 if I put it on a college scale it\u2019s probably 300-level material. It\u2019s not stuff you want to try when you\u2019re just starting out (if you\u2019re new to Paganism, witchcraft and magic, start here<\/a>). <\/p>\n

What is hedgewitchery? Why and how should we practice it? To Fly By Night<\/i> attempts to answer these questions, and does so with eighteen chapters by fifteen different writers. As you might imagine, with so many perspectives you get many very different answers \u2013 UUs should feel right at home!<\/p>\n

Hedgewitchery is heavy on magic and shamanism and light on religion. Several of the chapters cover actual historical practices. Some delve into myths and legends, including an excellent look at the origins of the Wild Hunt<\/a>. Still others describe how to \u201ccross the hedge\u201d and what you\u2019re likely to encounter if you do. Poetry and recipes serve as interludes. <\/p>\n

Not all the chapters are of equal value, and a couple left me scratching my head. But those are the exceptions \u2013 most are quite good.<\/p>\n

Juniper, of Walking the Hedge<\/a> blog and the garden section of Standing Stone and Garden Gate<\/a> podcast, has the first chapter, titled \u201cWhat the Heck is a Hedgewitch.\u201d She says \u201chedgewitches have less interest in the heavily scripted and ceremonial aspects of \u2026 modern Paganism and witchcraft\u201d and that \u201cfor the hedgewitch there is no separation between normal life and their magical one, for their normal life is magical.\u201d <\/p>\n

Sylva Markson says there are three reasons to cross the hedge: \u201cthe seeking of divine wisdom \u2026 interaction with the ancestors, the fae, and other spirits \u2026 and working in the Otherworld to manifest a material benefit in this world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Veronica Cummer (who also edited the book) details the importance of ecstatic dance, Jenne Micale describes the use of music to achieve altered states of consciousness, and Elige Stewart covers the classical instrument \/ tool of shamanism, the drum. <\/p>\n

To varying degrees, all the writers point out that crossing the hedge is not without risk and should only be attempted for a serious reason. No one goes into the Otherworld and comes out unchanged. Stewart warns readers to have a specific purpose for journeying, saying \u201cyou shouldn\u2019t treat the Otherworld as some mall that you can just go to and window shop when you have nothing better to do.\u201d And Cummer says \u201cit\u2019s not enough to be just a bit crazy around the edges if you\u2019re a hedgewitch; that crazy must always serve a purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll never be a hedgewitch. I\u2019m a Druid who loves ceremony and order. But even I occasionally have a need to cross the hedge, to part the veil, to journey to the Otherworld. I learned a lot from To Fly By Night<\/i> and I\u2019m already thinking of how to put that knowledge to good use\u2026<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"