Hannah playing green lady.

Sarah at One Starry Night asks:

How did you start on your pagan path? Do you teach your children your beliefs?
Good question Sarah!  When I was oh, around 13 or so, I was really into reading occult and horror fiction and I thought I would rebel (and scare my grandma, who I lived with) by calling myself a WITCH. I brought home some tarot cards and brazenly asked my grandma if she would like a “reading”.  I had no idea what I was doing- I had just bought the darn things- and I spent an inordinate amount of time peering at the microscopic letters in the teeny little book, flipping pages and trying to figure out what each card meant…  She trumped my rebellious witchery by declaring it “cool”.

Huh-rumph.

But… My friends thought it was cool so I stuck with it.  We would do little circles and dabble with crystals and spells, and at one point broke out my dad’s old Ouija board.  That was terrifically scary.  But super fun.  To this day I am not sure which of them was moving the planchette.  Heather? Amanda? April? I have no idea.  But it was SCARY.

I continued to read and read and read throughout my teens, and I soon discovered that not only was witchcraft this uber-cool thing, it also had some religious stuff tied to it.  And that was when I discovered Wicca.  When Hannah was a baby I moved into a little apartment above a flower shop in Pawtucket.  The woman that lived next door was very nice, and I loved hanging out and talking to her.  One day when we were sitting in her living room, I noticed that I had read most of the books on her bookshelves.  Witchy books- she later told me she was a high priestess.  We started talking about wicca and magick, and eventually began to do our circles together and eventually she helped me with my dedication ceremony.  It wasn’t into a coven or anything like that.  It was just me formerly declaring to myself, to the Gods, that this is what I was.

A witch.

I used to worry about how to label myself.  We witchy people seem to adore labels!  Celtic, Green, Druidic, Strega, Asatru, Hellenic, Wiccan, Egyptian, it goes on and on!  At first I decided to call myself an “eclectic witch”.  It just made sense to take this and that and meld it together into something that felt right to me.

In 2002 I discovered a book called A Kitchen Witch’s Cookbook.  And I fell in love with what I read.

Ever since then I have called myself a kitchen witch.  My kitchen witchery focuses on hearth and home.  It deals with the everyday magick involved in caring for your loved ones.  The magick in making a home, in keeping your family healthy and safe.  Part of that deals with making yummy food, baking, crafting-that sort of thing.

It involves herbal lore.  I love learning what is used for what.

My “magick”  is more of a nurturing magick, and in my opinion, that is closer to the old ways-and the way witches really lived- and I’d rather have that than know all there is to know about each and every pantheon and who was the God of hair-dos.

My kids are being raised plain old “pagan”.  They learn about the gods, the earth and sky, the plants and animals and people.  We sing songs and tell stories and grow things in the soft dirt of our gardens.  We use Circle Round often- it is our favorite book, and it is worn and torn up and missing the covers after so many years of love.

When they are grown up they can be whoever they want, follow whatever path feels right to them.  But in the meantime we will teach them to love this earth we call mother, and help them to grow and be respectful and kind people.

It amazes me what beautiful things my husband can find at a highway truck stop.

A Guest Post from My Daughter Hannah.

Yesterday the family and I went for a walk on the bike path behind our house. When we were getting ready, we did NOT expect it to be so hot. It was definitely August weather and temperature!  When we started our walk we had a goal: we were going to walk to the graveyard down the street from us. It was pretty far, a two mile walk, and we didn’t think we would get that far. I really wanted to get there because I LOVE cemeteries.

When I was little Mom and I would have picnics in graveyards.

Anywho, we got on the bike path on the side that goes over the river, and as we started the kids were happy pointing out all the little animals.  As it got hotter we had to take more breaks, and we all got a lot of sun! Once we were on the bridge, Patrick and Willow had to stop and watch the water. The sunshine on the water shone like diamonds, and you could see the pebbles and weeds on the river bottom.

When we finally got to the graveyard we drank all the lemonade, because we were really tired. We found a huge spider and LOTS of daddy-long-leg “spiders”.

We stayed for a while before heading home.

Willow was lucky, she got to ride in the stroller most of the way there.

She took turns with Patrick, but he walked more.

Patrick taking a break in the double stroller.

Cooper wandered around a lot.  He liked drinking lemonade and collecting pebbles.

He kept trying to eat the pebbles.

The walk home was easier in some ways and harder in others. It was easier because we were going downhill and the sun was behind us, but harder because every one was exhausted and hot. Everyone was getting cranky and there wasn’t much shade because the sun had moved past the trees.  My mom was so tired from pushing the stroller both ways so at the end I had to push the stroller up the hill to our house. When we got home we drank tall glasses of cold water and watched T.V.

I was so proud, because we had walked four miles in all!

Momma adds:

I feel the need to clarify.  When I take my kids to a graveyard we do not go to the new areas, or even modern graveyards in general. We go to the old, neglected areas with stones toppling over and nary a flower to be seen. Just moss and leaves and sometimes tall grass. You wouldn’t see us camped out next to someone’s freshly laid out relative.

(For example- This little one we found was in the back corner- the newest date was 1957 and it no longer had access except via the bike path as the road leading to the rest of the cemetery was blocked off by brambles and underbrush.)

You would, however, see us weeding and tending to stones of people gone for a century or more. We are very respectful. We never leave garbage or trash laying about, and we not only pick up after ourselves but others who don’t care as much. We do not yell and run around, we do not climb on stones, we sit quietly and talk, and sometimes explore and see what interesting bugs or stones we can find. It is a peaceful place to be- that is why we like it.