Rae Beth - The Green Hedge Witch

The Green Hedge Witch

A Guide to Wild Magic

RAE BETH

Illustrated by Jan Nesbitt

ROBERT HALE

First published in 2008 by Robert Hale, an imprint of

The Crowood Press Ltd, Ramsbury,

Marlborough Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2018

Paperback edition 2018

Rae Beth 2008

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 71982 646 7

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

CONTENTS

The Green Hedge Witch

By the same author

Hedge Witch

Lamp of the Goddess (formerly published as Reincarnation and the Dark Goddess)

Hedge Witchs Way

Spellcraft for Hedge Witches

The Nine Magical Ways

The Way into Faerie

Acknowledgements

The people who have helped to make this book appear are really too numerous to mention, but Id like especially to thank: John Hale, Helen and Harry Knibb, Jan Nesbitt, Alan and Pauline Royce of Glastonbury and, last but not least, my husband and magical partner, Ashley Pascoe.

This is dedicated to my children,

Emily LeQuesne and Liam Austin

Chapter 1

Crossing the Boundaries

I am a caster of spells using natural magic and I do healing work with the elves. This is a book for budding spell-casters and for experienced workers as well about some ways we can each help and heal at this time of environmental crisis a subject about which elves are passionate! Some of the methods described are quite complex. But if you are a complete beginner you can make powerful magic with elves straightaway by choosing the more simple techniques from amongst what follows and applying them in the ways that suit you best. (It is not always the most technically knowledgeable who are most effective. Rather, it is those whose work is heartfelt.)

Help heal the natural world? I hear some people say. Isnt that rather presumptuous? Isnt it people and their attitudes that really need healing? And what can little hedge witches do?

It is true that Mother Earth doesnt need our help if she is to survive. She will do that, anyway. And I dont foresee doom and gloom for this world on a grand scale. Life will go on. But the writing is on the wall for the human relationship with the rest of the natural world. We cannot go on like this chopping down rainforests, abusing Earths resources, polluting land and sea. The biosphere will break down if we dont change our ways. And as a hedge witch who is leading a human life, I feel that I must take some responsibility. I must do what I can to help initiate a healing change, using my psychic and magical healing skills.

I am not alone. There are many who feel this way.

If the worst should come to the worst, the biosphere would repair anyway eventually. Mother Earth is creative and innovative. Her spirit is life in evolution. There will be new plants and creatures, whatever happens. Since I believe in reincarnation, I also feel there will be many more lives here future lives for such as we, humans (and elves and all kinds of creatures) trying to learn how to live more wisely. However, I dont foresee the worst happening. In any case and whatever happens, we shall all survive as a part of the whole. After all, we are each a part of the same indestructible, infinite, multi-dimensional universe. Each of us, like the earth, the trees, the creatures, is made of stardust. The question is not whether we will be, but what we will be. And for how long? The same goes for plants, other creatures and places.

That particular tree you pass each day on your walk through town, will that be ruthlessly, pointlessly chopped down? Will your or my local forest survive for a while longer? Or will it be sacrificed to development? Will skylarks become a thing of the past? Will New York, Rio de Janeiro, London, Amsterdam, Alexandria all drown, together with many other places? Its looking like a possibility, scientists tell us.

How big a spell would it take to save all we love in its present form? A spell with a big enough amount of love in it, that may be the answer. (And many people feel that much love for the natural world, as do the elves and all kinds of creatures. So I am cautiously optimistic.)

By ourselves, we can each only do our bit. And that is what this book is all about really, the spells and rites we can do regularly. And which might add up, in the end, collectively, to something thats rather big.

From every faith and culture all around the world, very many people are now casting healing spells, saying prayers, enacting rituals to try to help and heal nature and remake the human relationship with all the natural world. Perhaps you are already joining in or would like to do so. If that is the case, I hope you will find many useful ideas within this book. What you will not find is some kind of cult or a dogmatic religion. You can do this kind of magical healing work (or add some of it to what you already do) whatever else you do or do not believe.

There are two main themes in the following text. The first is the making of a good new relationship with elves those spirit presences who dwell in or can be psychically contacted through nature. The elves are not actually nature spirits in the same way that the spirit of an animal species or a living tree (or a living human come to that) is such a thing. Instead, they are dwellers within what is called the Otherworld, an umbrella term for subtle parallel dimensions of the Earth. These beings, known usually as elves or faeries of various kinds, have had a long relationship with human beings. In the Pagan era they were welcomed and their blessing was often sought upon crops and livestock and human affairs. More recently, they have been shunned and feared and then, more recently still, ridiculed, belief in them relegated to matters for children. But they are still there.

Sometimes, in folklore, they have been known for strong aggression towards humans who cut down trees wantonly or who block the faerie paths with buildings. (These paths may be what we know now as leys or ley-lines, Earths bio-electrical meridians.) Elves and faeries dislike people who cause offence against nature. They are said, in some cases, to curse the offenders with much bad luck or to fire faerie arrows, known as elf-shot which bring diseases.

Is this all real let alone moral? Our ancestors seem to have thought so. My own elven teachers, however, do not advocate the bringing down of curses or firing of elf-shot at anybody. Neither they nor I believe that it has any connection with any true healing. With warfare, yes, but I am no psychic warrior. And I certainly dont think the Earth needs another war of any kind. However, the point remains that a cruel or unhealthy relationship with nature must result in ill-luck or disease in the end, for everyone. (We already live in a world that is gradually being stripped of natural beauty. Without trees to shade and shield us, our crops and our animals from too much sun and wind, and, above all, to be the frame and roof beam for the natural world, how healthy or fortunate can anyone really be?)