Better Than Dead

I’ll be taking part in the annual American Turkey Bacchanal (otherwise known as Thanksgiving) and won’t be posting a folklore blog this week. But…

Here’s a very interesting website with lots of Native American Turkey mythology.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it!

On a cold day in late September with occasional showers of rain, many years ago now, I was pretty much alone on the A4 highway driving from Marlborough towards Devizes in Wiltshire, England. I was on a solo pilgrimage across the West Country, a few days out from London, looking for a group of stones I’d read about. I got distracted by the looming site of Silbury Hill on the right hand side of the road and I passed the small sign marking West Kennet Long Barrow. I had to double back. A little red brick farmhouse sat beside the road, and next to it was a turnout large enough for maybe four cars. A metal gate led to a footpath curving around the farmhouse and into the empty fields, disappearing over a low hill. As I entered the gate a white goat in the farmyard eyed me with wary curiosity. The only other creature in sight was a man on a green tractor far, far across the golden fields harvesting the grain. I wouldn’t learn until later, much to my chagrin at missing them, that two weeks before there had been crop circles in that grain field.

Once the footpath entered the fields, it was fenced on both sides to keep the tourists from getting into the farmers’ way. It seemed to go on for miles, most of it a steady incline, but the guide book reassured me it only traversed a half mile. I couldn’t see anything remotely resembling a Neolithic barrow, just more hill and more. I began to wonder how such an invisible thing could possibly be as impressive as I’d been led to believe. Then I noticed a section of uncultivated field pop over the horizon, autumnal wild grass and field flowers that, I guessed, the farmer had missed. But only one long snake of field was overgrown, and as I drew nearer I saw a little track of fencing around it. As if the sight of the fence conjured them, the stones appeared, popping over the top of the hill.

I’d expected something grander, I thought, with starker, more clearly delineated stones. Certainly the pictures I’d seen of the barrow had been dramatic. They seemed dinky as I climbed towards them—but I was still a victim of perspective. I climbed and the barrow grew longer, larger. When I finally arrived, the gray-brown guarding stones of the entrance seemed massive.

I didn’t go inside at first, electing instead to climb on top of the barrow, and stretch things out a bit. I spent a long time up there while the chill soaked through my exertion and turned my cheeks slowly numb. A little path ran along the top where God knows how many tourists had trod before, marking out the one hundred meter length of barrow with their soles, wearing away the grass until the white chalk of Wiltshire showed through the top soil. About mid-point the barrow dipped as if it had sunk or collapsed, then rose up again before an undramatic end merging with the hillside. Little white flowers grew in tufts here and there on the barrow and beside it. I started back towards the entrance.

I thought of the ancient people who had been buried here, and was glad I had time to be alone with my thoughts and with the place. I entered the tomb. The light dimmed inside, fed only from the entrance. One long rock chamber went back about twenty feet before ending in a wall. Four alcoves fed off the main chamber, and on a stony shelf in the last of these alcoves, someone had laid some of the wildflowers from the top of the barrow. I thought I understood this act of veneration, for I felt it too—reverence and regret for the bones that had slept here for countless generations, and now sat on the shelf of a museum in Devizes.

I felt something else, too—or thought I did: the presence of the ancestors in this place, something deep, fundamental, and as quiet as the earth beneath my feet. The stones fairly vibrated with presence. I touched them to reassure myself it was only imagination that vibrated in that place. Cold, silent, solid stone, but also something that defied logic, something tiny and barely perceptible, not even strong enough to qualify as vibration. Maybe just the stones breathing, maybe just the earth spinning on its axis. Or maybe, I thought with a stubborn realization, it was the blood in my veins singing to my own ancestors in recognition. I laughed at myself, but the feeling persisted, undeniable, and it filled me with joy.

“Endorphins,” said the logical side of my brain, my explaining away standby any time I have a peak experience. But I always laugh at it, defy it, reject it.

I went back outside and took a deep breath. The chill sank in all the way to my toes, but I hardly noticed. I was really sailing high, spinning out on a line of exhilaration grounded in the earth, but stretched out at its limit. I hoped in that one perfect moment that the line would break so I could go sailing up through the black rain clouds and never, ever come down.

But I climbed back down the path, as one does. On the way down I encountered a couple speaking German to one another, an older man dressed for the excursion, and a much younger girl in stylish clothes and impractical pumps. Maybe a father forcing a recalcitrant child to the summit? She looked sullen and miserable, giving me a pleading look as I passed. What could I possibly tell her, even if there was no language barrier? I’m not sure I even smiled at her as our eyes met. I was trying too hard not to lose the moment, not to be engulfed by the world and the present tense once again.

It didn’t work. It never does. I got back on the A4, on my way to Salisbury.

Warning: I’ve been asked by a friend to post an advisory that you might not want to read this just before bedtime.

A murky borderland exists between folklore, the weird, active imagination, and illness. Many people encounter it when they’re most vulnerable: while sleeping. Or more precisely, when they are just falling asleep or just waking. They feel completely awake and conscious, roused from their drowsiness by some sense of presence and menace. Everything has the crisp edge of consciousness, a hyper-real sense of awareness. Strange occurrences are frequent in this borderland, with scary hags and demons, or aliens, or shadow people populating the bedroom and radiating hostility. At times the monsters are more exotic. Other times, it’s just a feeling of being frozen, unable even to cry out, as something sinister hovers over the bed. As WebMD puts it:

Almost every culture throughout history has had stories of shadowy evil creatures that terrify helpless humans at night. People have long sought explanations for this mysterious sleep-time paralysis and the accompanying feelings of terror.

Science has labeled this phenomena “sleep paralysis syndrome,” and I can attest to the terror of it. Many years ago I went through a phase that lasted over a year. Some people have only one or two incidents in their lifetime, some go through a specific period like I did, others are tormented by it for years, perhaps most of their life.

My roommates and I were living in a “haunted” apartment and we all had odd experiences there, but I was the first to enter the strange borderland and suffered the most intense effects. I’ve often wondered since if I started a psychic contagion, influencing them into weird dreams and the hearing of odd sounds: people in the front room moving furniture around or walking across the hardwood floors of our duplex…even when we knew the people upstairs were out of town and couldn’t be the source of the noise. Sometimes we heard the front door open and close with a solid thunk, but when we rushed into the living room, it was bolted tight, the furniture was where it had been when we went to bed, no one else was in the apartment.

I would often wake up sensing a dark cloud hovering over my bed, something evil reaching tentacles out for me while I lay frozen, panicking. I knew that if I could just get myself to move, just reach out to turn on the light, the menace would disappear, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t even blink, only send up fervent prayers for movement and light. Then, all of a sudden like a bubble bursting, I could move, lunged for the light, shot out of bed, panting with terror.

I can’t emphasize enough how real all of this felt.

A few times I caught a glimpse of a figure I’ve labeled (long after the fact, when I feel safer) the “shadow wench.” She was a shapely woman dressed in a black body stocking that went completely over face and head, every speck of “flesh” covered, giving her a Mummenschanz appearance (only without the comic masks). I could see no eyes, and she was the blackest black I’ve ever seen—no light escaping her, all light absorbed into her. She used to sit in a chair beside my bed. Except there was no chair beside my bed. Unlike the amorphous hovering cloud, I got no sinister sense from her. More like a deep puzzlement and curiosity about me, perhaps a slight sense of alien judgment, as if she examined a specimen. As soon as I moved and turned on the light, she disappeared like all the other phenomena.

Eventually, we moved out of that apartment and went our separate ways. My roommates experienced no more weird things, and I had only one more incidence of sleep paralysis in my new place. Many months later, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. The doctor said it had probably been responsible for the emotional rollercoaster I’d been on for the previous couple of years—sweeping swings of emotion that came out of nowhere and bore no relation to the events of my life. Oh, and had I been having odd dreams?

To say the least.

Once the cancerous gland was removed and I was on a stable dose of thyroid hormone, all of that disappeared. I have been cancer-free for many years, and thankfully, sleep paralysis free. The thing is, I never felt sleep paralysis syndrome an adequate explanation for all incursions of the weird in the dark of night. Perhaps the majority of these experiences can be attributed to it, especially where beds or comfy chairs are involved, but sometimes weird invasions occur when they can be corroborated by others. People aren’t always in bed. Sometimes they are in their cars, or reading a book, or sitting around a campfire when the strangeness comes creeping in and about them.

And why did my experiences, and those of my roommates, stop as soon as we left that apartment? Why didn’t they continue in the months before I received treatment for my thyroid cancer? I had very intense, weird dreams after that, but only that one incident at the new place of waking up with something creepy in the room. One last farewell appearance before the carny of odd went permanently on the road. I’m sure there’s a scientific explanation, but I do wonder, and always will. Certainly, I have not stopped having uncanny experiences, but my sleep remains untroubled. Thank the gods.

I love crows. I’m fascinated by them, although I never lose track of the fact that although they are intelligent and amazing animals, they are wild, and they are predators as well as scavengers. They survive in the real world any way they can—picking up road kill and pet food left outside, catching smaller birds and critters to eat. Whatever it takes.

In mythology, crows are often trickster deities. As the name implies, these deities exist to play tricks on humankind, but the tricks have a deeper meaning. They put people on alert to the shifting nature of reality, reminding them not to get so caught up in the surface of things, to not always believe what your eyes tell you. Beware. Be smart. Do what needs to be done. That’s how you survive.

♣

It’s a tricky business when a human strikes a deal with a trickster. You may get what you asked for, but it won’t necessarily be in a form that’s any good to you, or it may come at a time when you no longer want it or need it. Knowing this, I saw a crow outside my window one day at work and thought how lovely one of his shiny black feathers would be in an art piece I was working on. So I thought, what the hell? I’ll ask him. (In my mind, of course, so my officemate wouldn’t think I was crazier than she already thought.)

“Mr. Crow, I would like one of your shiny black feathers to use in an art piece. If you agree to send me a feather, I will burn sage and juniper leaves in your honor.”

I waited for my feather. At lunchtime I even walked beneath his tree looking for it. No feather. I laughed at myself, but that night I burned the sage and juniper anyway. No feather. I stopped looking for it.

About three weeks later I was driving down the busy thoroughfare of Olympic Boulevard, late to a doctor’s appointment I absolutely had to make. The boulevard has a wide, parklike strip of green down the middle dividing the eastbound and westbound traffic, but absolutely no parking on that section of the street. I pulled to a stop at a light, not thinking about anything in particular except how late I was and what a hurry I was in. The light turned green and I stepped on the gas—and at just that moment a lovely, shiny black crow feather seemed to appear out of nowhere, blowing along the green strip of grass just beside my car.

In about five seconds flat I had a decision to make: do I stop the car in the intersection and run after the feather, provoking outrage in the cars behind me; or go east to the nearest turn around, come back and search for the feather, provoking the drivers on that side of the boulevard; or do I let the feather go and proceed to my appointment? Most people who have heard this story say at this point, “You should have stopped for the feather!” But in the seconds required to make my decision, I had an epiphany. I had to let the feather go. It was not that I had asked too much of Mr. Crow. He had been willing to give the feather, but wanted me to appreciate his cosmic joke. It was as if he said, “You make the decision whether you want to live in the world, or in the spirit world. The choice is yours, and my feather is the symbol.” On this day, I chose to live in the world, and continued on to my doctor’s appointment.

I laughed long and hard at the splendid joke I’d played on myself. The trickster cannot trick us unless we are willing participants. We are the ultimate cosmic jokers on ourselves. In the years since, I’ve also realized the other part of this lesson is that we sometimes have to let go of our notion that we can control life, nature, the randomness of events. . . anything, really. If we’re going to keep our sanity, we have to reconcile ourselves to this fundamental lack of power, and learn to live with life’s basic unpredictability. We have to be careful not to buy into the illusion of the world, of controlling and bending nature (life) to our will.

♣

And so there came a day I told this story to F. while walking back to Avalon from the Wrigley Monument on Santa Catalina Island. She appreciated the irony and we laughed a great deal when I got to the part where the feather blew in front of my car and I had to leave. At that precise moment, the crows in the eucalyptus trees lining our path joined in, breaking into a loud and raucous cawing as we passed.

♣

And so there came another day when I realized once and for all that a relationship had ended. It was a painful ending to an association that never stood much of a chance, but I’d walked into it with eyes wide shut, believing I could make of it what it wasn’t. On that day, I knew I had to give it up, that it had never really been mine. As I walked back to my car, I thought about the lessons of the tricksters and how very badly I had fooled myself. There on the ground, centered just behind my car’s back bumper, was a lovely, shining black crow feather.

In a vaguely Halloween-themed way, I thought I’d share some quotations from my current reading.

Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore, and Healing by Stephen Pollington

Another passage from Aelfric [Aelfric of Eynsham, c. 955-c.1010, a Christian homilist] includes the following aside:

Witches still travel to where roads meet and to heathen graves with their illusory skill and call out to the devil and he comes to them in the guise of the person who lies buried there, as if he would arise from the dead—but she cannot really make it happen, that the dead man should arise through her wizardry.

Because for Christians, there are no such things as ghosts, see? When a person dies, they either go to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. Anything that sticks around in this realm must therefore be an evil spirit, bent on tricking the living into believing things that are not Christian doctrine and thereby condemning their souls.

More on crossroads:

The association of witchcraft with burial at crossroads is interesting for it was traditionally reserved for those whose presence might defile holy ground if buried in a churchyard, such as heathens, witches, and various classes of criminal. Aelfric deplored the practice of certain women who went to crossroads and “drew their children through the earth”, perhaps similar to the Cornish tradition of passing a child through a stone with a suitable hole in it, such as the famous Men-an-Tol alignment on the Penwith peninsular; a kind of re-absorption and rebirth seems to be implied by the practice….

[A. L.] Meaney [in Women, Witchcraft and Magic in Anglo-Saxon England] cites an East Anglian parallel, where a sick child was placed head-down in a hole cut into the ground and covered with the turf, and that of making the child crawl beneath a bramble which is rooted at both ends. Contact with the earth—and so possibly transference of the disease—seems to be the constant factor. Or is this symbolic rebirth, leaving the affliction behind in the putative womb?

To which I would add, “Eeeeyorgh!” Tough to be a sick child back in the day. Truly spooky.

Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power edited by Marvin Meyer and Richard Smith

Or perhaps you’d like a Christian spell for protection against headless powers, because—Lord knows—that’s a common experience for all of us [Egyptian papyrus, 5th or 6th century]:

O angels, archangels, who guard the floodgates of heaven, who bring forth the light upon the whole earth: Because I am having a clash with a headless dog, seize him when he comes and release me through the power of the father and the son and the holy spirit, Amen.

AO, Sabaoth.

O mother of god, incorruptible, undefiled, unstained mother of Christ, remember that you have said these things. Again, heal her who wears this, Amen.

As for myself, I’m going to employ the following amulet, one to protect the entrance to a house from vermin [papyrus, 6th (?) century], that invokes Aphrodite, Horus, the Judeo-Christian deity, Yao Sabaoth Adonai, as well as the Christian St. Phocas, covering all the bases. It has nothing to do with ghosts and goggilies, but is personally appealing:

The door, Aphrodite,
Phrodite,
Rodite,
Odite,
Dite,
Ite,
Te,
Te,
E,

Hor Hor Phor Phor, Yao Sabaoth Adonai, I bind you, arte[m]isian scorpion. Free this house of every evil reptile [and] annoyance, at once, at once. St. Phocas is here. Phamenoth 13, third indication.

Many (many) years ago, after being a gobshite, I visited Glastonbury Tor and had an epiphany. Such things are not unusual there, from what I understand, and many people go especially to seek out transitional moments. Although I’d read about the Tor for years and it was high on my list of places to visit in the West Country, I didn’t go specifically seeking a pivotal moment. I don’t think one can obtain them to order. It just worked out that way for me.

Perhaps it was because I drove around the West Country for eight days on my own, but I had a number of profound experiences on that trip. If I’d had companions, perhaps I wouldn’t have been as hungry, or as internal. Perhaps discussion and camaraderie would have diluted the experiences. I don’t know. I’m just glad I received these gifts—for certainly, transitional moments are gifts.

Back in those days I didn’t have to take a bus to the Tor. I parked my rental car on the road that runs behind it and walked up to it through the countryside. I’d read that some people believe the terraces ringing the Tor are the remains of an ancient three-dimensional labyrinth that pilgrims used to traverse to gain…Well, theories vary, and many discount the idea entirely. The terraces go round the Tor seven times, ending at the pinnacle where the remains of St. Michael’s church now stands. It resembles the Cretan labyrinth, so they say, and if the theories are correct, it’s part of a long continuum of ancient ritual. A search for enlightenment? The prelude to a sacrifice? A journey through the maze of the soul? Who knows? You can read a fascinating analysis of this by Geoffrey Ashe here.

I myself approached the top of the Tor mostly as a feckless tourist, partially as excited quester, blundering along the path that cuts through the “labyrinth” and heads straight to the top. I got disoriented at a certain point about halfway up, where a clump of bushes surrounded a bench with a sheep resting its head on the backrest. I no longer remember why I grew insecure about the path—it’s a fairly straight ascent, after all—but I did. I looked down the Tor to see if I could ask someone if I was “doing it right” and spotted a young man several terraces down walking crossways along the Tor. “Is this the right way up to the Tor?” I yelled. He stopped and gave me a “what kind of a gobshite are you?” look before nodding a continuing on his journey. It was only much later when I was off the Tor and back at the B&B that I realized I’d interrupted his journey through the maze. I’m not stupid, but sometimes I’m not smart. Perhaps my idiotic interruption was part of the tribulations the mazewalker had to go through to reach enlightenment? One can only hope.

I continued on in my gobshite way, reaching the tower on top of the Tor and for some reason was granted a moment of grace. Grace is always mysterious, and often goes to the underserving. It’s not just for Christians, either. I’ve noticed that even pagans are sometimes granted grace.

Or maybe it was just endorphins from the long climb. I say that as a nod to science, which I love and respect, but mostly I’m not inclined to look this gift horse too closely in the mouth. It was a moment of personal fulfillment and I am grateful for it.

Here’s part of what I wrote about the experience many long yarns ago:

It was another cold, gray day when I got to the tower, and not too many folks around. For the moment, I was alone at the top with the tower. There’s a doorway on both sides and in the middle a pit with evidence of a recent campfire. The inside of the tower is like a vast chimney because there’s no roof, and I had a strong sense of stepping away from the world.

And I was overcome by an odd, strong realization that I was at a crossroads. I remembered an image from a book I’d recently read about a doorway on a mountaintop, and I had the unshakeable conviction that if I stepped through one doorway of that tower and emerged on the other side, my life would never be the same. But I had to choose to step through, at that precise moment in time, in the full knowledge that I accepted and welcomed the change, agreeing to something new and different in my life. I hesitated, known devils being preferable to unknown ones, but for once my timidity didn’t win. I stepped through.

On the other side of the doorway, the Tor descended gradually towards a plain of green fields and hedgerows, and to the northeast lay the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey and the town itself. A group of four sheep grazed just below the crest, heads down and disappeared in shadow, backs like tight balls of cotton floating above the hill. In the distance, the sun broke through the clouds, a shaft of silver illuminating the sky and downslope lands, while the area around the Tor remained in shadow. All except the backs of those sheep, whose whiteness caught the sun and glowed white-gold against the dark, shadowy green. The moment pierced my heart with its beauty, and I felt . . . as if the bargain I’d struck with life had been accepted. I don’t know if it was magic, or plain old motivation, but my life really wasn’t the same after that. That year—that trip and the sense of empowerment it gave me—started a cycle of changes that set me on a new path.

I have a photograph of the moment when the sun illuminated the sheep. A pale echo of the experience, but thanks to Canon, Kodak, a good color lab—and maybe a bit of grace—the dramatic lighting on the backs of those sheep came through. Whenever I really look at that photo, I am right back there, in that place, having just concluded my bargain, and realizing (maybe for the first time) that my life really was what I made of it and that the only one I really had to answer to was myself.

My uncle and my older cousin called it the sidehill toggler, an infamous creature from Utah legend. It was fearsome, they said, hanging out in the high mountains, and if you encountered one you had no chance of outrunning it because it was fearsome fast. And carnivorous. Well, there was maybe one way to evade it: run in the opposite direction from the way it faced. It might be a little tricky to get by it to run in the opposite direction, but if you went downhill or uphill a bit, you could generally squeak by. See, the sidehill toggler could only run one way on a mountainside and it could only run round and round the same pathway because it had a regular sized leg on one side and a very, very short leg on the other. Which was why it was so impossibly speedy on mountain slopes…in one direction.

Even though I was little, something in the glint in my uncle’s eyes and the way my cousin bit her lower lip made me skeptical. I was made even more skeptical when I asked what it looked like. They hemmed and hawed, but eventually agreed it was a giant flightless bird, bigger than an ostrich—like maybe a cousin of an ostrich or something, only this bird had a gigantic curved and sharp beak that could tear a person limb from limb.

My mom liked nature shows and watched them all the time, I said. I thought for sure something as terrible and strange as this bird would have popped up on one. But no, my uncle said, the government didn’t like people talking about it because it could cause a panic or something and so the sidehill toggler was confined to the remotest mountains in special nature preserves where no one was allowed to go. Lumberjacks were the only ones who ever saw them, and brought the tales home to tell around firesides.

Mom got back from the store at this point and told my uncle and my cousin to stop filling my head with trash. They laughed a lot at that point.

“I knew you were lying,” I told them.

“Not lying,” my Uncle Rupert said. “Storytelling.”

“Well, Francie was lying,” I said. She blushed.

But it turns out that the sidehill toggler is a real thing. Okay, not a real real thing, but not just a story my uncle and cousin made up. It’s a folklore thing. A tall tale thing. One of the things that lumberjacks really did like to tell stories about around firesides. The most common name for this creature is the sidehill gouger, but it has dozens of names, including the rickaboo racker, the sidehill winder, the gyascutus, the sidehill badger, the rackabore, and so on and so on. My uncle and my cousin may have made up the part about it being a giant bird because I haven’t found any other accounts of it looking like that. Although storytellers do disagree about its appearance, sidehill gougers are often described as badger-like, or deer-like (only with sharp teeth and carnivorous tendencies). Apparently, it’s not just Americans who encounter these extraordinary creatures: the French have one called a dahut, and the Scots have a sidehill haggis. Which calls up pictures of a giant stuffed carnivorous sheep’s bladder with legs. But maybe that’s just me.

Folklorist Carol Rose in Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth says of the Guyascutus and its ilk that they are part of:

the folklore of lumberjacks and forest workers (and later fraudsters) during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially in Wisconsin and Minnesota in the United States….The creature belongs to a group of monsters affectionately known as the Fearsome Critters, whose exaggerated proportions and activities not only explained the weird noises of the lonely landscape but also provided some amusement at camps.

I hear they have mosquitoes the size of cows out in Wisconsin and Minnesota, too. Or maybe there’s just so many of them in the summertime it feels like you’ve been bitten by a blood-sucking cow or two. Pretty fearsome either way.

You’ve heard about the giant cabbages once grown in the poor, sandy soil of Findhorn, Scotland? Some people believe that was made possible by the intercession of nature spirits who, in conjunction with the mystic, Dorothy Maclean, wanted to demonstrate to the world what was possible when humankind cooperated with the spirits who ruled the natural world. In fact, the Findhorn Foundation website still tells the story:

Dorothy discovered she was able to intuitively contact the overlighting spirits of plants – which she called angels, and then devas – who gave her instructions on how to make the most of their fledgling garden. She and Peter translated this guidance into action, and with amazing results. From the barren sandy soil of the Findhorn Bay Caravan Park grew huge plants, herbs and flowers of dozens of kinds, most famously the now-legendary 40-pound cabbages.

But where does this notion of nature spirits as guardians and helpmeets of plants come from? It’s an important question because it underlies much of the philosophy of the New Age movement. However, it turns out to be a pastiche of things taken from here and there.

Once, long ago, in a post from 2012, Dr. Beachcombing of Dr. Beachcombing’s Bizarre History Blog wondered if this popular contemporary notion of nature spirits was a survival of old folklore beliefs or merely a modern interpretation. (It’s a interesting post. You should read it.) None of his correspondents (myself included) came up with what you would call conclusive proof that this was a belief of the common folk, or that it had anything like a long history in traditional magics. In fact, it was probably a belief amongst scholarly occultists rather than something a local cunning man or woman might adhere to.

Owen Davies in Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History explains this divide between folk magic and philosophical magic:

In the historiography of magic a distinction has usually been made between high or learned magic and low or folk magic. Learned magic is generally defined by its sophisticated theoretical, philosophical and ceremonial structure. It can be further broken down into two main categories, demonic and natural….Natural magic was considered by many intellectuals to be a branch of the sciences, as it dealt with the occult powers within nature. In our period [15th c. onward] it was primarily influenced by neoplatonism, which held that the universe was suffused and ruled by a hierarchy of spirits. All matter was interconnected by these spiritual influences, and sympathetic relationships governed all matter. Stars and planets possessed evil and good aspects, and radiated their benign or malign influence upon the earth like ripples across water….

Low, popular, or folk magic is usually characterised as a rich medley of indigenous beliefs, practices and rituals, some of them dating back to Anglo-Saxon times, perhaps even earlier, perpetuated largely through oral transmission. The use of “low” does not necessarily indicate that this type of magic was confined to the “low” elements of society, but those who employed it had no lofty pretensions about what they were doing….

Furthermore, there were specific individuals who straddled the worlds of both learned and low magic, and who were consequently thought to have more knowledge of the occult than those around them: these people were cunning-folk.

(This is a good book. You should read it, as well.)

Eileen and Peter Caddy, the founders of the Findhorn community along with Dorothy Maclean, were influenced by Rosicrucianism, which was strongly influenced by Neoplatonism. So it’s not a far stretch to say that their beliefs—and much of New Age philosophy—come from that root stock rather than folk beliefs.

W. Y. Evans Wentz (himself highly influenced by Theosophy, another Neoplatonist offshoot) says in The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries (1911):

In the positive doctrines of mediaeval alchemists and mystics, e.g. Paracelsus and the Rosicrucians, as well as their modern followers, the ancient metaphysical ideas of Egypt, Greece, and Rome find a new expression; and these doctrines raise the final problem—if there are any scientific grounds for believing in such pygmy nature-spirits as these remarkable thinkers of the Middle Ages claim to have studied as being actually existing in nature….

All these Elementals, who procreate after the manner of men, are said to have bodies of an elastic half-material essence, which is sufficiently ethereal not to be visible to the physical sight, and probably comparable to matter in the form of invisible gases. Mr. W. B. Yeats has given this explanation:—’Many poets, and all mystic and occult writers, in all ages and countries, have declared that behind the visible are chains on chains of conscious beings, who are not of heaven but of earth, who have no inherent form, but change according to their whim, or the mind that sees them. You cannot lift your hand without influencing and being influenced by hordes. The visible world is merely their skin….’ [From Yeats’ Irish Fairy Tales and Folk-Tales]

Wentz again three paragraphs on:

And independently of the Celtic peoples there is available very much testimony of the most reliable character from modern disciples of the mediaeval occultists, e.g. the Rosicrucians, and the Theosophists, that there exist in nature invisible spiritual beings of pygmy stature and of various forms and characters, comparable in all respects to the little people of Celtic folk-lore.

I find myself imagining some practitioner of the old folkways listening to all this and saying to his or herself, “La di da, la di da,” if not laughing outright. There is nothing inherently wrong with these high blown sentiments, with Theosophy or Rosicrucianism or New Ageism, any more than there is something wrong with the “lower,” more practically-minded folk traditions. But they are clearly different streams fed from the big, muddy river of magics, and wading in one does not necessarily tell you anything about wading in the other.

I was into a goddess phase for awhile. Empowerment, all that jazz. My personal belief structure has broadened since then, become (I hope) more nuanced and more inclusive. I no longer feel the need to make it a goddess vs. god universe. I like to joke that I worship the Holy Hermaphrodite, but that ain’t much of a joke. We’re all part of the same creation, yin and yang. We need to cut each other some slack.

I acquired this statue of Freya during that goddess phase, but mostly I wanted it because of that face. Who could resist it? She has such an open and serene expression that it makes me happy just to look at her. Surrounded by her gigantic necklace, Brísingamen, her hands folded meekly, you’d never know she was such a kickass female—a war goddess. That appealed to me, too, at the time. It still does to a certain extent, but what also appeals to me about Freya are her other associations with love and fertility, and her personal longing for love. Her husband, Odr, was frequently absent, you see, and she cried huge tears of red gold for him. Which proves yet again that no matter how strong and powerful we are, we can still be laid low by love.

If we’re lucky. The capacity to love is a blessing. Being laid low by it is a symptom of how open our hearts are. I was looking hard for love when I acquired this statue of Freya, a perpetual search back then. She resided in my bedroom in my old apartment, standing atop a cabinet my father made for me to hold my huge collection of earrings. Given her Brísingamen, it seemed an appropriate place for her.

Am I still looking for love? Not in the same way I was back then. I am not so particular about the kind of love I receive, not looking only for a mate. Love of any kind is a blessing, and the fires that drove me to find a partner are banked low these days. I wouldn’t turn it down if it came my way, but I don’t feel the need to seek it. Things change. Fires of all kinds renew. Phoenixes rise from ashes, and so might my quest, but mostly I’m glad not to be consumed with it anymore.

I’m pretty much a Jungian about such things. The journey within, self-knowledge, is the true goal, the true gold. That’s our only shot at understanding anything truly meaningful about the universe. I believe there is a Higher Something, but our human minds can’t comprehend it. All godhead is the same but because we are fragmented creatures we come up with a multiplicity of aspects to portray that godhead. All paths lead back to the same source, and we can’t approach it with externals, but sometimes there are very nice things that help us see an aspect of that Something.

Some years after buying the Freya statue I decided that my mythic world might be a little unbalanced and (since my pocketbook was not as challenged) I also acquired Freyr, Freya’s brother and lover. Very phallic, but that’s probably food for another post. Freya seemed much happier having him around and so was I. We please our goddesses as we please ourselves.

I have lost touch with many aspects of my sacred journey, my mystical journey into the dark heart of myself and out the other side into the light. It’s a fairy journey, into and out again. I hope to return to that rediscovered country, to see what else it can show me, and to settle myself in the now instead of the hoped-for future and much-regretted past. These things in my room are merely touchstones, aspects of a more profound reality inside my own heart and soul. Looking at them fresh again, remembering why they were important in the first place, is part of the journey back to that forgotten land. Renewal waits around the next turn in the road.

*Inspired by Xavier de Maistre’s book of the same name, I will be journeying around my sitting room/writing room as the mood strikes me and reflecting on the larger life meanings of the things I find there. The things themselves are not important—they are just objects—but hopefully those remembrances and reflections will be of interest. Another irregular series that I will probably keep up with . . . irregularly.

While recently reading American Folklore by Richard M. Dorson, I came upon a passage relating the curious testimony of John Josselyn from 1638. He’d taken ship to New England and upon arriving in Massachusetts Bay, was catching up on news from those he met on shore, including prodigious tales of earthquakes, mermen, monster births. He went on to say:

Mr. Foxwell came forth and related how he had passed a night at sea in a small shallop, hugging the shore but afraid to land; suddenly at midnight a loud voice called him, “Foxwell, Foxwell, come ashore,” and upon the beach he beheld a great fire ringed by dancing men and women. After an hour they vanished, and next morning Foxwell put ashore and found their footprints and brands’ ends on the sand. But no living Englishman or Indian could he find on shore or in the woods.

The passage is odd in itself, to be sure, and although logical reasons might be found to explain it, they are no fun at all. I reject them soundly. I love the fairy-like creepiness of it, and think it’s a good thing Mr. Foxwell was too timid to put ashore. The story really sets my imagination to quivering.

But the passage has extra resonance, extra quiveration, because it reminds me of a more famous passage, this one from Plutarch, On the Failure of Oracles, 17-1:

The father of Aemilianus the orator, to whom some of you have listened, was Epitherses, who lived in our town and was my teacher in grammar. He said that once upon a time in making a voyage to Italy he embarked on a ship carrying freight and many passengers. It was already evening when, near the Echinades Islands, the wind dropped, and the ship drifted near Paxi. Almost everybody was awake, and a good many had not finished their after-dinner wine. Suddenly from the island of Paxi was heard the voice of someone loudly calling Thamus, so that all were amazed. Thamus was an Egyptian pilot, not known by name even to many on board. Twice he was called and made no reply, but the third time he answered; and the caller, raising his voice, said, ‘When you come opposite to Palodes, announce that Great Pan is dead.’ On hearing this, all, said Epitherses, were astounded and reasoned among themselves whether it were better to carry out the order or to refuse to meddle and let the matter go. Under the circumstances Thamus made up his mind that if there should be a breeze, he would sail past and keep quiet, but with no wind and a smooth sea about the place he would announce what he had heard. So, when he came opposite Palodes, and there was neither wind nor wave, Thamus from the stern, looking toward the land, said the words as he had heard them: ‘Great Pan is dead.’ Even before he had finished there was a great cry of lamentation, not of one person, but of many, mingled with exclamations of amazement.

The sea holds many mysteries and dangers, but let’s not forget that strange shores do as well.

You can find the rest of this Loeb Classics Library translation of Plutarch here.