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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in widdershins

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

 

OK, today we're going to learn one of the sacred dances of the Witches. It's a Wheel Dance, a wheel of many spokes, as you'll see, and it's called the Carol.

These days, of course, we tend to think of a carol as a song associated with a particular holiday—a Yule carol, a May carol—but in the old days, a carol was a round dance performed to singing rather than to instrumental music.

This is a really useful dance to know, because you can do it to any 4/4 song with a chorus.

So, you start off with the left foot, of course. In dance, you always start off with the left foot. By the way, does anyone know why?

Well, yes, it's the heart side, but does anyone know the story? There's a story to pretty much everything witches do; that's what makes us a people, the stories.

Well, back in the Dawn of Days, when the Horned first came down from heaven, He landed [stomps] whump! left foot first.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Witches Do It Backwards

These days we mostly say widdershins, but in the Old Language of the Hwicce, the original Tribe of Witches, it used to be withershins, and that's a word to conjure with.

In those days, you were either with or wither: for or against.

Widdershins is a wither-sithe: a journey or going against.

And that way lies power.

Doing things backwards is an old, old magical technique to raise power. Think about it. Backing up is harder and more dangerous than moving forward. It takes focus. It takes concentration. You really have to think about what you're doing.

Going against the grain creates tension, and tension raises power. Believe me, you've never heard the Charge of the Goddess until you've heard it backwards.

Witherwards, one could say: dancing back-to-back, as we still do at the sabbat.

Hence our reputation for creative blasphemy. But this is no mere blasphemy for blasphemy's sake. Oh no: this is blasphemy for a purpose.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Why Widdershins

Witches have always been widdershins people.

Down the millennia, we've put up with a certain amount of guff on this account, even back in pagan times.

But everyone needs a little widdershins now and then.

It's applesauce time right now. The thing about apples is, only the whole ones keep. The bruised, the blemished, the ones with broken skins, will never last the winter.

So you cut them up and cook them down with a little salt and cider. Then you run them through the food mill.

Around and around goes the food mill. It's a collar with a screen on the bottom. You turn and turn the handle, always with the Sun; the applesauce trickles out into the bowl beneath, and the screen catches the stems, skins, and seeds.

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  • Tasha Halpert
    Tasha Halpert says #
    Nice piece. I love making applesauce, YUM! and the widdershins turnng is good for clearing, like it is supposed to be. Ah, you are

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
The Way of the Crayfish

“To crawfish”: to work widdershins, you might say.

This is the well-known magical technique of inversion: raising power by doing backwards what is usually done forwards.

Walking backwards. Dancing back to back. Reciting prayers in reverse.

The American crawfish (a regionalism for “crayfish”): cambarus diogenes. A freshwater crustacean (I hear they're delicious) that looks something like a mini-lobster. Unlike most fish, it moves through the water back-first: what looks to us face-firsters like backwards. How witchy is that? Small wonder it's become a magical byword.

On my last morning at Summerland Spirit festival in Wisconsin, I was talking shop with another old warlock, a dear friend and colleague who's also a co-conspirator in the upcoming Midwest Grand Sabbat. We'd made our way up to the highest point in Turtle Lake County: they say you can see 5 counties from it.

Shortly after we started making our way back down, we came across a crawfish, scuttling across the path in front of us, looking for all the world like the lobster in the Moon card.

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  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    I read it in a book from the library. Unfortunately that book has been deleted from the library's collection, as have way too man
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Thanks for the connection, Anthony: I'll see if I can track it down. I've had occasion recently to reflect on the strengths and we
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    I remember reading that one of the Amerind tribes on the gulf coast takes the crayfish as a symbol of their tribe. It could be th

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