WITCH HAZEL TIME

Witch Hazel blooming, as it does, at the stub of the year.

Here we are, almost to the parting of the veil. I already know it, because my dreams are full of people at a distance, some of them self-defined magical people, who are projecting themselves and their doings onto the astral plane. I've met my deceased sister-in-law Debra again, smiling in the middle of a circle of grieving woman friends. Their tears pay tribute to her staying-power, but also hold her in the white waiting room before the Great Elsewhere.

I've met the Old King in his house in the woods, surrounded by devotees and his ever-changing circle. He rules by force of will, plays Obeah Man. Haven't been there this year, but he and his charmed land call me. I want to feel the dirt, to smell the fallen leaves of the forest, to hear the tiny gray tree toads singing, to see the stone circle and touch the laughing water again. I want to see fires burn at the crone's haven on the hill, a place where elder priestesses share stories, cast spells, and sleep in trailers, tarps spread out for extra shelter beneath the young oak trees. Sometimes, they welcome me to sit with them, by their cauldron. Last night, however, it was the Old King who visited. He showed me and some others the wiring in his house, the new-built part, and how sparks could be made to leap from the outlets.

And I've rubbed my eldest granddaughter's feet, handsome feet meant for barefoot dancing on earth, for shuffling through leaves, for dappled forest paths. She is mostly silent in my dreams, turning away from my words, but she did appear last night, to sit beside me for a part of my dreamtime, a blessing simply in her young presence. She is a Graduate, suspended in the void between childhood and the rest of her life, trying her wings to discover if they are strong enough to carry her away from the maternal nest, onward to place where she will make a new nest, one that's all her own. All I can do now is wish her well, as we pass through this, the time of Witch Hazel.





~~Juliet Waldron

Historical Novels with Passion and Grit