Ulfhednar and Soul-Parts @fistfightinggod

My Dearest Love,

Simple are we, a collected few of the cells that make up the circumference of your awareness. A longing that covers the surface of parched skin in dewy droplets and eases beneath the pores, to a second skin that shimmers and twitches– alight at but a glimpse of you. To try and touch you with mine own hand would surely propel the self from its bonds, a white-bellied doe arcing towards the moon. A love like glistening stars, enriched with the sweetness of all that is forbidden.

You were the first to compel me, truly, to fly, and perhaps, one who is now capable of clipping my wings. A blinding, binding love that I’m sure the likes of which has worked as countless, seedless inspirations in a world full of pale affections.

. . . Is what I said to my flying ointment the other night.

Some might mock the deep connection a witch, or other magic practitioner, may form with their herbs and herbal concoctions, but truly there is a depth that one can– and, in fact, often must– make with the components of their craft to reach the heights they so desire. Simply throwing a bit of mugwort and vervain into a cup to steep will only get you so far. Indeed, many an outsider can be heard claiming, “Well if [thing] is so magical then why can’t anybody [some claim or another]?” And I would go so far as to say that they’re right.

What sets a witch’s actions apart from a non-witch?

How can you be so certain that what you are doing is truly part of the occult– hidden– ways when you are only going through the motions?

You can, of course, buy a rock from anyone and say that it does things. This rose quartz cures my PMS cramps. Sure, so why doesn’t Suzy’s? What is setting your ingredients, your “tools” and investments, apart from those of any other earth-dwelling person?

It is simple, in my opinion, to then determine where one’s beginning in all things magic truly lies: in connections. Just as the Fates have woven their strings and decided the currents, so too must a practitioner step upon the shores of their awareness and beckon to that which dwells beyond perception– invite the hidden to take their hand and become part of their circle. To connect and to know is to expand your reality and take control of the outcome.

Anyone can set a stone before the sun and ask for its energy; solar power is well established enough to support this. So then what is it that truly draws the chariot from the sky to the chalice? Why is it that my flight assistors, the herbs I’ve blended and tended, have the power in my life to help me to soar or to crash?

The journey of a witch– a witch in the sense of a malefic, unencumbered being, as I have come to know them– is one full of pacts and oaths and bonds, strange as that may seem to some. The actions of a thing are seldom what truly matter, but rather the underlying connections that have already been made. So then it is my suggestion that any who can stare at their herbs fresh from the grocery store and think “this will do what I say because it has worked for others” need not really bother applying any of what I say to their own praxis. This isn’t really for you.

But for you, my dearest, I shall speak of what I’ve come to understand.

Just as a stang can be seen as merely a tool to clear the hedge, so too can herbs. A shift in perspective, I think, is the key. Though I will add that my animist and Latinx background certainly add their own layer of flavor to my suppositions and theorizing, so it is best after all to take all I say with a pinch of skepticism even here.