Jennifer Lane - The Wheel: A Witchs Path Back to the Ancient Self

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First published in 2021 by September Publishing

Copyright Jennifer Lane 2021

The right of Jennifer Lane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holder

Wheel illustration on page xi by Leo Nickolls

Typeset by RefineCatch Limited. www.refinecatch.com

Printed in Denmark on paper from responsibly managed, sustainable sources by Nrhaven

ISBN 9781912836901

EPUB ISBN 9781912836925

September Publishing

www.septemberpublishing.org

To Em, Lottie and April my witchy sisters

Contents

[Magic] is something built into the universe. Hence, there is nothing really supernatural or supernormal, in the strict sense of the world. All is part of nature; but much of the realm of nature is occult, that is, hidden.

Doreen Valiente, Natural Magic , 1975

Though this is sometimes a lonely path, it leads to places of great beauty.

Rae Beth, Hedge Witch, 1990

Opening

31 October

Yarrow for vision, mugwort for foresight. Cerridwen, I am ready; show me your wisdom, show me what I must do.

My eyelids feel heavy with candle wax. The bathwater is up to my collarbones, spilling over the ridges to form soft, milky pools below my shoulders. In the low light, a drift of mist carries the scent of herbs and the bathroom tiles vibrate with the sound of my exhale until I am in an echo chamber of breath.

I really hope the cat doesnt come crashing in.

Trick or treaters muster in the darkened streets below me. In my minds eye, I watch their painted faces squeal and cackle under the street lamps. Their parents have worked so hard on the Dracula make-up and bumpy warts Hold still! Now, mums and dads stand a few paces away in their slippers planning to swipe a few Haribo when the kids are in bed. Once their buckets are filled, the children trundle off down the street to the next house like a troop of eerie orphans.

This is the usual way of Samhain night, Halloween; the night when the veil between our world and the spirit realms is at its thinnest. We pull ghoulish faces with the torchlight under our chins. We tell ghost stories under the covers. Children check under their beds more than once tonight. In Mexico, people are making their costumes for the Da de los Muertos , painting neon white skulls onto papier mch, ready to dance for their passed loved ones in a colourful carnival. Across the world, bouquets sit in the hallway, soon to make their way to the graveyard. We might have turned Halloween away from its more macabre traditions and into an orange-and-black plastic parade, but there is still a darkness to this time of year; one that witches revere.

All the witches are celebrating tonight.

In my ritual bath, I slip in and out of a meditative state. The candles flash shadows on my skin like I am a spectral being myself.

Samhain (pronounced SOW-in or SOW-een , with sow as in how ) is an ancient Celtic fire festival, a night when ghosts and goblins would roam the village in the flicker of the samhnagan or ceremonial bonfire. Quick, put a mirror in your window to ward off the demons; pile salt on your doorstep to keep the bogeys at bay! Fix a rowan branch across your latch to protect the house from evil witches. The shadowy things of this world and the next are out in their numbers, riding on a wave of power. On Samhain, the thrum of magick is in our fingertips.

But Samhain is more than just a chill down your spine.

This is the most important day of the Celtic calendar the witches New Year. It is the time when we all must turn inwards to face the darkness of the coming months where we will stay throughout winter until the green world is reborn in spring. Just as the Earth is closer to the sun on the summer solstice, Midsummers Day, so we are closest to the underworld on Halloween. Over many centuries, people have used this day to commune with spirits, goddesses and their ancestors, taking full advantage of the thin slip of fabric dividing the worlds to divine the future and get answers to lifes most difficult questions.

Right this second, modern Pagans and witches are raising their arms to the sky or sitting in quiet meditation engulfed by the flickering of the candle flame. We welcome in the Goddess of the colder months, the wizened crone of darkening days; the one who stirs her cauldron in the deep wildwood and has a voice that rasps from her throat like a slowly drawn match. She is Cerridwen, the Keeper of the Gate to the underworld; she is Grandmother Time with her smile that knows our past, present and what will come to pass. Her wisdom will keep us safe as we bury ourselves in the dark womb of winter. Tonight we raise our energies to the moon, to the Goddess and to the dead. Tonight, the world is preparing to be reborn.

But, right now in my bathwater, I feel like Im barely in this world. Im floating. The steamy mist, like glowing moonstone, is thick around my head. Tonight, I ask the Goddess to guide me, to show me what I must do next.

Cerridwen, the great Wheel turns and the year renews; show me your wisdom, show me what I must do.

I close my eyes and my perception shifts, as though my eyes have sunk back into the shadow of my skull. In a rush, I dream of the woods. Im soaring over the pine tops among an outcrop of startled crows, feeling the low cloud trail in my long hair. I dream of moss-heavy rocks, my feet skimming sticky ferns, and I see the grey-haired Goddess with her hand outstretched over her cauldron.

She is smiling at me.

Yule

Witchcraft, its been a while.

Over the past few years, witchcraft and I have drifted apart, like two weird childhood friends that always promised to live two doors down from one another until one family decided to up sticks and move to Skegness. We didnt have a falling out, no fights or pinching under the table; but my life took a different path for a little while, so witchcraft and I had a break.

Thrust into the adult world where I found myself as a copywriter, sub-editor and sometime librarian, things got a little busy. Most of my time was spent in offices with pipes that creaked and air con systems that sometimes gave up the ghost on the hottest day of the year. I was an employee now, reliant on showing up to my day job to afford my little rooms in city-centre flat shares. Evenings werent spent reading about ancient runes under the covers until after midnight as had been the case in my teenage years and early twenties; they were spent filling in job applications and scrubbing mysterious stains off the kitchen worktop. Things were a little less magical now.