*Silver RavenWolf*
is perhaps best known as one of the most widely published authors of her time, including bestsellers like Solitary Witch and Teen Witch. Artist, photographer, and Internet entrepreneur, she also heads the Black Forest Clan, a Wiccan organization that consists of 58 covens in 29 states and 3 international groups. Wife of 28 years, mother of 4 grown children, and grandmother, Silver has been interviewed by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, US News & World Report, and A&E Biography. Visit her at silverravenwolf.com!
Llewellyn Publications
Woodbury, Minnesota
Copyright Information
HedgeWitch: Spells, Crafts & Rituals for Natural Magick © 2008 by Silver RavenWolf.
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First e-book edition © 2011
E-book ISBN: 9780738722092
Book design and editing by Rebecca Zins
Cover design by Kevin R. Brown
Owl photograph on page 113 by John R. Wells
Papers on opposite page and xiv, 42, 113, 223, 229, 250, and 266 by Debra Glanz, Reminiscence Papers
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Contents
Introduction: The Magickal Garden of Your Mind
Section 1 – Nature: Your Connection to the Source
The Frequency of All Good Things
Section 2 – Thirteen Rites: Guide for Personal Transformation
The HedgeWitch Guide to Personal Empowerment
Section 3 – Rite of Passage: The Fourteenth Ceremony
The HedgeWitch Dedication Ritual
Section 4 – Love, Health & Beauty: Tips, Formulas & Techniques
HedgeWitchery Within and Without
Section 5 – Hearth, Home & Garden: Tips, Formulas & Techniques
HedgeWitchery in Daily Life
Summary
Recommended Reading
Appendix 1: Your Garden Journal
Appendix 2: How to Make Florida Water
Appendix 3: HedgeWitch Haggling
Appendix 4: HedgeWitch Fast Herbal Reference
Appendix 5: HedgeWitch Meditation for Manifestation and Problem Solving
Introduction
The Magickal Garden of Your Mind
Deep in the forest glen of your mind, where the shadows never quite release the world, sits the ancient establishment of the HedgeWitch Academy. A learning center for young and old alike, this edifice of enchanted scholarship welcomes anyone truly magickal at heart who desires to improve the quality of their being. Here, students harmonize with the world of nature, learn powerful potions for self-improvement, and brew within themselves the enigma of the treasures of earth, water, and sky. For years, the outside world saw only a glimpse of these natural empowerment tools—an awareness that has always undulated in the secret world of Witchcraft. Indeed, the workings of the HedgeWitch through various cultures and thousands of years have become legend … and with these easy lessons, formulas, magickal tips, and the inspiring dedication ceremony provided here, you can be one, too!
Relax, take a deep breath, and smile. Success begins with joy!
Nature acts as a secret shifter, gently filling us with the power to change our circumstances whenever we choose. Interacting with Her allows us to switch mental gears in an instant, helping us to overcome boredom, fear, depression, anger, frustration, sadness, and a host of other negative emotions that sap our personal well-being and block our pathway to success. Accessing Nature can immediately place us in the still point of balance—that moment of pure potential that can open our minds to the attractive power of the universe and bring us all that we desire.
To see what I mean, go outside and put your hands in the dirt. Yep! March out there right now and take the first step toward HedgeWitchery! As you place your hands on the ground, feel your deep, primordial connection with the life force of our planet. Close your eyes … dig in your fingers … and open your heart and mind as you inhale the heady aroma of earth’s sweet fragrance. Breathe deeply, and welcome the peace. Accept the balance of Mother Nature with joy! Allow the source of all things to course in, around, and through you.
Shift into the connection! Be One … there is no other experience like it.
Now, think of the most beautiful garden you have ever seen. Drink in the memory of the lushness, color, peace, and abundant wealth of that sacred space. We’re going to change our lives to be like that gorgeous garden, and we are going to do it in just two short weeks. Granted, we’ll have to continue to tend our new lives (maintenance is a must), but, by using the HedgeWitchery techniques I’ve developed, we’re going to make marvelous changes in a limited amount of time. How do I know this? Because I did it—and if I can do it, you absolutely can, too!
Using the material in this book, it took me just two short weeks to totally alter many things in my life and bring me peace, harmony, good fortune, healing, and much more. By continuing the practice of working with the abundance of the earth’s energy, over the following weeks and months I noticed positive shifts in my personality and my ability to deal with day-to-day stresses. My relationships with my family improved, and interactions with friends and acquaintances that weren’t healthy for me or my family dissolved quickly, leaving a wake of calmness and well-being. I found myself in a more serene state on a more frequent basis, at ease with the world around me much of the time. I was able to sit back and enjoy life rather than running full-tilt into walls I’d built myself over the last several years. I began making major renovations to my property. I built an herb garden, a toad house, and a butterfly haven. I literally tore down buildings to make way for continued improvements—lugging, hauling, and sweating with the best of them—and it felt good! As these projects slowly took shape and came to fruition, my life blossomed as well. I shed those wintery pounds, my complexion improved, and I held a more healthy attitude toward my body and my diet. By harvest time, I’d learned a wealth of information on organic gardening, put it into practice, and celebrated the change of season with bounty from the earth as well as enjoying the mental and spiritual fruits of living “in” Nature rather than viewing Her from a distance.
You see, it’s all a matter of choice (yours) and belief (your own) that will provide the opportunities you desire. If you expect the worst, t
hat’s precisely what you will receive. If, instead, you seek to raise your mental vibrations and incorporate fun physical activities to match happy, life-affirming goals, then you will reap the rewards of positive living and thinking. You are the most powerful catalyst in the alteration of your own life—and we’re going to prove it with the loving assistance of Mother Nature. I did it. You can, too!
How to Use This Book
Section 1 discusses the mental aspects of this course and provides the basic building blocks of HedgeWitchery thought. Here you will learn how to formulate your thoughts and words to receive the most benefit from your training.
The core of the HedgeWitchery material lies in Sections 2 and 3: the fourteen-day, hands-on guide for transformation and change that culminates with a dedication ceremony performed by you to spiritually affirm your new choices in life. (The dedication ceremony is in Section 3.) Each day you will interact with a different aspect of earth, water, or sky energy that represents the totality of the Earth Mother and your renewed connection to the spiritual source you choose. You can work through the guide in two weeks’ time, or you can spend a week on each aspect, or perhaps extra days on a formula that you particularly like. You are not required to rush through the guide, and it will work best for you if you utilize the material at a pace that is comfortable to you. I purposefully designed the material so that it lends itself well to group work—perhaps your circle of personal friends, your magickal family, or a course given through a magickal shop. In my experience, using the two-week process aids in making fast, major changes in your life. Using the fourteen-week process helps you to hold on to those changes and balance out your life for an entire season or more. You can return to the material at any time to reestablish any connection, strengthen your abilities, or enjoy new, creative aspects in your life. You can even make an annual or biannual practice of working through the various patterns offered here, or as a life situation requires. In 2008, I redid the entire fourteen-day process in April as an annual ritual. You can, too!
Sections 4 and 5 of this book contain helpful hints, recipes, tips, and formulas for living the HedgeWitchery life each and every day. From candle making to crafting your own beauty supplies, household cleansers, and magickal ink, to growing and harvesting herbs, there are plenty of ideas to help you master your own version of HedgeWitchery magick! Taking into consideration the fast pace of your life and perhaps limited resources or time, HedgeWitchery celebrates the minimal and encourages you to enhance your day-to-day experience through interaction with Mother Nature. Just being with Her, recognizing Her power, and allowing Her to enter the core of your inner self will help bring the most dynamic, dramatic changes into your life in a very short period of time. Feel free to use the ideas in Sections 4 and 5 as you work through Sections 2 and 3.
I designed the art and science of HedgeWitchery in concert with my own outdoor projects; however, you do not need to plant a large garden, own a plot of land, or invest an extreme amount of money to reap the benefits of the process. You can easily visit Mother Nature every day by simply stepping outside.
Celebrating Your Personal Environment
Live your own wheel of the year as you feel most comfortable and secure. I have been writing spiritual books for many years, and my work is read all over the world, which means your climate and environment may be very different from mine. Although I built the HedgeWitchery concept here in south central Pennsylvania, you are not confined to my climate, seasons, plant or herbal choices, or spiritual beliefs. In this material, substitutions are expected and encouraged. For example, if a cleansing recipe calls for lemon balm herb and you haven’t grown it yourself or can’t easily obtain it, choose something similar that has the same type of properties. Let’s say you live in a country where lemons are commonly used in your cleansing formulas—then choose lemons instead. For substitutions in any food recipe (like the magickal vinegars), take care that your substitutions are not poisonous. The best way to do this is to check out the herbs at your nearest grocer or open-air market. Remember, magick is all about the mind and your connection to the source; everything else is secondary. View HedgeWitchery as a framework from which to grow your own glorious garden of life.
Take a moment to visualize the massive gates of the HedgeWitch Academy swinging open for you. Breathe deeply, and step inside. The art of HedgeWitchery is only a page turn away!
[contents]
section
The Frequency of
All Good Things
Consider your life as a fertile patch of ground, ready for planting your personal garden of potential. Take a few moments, and think of what you’d like to grow there. Success? Good health? Financial gain? Happiness in relationships? All of what I’ve just listed and more? Every moment of your life is that fertile piece of ground, capable of producing exactly what you desire. Now let’s grow it!
Your Key to the Universe
Whether you are trying to raise a successful business, manifest healing in your life, find a loving partner (or pet), buy a new house, or have a better relationship with a specific person, the starting point of change is always the same: connecting to the source of all things. You need that moment of focused quiet where you acknowledge the pure power of All That Is—and in that connection, anything, I mean anything, becomes possible. Getting there is as simple as shifting your weight from one foot to the other. Defining “it”? That truly depends on what you believe. The interesting thing about this engine of the universe is that you don’t have to understand what makes it tick to use it, nor is it ego-defined. There’s no such thing as a secret pass for the select few. In the practice of HedgeWitchery, the power just “is”—and everyone has access to it. All you have to do is shift your mind from here to the source, and in one breath you can move right into the heart and soul of the power of manifestation. From there, all things are possible. Believing in “it” isn’t hard. Getting to “it” isn’t difficult. The trick? Remembering to go there in the first place! Once you acknowledge that you must connect to your concept of Spirit to succeed, nothing can stop you.
How do you start using the amazing power of All That Is? With a smile.
Many times, we are so busy, frustrated, angry, hurt, depressed, irritated (you name it) we forget that a brief shift into the source will allow us the opportunity to fix our unhappiness, solve a problem, or provide just the right creative idea we need at a particular point in time. We let the outside world and our reactive thoughts so thoroughly inundate the situation that getting what we truly desire seems almost impossible. A simple smile functions as a magick key, because although we may be serious, the source isn’t. The source is pure joy. Your smile shifts your energy vibrations from impotent to empowered!
Try it! Close your eyes and take a deep breath, exhaling slowly. Give your mind a little time to settle into the source. Now smile! Doesn’t that feel great? Oh. You don’t feel like smiling? Give it a try, anyway! No, you don’t have to be happy to smile. Just do it. You want your smile to be genuine? Okay. Think of something wonderful that has happened to you in the past, something good, something marvelous. Is that a smile I see? Is it? Yes, it is! Now, see how wonderful you can feel when you smile? And when we feel wonderful, we increase our ability to reach our desires, find peace, and maintain happiness.
Hey, not bad for a simple muscle movement.
Time to practice smiling! For the next two weeks, throughout your daily tasks, remember to smile! If you think of a pleasant memory, go ahead and smile. If you see something that amuses you, don’t keep a deadpan expression—smile! If you hear something funny or are enjoying a good conversation, be sure to pepper the moment and smile, smile, smile! Allowing yourself to smile puts you in a much better emotional place. Too many smiles will never hurt you—they’ll only make your life better! To remind yourself to practice smiling, why not carry a special key in your pocket, on your key ring, attached to your purse, or dangle a ke
y charm on your iPod or cell. Spend some time choosing your special key, or just begin collecting keys as a constant reminder that to accomplish anything, we must unlock the door to our connection with the source.
As a HedgeWitch, you’re going to learn to smile a heck of a lot! Now that we have our very own magick key (the smile that connects us to the source), we need to learn how to communicate with the source so that we can use this unlimited power to the best of our advantage.
The Language of HedgeWitchery—
The Primordial Universe
Have you ever visited a foreign country where you didn’t understand the language? Everything seems so strange, doesn’t it? Billboards in unintelligible, bright symbols. Whispers, screeches, and varied notes of sound emanating from the lips of strangely dressed people. Books and newspapers that look more like decorative art than a vehicle of direct communication. You seem to float in the world—but, at the same time, you can’t quite seem to interact in it. Perhaps you can understand some of what is being said by observing gestures, facial expressions, and mannerisms, but the waiter could be telling you the special today is dog poop with a smile on his face, and how would you know? (Hey, it happened to me.)
Before we dive deeply into HedgeWitchery, we have to acknowledge a vital and important secret about the magickal universe—its language base isn’t English, Chinese, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Cherokee, or Swahili, or any of the others as we understand them. Throw grammar and sentence structure out the window. The universe does not acknowledge big words, flowery prose, or disclaimers. The source operates primordially: noun/verb. It does not understand the words no, don’t, maybe, possibly, might, not, etc. And the universe is not about creating lack, it is all about attracting abundance … of anything.
For example, let’s say you visit your mother every Thursday night, and she always makes chicken. You’ve politely mentioned that you love her beef stroganoff, and maybe next time she might make that? Chicken, however, always takes the day. You’ve even tried bringing dinner or suggesting you’ll make it this time, but somehow or other, Mother always makes chicken. Indeed, you’ve become really focused on how you don’t want chicken—and that’s the problem. The universe processes only chicken. The universe doesn’t understand the contraction don’t. It just hears I blah-blah-blah want chicken, which translates to I want chicken. Except you don’t, do you?
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