This past week, I slept in
a tent on the ground, cooked over a fire, and the rest of the whole salt circle
of primitive camping. No internet. No phone. No anything other than maintaining
camp, hiking, and whatever whim I and the family were carried upon. I sang to
the directions, had disagreements with yellow-jackets, and sent my kids off
snipe-hunting—they did not catch one. We declared the site “Camp Feather-Tree”
in honor of the large collection of feathers we began finding daily and sticking in the tree near our tent. The
primary purpose of this trip was camping, not “getting away” or the like, but
with the trip came Witchcraft.
Bugs
It is hard to meditate
with a bug crawling up one’s nose. This is of course as obvious as the smell of
burning asafoetida. Yet, too often we don’t meditate because of the
metaphorical bugs in our nose. Establishing a regular and disciplined meditation
practice is not easy. As Witches, we like to do things, cast spells, make talismans,
etc, and meditation is a lot of doing nothing. For this reason, when we sit the
mind quickly busies itself with any and every passing thought. These are the
figurative bugs in the nose. Don’t fight them; just brush them to the side. I
know, easier said than done. We are not these thoughts, the nature of Self
changes no more than the sky changes when clouds pass by the mountain. The
trick is to just sit and to return to the breath without getting upset when the
mind wanders. That is what the mind does, accept it. As for literal bugs in
your nose when mediating, remove them and go meditate in the car.
Snipes
When I was a kid, my Dad
and Uncle sent my cousins and I out into the woods banging two sticks together three
times followed by shouting “snipe, snipe, snipe” over and over in the attempt
to lure and catch a snipe. What is a snipe you might ask? Or maybe you too went
on such an adventure. Well, a snipe is a flightless bird that lives wherever you
are camping and no one has ever caught one… or seen one… or photographed one.
But they make great pets and you should totally grab two sticks and go hunt one.
The only thing is there are no snipes; which is fine, because the point of
snipe-hunting is not to catch a snipe. This is just like how the point of
Witchcraft is not some goal of enlightenment. The point is the hunt, the
journey, the crafting of one’s life, the banging of two sticks together. Make
the journey the point and you’ll find that enlightenment has been there all
along and that any goal otherwise is just a snipe.
Unpacking
The trip was good. I got
to come home and finally feel like I had gotten in touch with the spirit of the
land here. I am, however, still unpacking the various lessons of the trip.
Perhaps I’ll post them up as the water settles.
Boidh Se!
-SM
“Lost in a thicket,
bare-foot upon a thorn path.”
