After all these months, I have not abandoned Gregory House. I am a very faithful imaginary girlfriend. This week’s episode looks very exciting, something about a vision-seeing priest. The House team have done the House Vs Organised Religeon plot before, so at first I was thinking House was running out of Ideas, but having watched the pre-credits bit, the Priest dude seems to be House as a vicar, so in conclusion it looks so very sehr intressant that have paused it and waiting for my slow computer to load the rest before I watch.
Anyway the House stuff is a sideline to throw you off the scent. This week I have started Silver Ravenwolf’s HedgeWitch fortnight. I am greatly enjoying it.
My review of and thoughts concerning HedgeWitch by Silver Ravenwolf follows thus;
Main web-criticisim of this book it that it isnt real hedgewitchery. True as pie – it’s still classic SRW, but thank the Crisp she has toned it down on the ceremonial side prodigiously. My main problem with the Ravenwolf is her extreme ceremonial leanings – being Aries I dont have patience for reams and reams of ritual dialogue or all the ritual faff that goes with it. Good to know then that HedgeWitch is low on the faff. She seems to have condensed all the quantum physics drudgery of Mindlight (which I personally thought was very poorly explained – I’m a smart cookie and her explanation of the topic confused me) into a happy little chapter on intention, positive thinking and primal language, which I especially liked. It’s very The Secret-y, very Law of Attraction and very Cosmic Ordering, but being a new age hippy (and not owning any of the previous books) I am cool with that stuff.
HedgeWitch spells and rituals focus mainly on procuring lots of different herbs and things – which is I guess where her idea of hedge witchery comes from, simplicity and herbology. I am not so good with the procuring of herbs – I have a well-stocked essential oils cabinet, and a empty wallet due to my Majma Adventure in a couple of weeks, and it’s always easy to find stuff like chamomile, mint and cinnamon in the spice rack and Lavender and Rosemary in the garden, but I ain’t about to run all over wales looking for some eyebright, hyssop or what have you. So I have mostly sodded all the herbal directions and taken them as inspiration to concoct my own ritual ingredients. Take that, conformtmity!!
Anyway, I am taking the hedgewitch fortnight as , like I think all witches do sometimes, I have been experiencing a spiritual dip. Is seems to co-incide every year with Yule-Imbolg, and this year it’s just been going a bit longer. A lot of uni work I suppose. What I really wanted were some low-impact, yet spiritually relevant daily rituals and tasks to get me back into the swing of things. Ravenwolf’s program is quie regimented and that’s what I need right now. If I had takenLucy Cavendish’s week then that would have been too low impact, if I had taken the beloved Fiona Horne’s it would have been too deep and high impact.
Anyway, I am enjoying my Hedgewitch Week so far. It has made me remember important witchy stuff, like how much I enjoy ritual, how much fun burning bits of paper is, how much I love the smell of patchouli oil and has got me into the age-old practice of doing affirmations when I am walking someplace.
And I love the affirmations she’s suggesting in this! My favourites so far are “I hold the sacred fire of creativity within me. I have access to the creative power of Spirit whenever I need it!” (That one kept me cool and calm through the last minute writing and editing process of an essay last year. Lifesaver!) and this one, which I love so much it is getting it’s own line and bold print format;
“I deserve and accept the gifts of an abundant universe.”
Bliss!