WildWitch – A Love Song to the Land

After many little trips away from home in 2015, I am reminded how easy it is to get from here to there. Perhaps it is possible to have both: to revel and rebel in the urban spaces that glitter with grit and electricity, and to rest, write, rejuvenate, and root in the wilds that entwine my heartblood.

This country Witch is still in love with these backwoods byways. The dripping green of it all. The vast and lovely quiet. The wild shoots springing forth in the greenway outside my window.

Out here, echoes of maenads ring from ancient memory: we are uncouth poets who grew up on Greek. Wild, tempests and torrents, our hair with branches tangled in, dirt and leaves as garments, clambering for highest peaks. Raise the horn and call on patron gods, “Here, Beloved. I am here!” Mud, blood, tears, and spit all serve as offering.

When feeling broken open we sing and laugh and wail with the wind. Ritual of ancient times rooted in mitochondria: no circle cast, this whole Earth a sacred space. Unmediated elemental buffeting; earth and air and water and fire call us to presence.

Come to the end of this remote and winding way. Nestled into a forested hill, this home. This roof a carapice. Legs are roots grown into loamy soil. Feet tangle while walking away: like the daughters of water, only my habitat is soil. In the there, raw, bare feet mince on concrete. Clothing rubs rough against oft skyclad skin.

Even in excitement, pain. A savage daughter wandering the unaccustomed earth. The stories of children raised by wolves are true.

Here, the expansive quiet of a rainy day, drops muffling every solitary sound, holds safe my tender heart.

While city dreams beckon from time to time, city whispers truly feel like siren cries (I on a ship with wax-stopped ears, yet still the beckoning pulls), and siren wails (and I miss the quiet even after a couple of days). There is a phantom oasis, a mirage, when I find myself thirsty in an imagined desolation.

This heart is not built for four solid walls, shutters, iron grates. This heart is not built for every sad song and broken dream echoing off chambers. This heart is not built for electric nights.

Here it is raining, and with the Earth I am renewed. All is clean and quiet, rain diamonds sparkle in dim light on needles of comforting firs.

For the foreseeable future, I’ll be out here in the wilds, hair wet and feet reveling in cold mud.

Holler if you need me.