Via Hedera's Blog

 She came in a dream, after the delerium of ill-gotten gains well recieved...

Headless, headless, but with a good heart...

From the inferi, the below...

And the prayers that conjured her were made with old words...

And her ghostly form glows even in the dark; a corpse-like beauty, an infernal beauty.

Hail Queen of Thieves.

With the new moon, I build this ladder. With the the rise of her light, climb up! Oh future, climb up and greet my dreams!
The little sorceries are always the best.  While it feels like the world around me is on fire, I'm finding solace in the small ways we work magic into our lives for the sheer comfort, for the memory and the warmth that comes with it.  As Floralia, the Hare Feast and May Day rise, so do all the best tides for love projects and fortunes.  I look forward to some rest, to walking the land again after so much time cooped up, watching the world around me twist in a hideous mass of nonsense.

My periwinkles are blooming; I'm always so happy when they do-- gentle reminders of endurance and love.  I gather mine nine days after the new moon, to use on the full moon for love-pillow stuffing. The petals of the flowers are to be dried for strewing powder for Midsummer.  I just want to get lost in the tendrils and never come out.
"Make a little ladder of sticks and place it under your head at night and you'll dream of your future husband."From  Current Superstitions: Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk edited by Fanny Dickerson Bergen

To usher in the Pink moon's rising light and her verdant, prophetic, and erotic work... and to officially usher out this awful winter... I begin with sharing a sweet little charm with you.  I've found this one in Current Superstitions (19th century) and have been using it for about eight years now.  Not for dreaming of my future husband, but for all kinds of seductive divinations and dream fortunes.  I don't find many other cross references for it, but given the breadth of love fortunes and divinations especially in the annals of North American Folklore, I'm not at all surprised by such a random one-off.

There's no specifics on which wood to use-- it only says sticks and I think the raw accessibility of that makes for good magic.  I selected dried bramble vine-- bramble is a bringer of love and a guardian of dreams.  I keep the thorns for future dream work; they have a way of deterring nightmares.  I bake the wood first before washing in rose and rosemary water and drying again.

Once completely dry, I anointed the thorny woods in Oneroi oil (a blend of opium, Neptune, musk and amber) and selected reed wool for binding.  Slide that baby under my pillow and we'll see what dreams come climbing up at night...

“Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil.”- Plato

Educators are my heroes.  They are my family.  I work for them, in higher education institutions.  In my daily life, I spend most of my time surrounded by students and educators, facilitating and organizing their operations.  I value the service of education-- any form of it, more than almost any other service.  Education is one of the nobler pursuits, and a benefit to humanity.  Access to it, by anyone and everyone, should be a social obligation.  It should be a ritual we never forget.  Not just for ourselves and the future generations, but for everyone who suffered in the name of accessible education.

Hypatia of Alexandria’s story is a misunderstood but tragic one. I honor her day not because of some wild narrative about her being the 'oyster-flayed martyr of pagans'.  She wasn’t.  She was by all accounts a pious, respected, middle-aged, Neo-Platonist scholar, orator and philosopher who taught maths and astronomical sciences in the open to people of different classes and religions.  She was bludgeoned with rooftiles and burned due to her affiliations and associations with controversial social and political figures of the time.  She was collateral damage caught in the religious and political ignorance of the burgeoning Christian unrest around her.  Hypatia is closer to a martyr of intellectuals and educators.  Of those who were charitable and creative and wise, caught living in an ignorant time and place.  And those who suffer from guilt by association.  And those who are wrongfully humiliated.  And those who abhor mobs and adore math.  And those crushed under the oppressive wheel of Abrahamic religion.  A far deeper role than ‘pagan saint’.

Hypatia represents the consequences of education in the face of political upheaval and mob zealotry.  She represents the cruelty that befalls the innocent when ego, religion, toxicity and anti-intellectualism take hold of groups… or entire lands.  Like right now.  We are seeing the same rotten corruption gnaw at the peace of the world around us.  We are seeing a rise in hatefulness for the charitable.  Hatred against those who provide humanitarian aid. Hatred against simple arithmetic and recorded history.  We are in a land that is returning to a flat-earth; where sticks turn to snakes and the sun stands still and those who do good work are least respected.  And are crucified for it.  Sounds... familiar.

There is a sickness to finding pleasure in an echo-chamber.  Especially an insidiously anti-humanitarian, pro-greed campaign to strip and mine the land like parasites feasting on flesh.  I don't know what it will mean to the generations to come to be so deprived of progress and forward-thinking in such a swift move, but I believe that the wheel of this cycle has long been turning, and always will.  Did Hypatia wonder, in her last, fearful moments, if the violent, bigoted mob before her would ever come to see reason?  Well, they didn't.  Her world, like ours, was one overridden with angry, fearful, hateful people who do not truly understand what suffering they bring into this world.  I hope to see the pendulum swing back.  Or maybe see the string cut.

“If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another.”- Epicurus

I wonder if Hypatia’s ghost rubs her forehead in frustration and laments, “Do these fools ever learn?”  I’d say she died because the powerful, self-interested, ignorant always seem to win.  Because the separation of church and state should be a divide so deep a sea could fill it.  Because blind faith makes even good people follow evil men, and sanctify and justify those evils without knowing what they do.  Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding, as Henry Drummond so eloquently says.  Today I am grateful that ignorance could not destroy the legacy of intellectuals like Hypatia.  The fact that we’ve been educated on her existence is proof that the preservation of knowledge continues onwards.  Will we fail her, in this generation, by, going backwards?  By burning heretics and witches and midwives?

"We can be true to her memory only if we recognize the life she led as well as the death she suffered."- Edward J. Watts

So, in Hypatia’s spirit, go forth and protest.  Teach.  Teach.  Teach.    Walk unafraid knowing what brutality awaits the thinking man.  Teach; with rationality and reason, with openness and scrutiny, with peer-reviews and primary sources-- whatever it is you have to offer.  Indulge your curiosity and stop to listen to the teachers today.  Teach every soul you can reach who can hear you.  Offer it freely.  Rebel against the mob and keep the knowledge flowing.

Waxing Moon in Leo.  Moon's Day.  Sun in Picses.
Books that have been stimulating my mind:Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher- Edward J. WattsThe Hanging Gardens of Babylon- Stephanie DalleyInherit the Wind- Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. LeeMyths from Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others- Stephanie DalleyHow to Win Friends and Influence People- Dale CarnegieThe Feminist Killjoy Handbook: The Radical Potential of Getting in the Way- Sara Ahmed
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind- Yuval Noah HarariThe Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined- Steven PinkerOrphic Hymns

From the Book of Work
Not long ago, they say,Love magics were commonly referred to as projects, fortunes and tricksThey are sweet and spicey and seductiveThey are prickly, piercing and poisonousIn colors warm, wild, rich or mildThe hours of this work is midnightOn Fridays and MondaysUnder full moons, and in total darknessin bedrooms, basements, groves and cellarsAnd done on any holy day-- Hallows and May Day are best.
The tools of arte are apples, mirrors, figure-candles and combs; cups, dolls, pins, roses and heart-shaped leaves and winding wools, love roots, shears and elixirs; eggs, handkerchiefs and some foot-tracks; love-herbs, drugged wine and perfume, spellbooks and lodestones, diamond rings-- and sweetening jars full of sugar or honey.
The mirror is the center; all work before her is great;capture moonlight in her and shine her on a lover to ensnare them;eat an apple before the mirror as you comb your hair.  At the ninth stroke, the visions begin.The tracks and tacks will avert, the wool and lodestone will draw,the wine will entangle, the sweet jar will persuade and the elixir will arouse;the apple and comb-- these are conduits,and the egg or the ring are diviner's tools-- with water as their vessel,But the mirror-- ever the center, all work before her is great.Like the merfolk and Venus knew very well;the mirror reflects more than love and beauty;it portends danger, shows you your heart’s desire,and catches souls.

 

Should a great disease of disruption,

a rotten smell of corruption,

arise around your countrymen,

who let this feral evil in;

and now your neighbors flee their home,

again to somewhere else to roam,

and these traitors to Liberty's words,

are acting like entitled turds;

weave a charm to help your homies--

to hide them from the slave hunters and their cronies.

Remember who made this country free;

and bind all facists, so shall it be.

Fennel (seed or pollen)Powdered or crushed oreganoBlack mustard seedEucaluptus root fed on florida water for 9 nights of the waning moonA folded prayer of some kindIn blue flannelWith a red eye, exed out with red threadAnnointed in bergamont oil, keep away oilBlessed on the altar, fed words of escape and subversionHidden in the home or car of the needyUnited States folk magic against jackboots their ilkFor anyone interested these kinds of projects for any particular reason.  This charm is about connection.  Make it with a friend.  It is not a sheild; it is a reminder-- of something beautiful, fragrant and warm-- the human experience.  Let it be that and pour your hospitality into every stitch. Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic by Catherine Yronewode

The Hag of Winter;In all her terrible beautyrides on wind and night--with hoard and host, and huntand unholy sightShe the Witch Queen,Lady of the Hill,and wife to the frost;A night,A light,To honor your ride.

Hag's night in my path takes place on December 11th-- but I hadn't time to post on that day.  I've been avoiding my duties for a while.  Part of me feels like I have to be woken up.  Jolted.  Taken from comfort and thrust into the cold.  On a creative level at least.

I'm so asleep.  Escaping.  But always, right under the surface-- an incessant desire to create something... or I suppose, express something.  Art, of course, is one of the most common and accessable forms of magic and can conjure, dispell, invoke or abjure as we see fit.  Art will transfix or trick the eye; it will outrage with fury and flame, or evoke wonder and stillness.  It is a powerful magic that anyone and everyone can do and had wild effect.  Remember that when in doubt.  It's magic.

Think on this in the dark, when the hag comes riding.  Think of all you could create... and fly with it.

"Moonshot" by Via Hedera, 2024

Guns and witches have history.  These weapons were supposed to have been used to fire shots of silver or hair at our familiars or our shadow-selves.   These silver bullets or supposed hair-balls were thought to combat witch-dogs, witch-turkeys, witch-hogs and witch-hares.  Pokeberry would take care of the bewitched hog, while silver was a good remedy for a hare or a doe.  Asafoetida (Satan’s weed) and barleycorns are both referenced in the Frank C. Brown collection for their disenchantment capabilities over firearms, and needles with lye loaded into a gun were intended to do the same.  Or, if one needed to get rid of a bewitchment, they could draw the witch or write her/his name on a tree, or on a paper shaped like a heart, and then shoot the image itself, or with a witch-bullet (a type of apotropaic hairball, see more here).

"To the witch was ascribed the tremendous power of inflicting strange and incurable diseases, particularly on children, of destroying cattle by  shooting  them with hair-balls, and a great variety of other means of destruction; of inflicting spells and curses on  guns  and other things,--"   -Cross, Tom Peete. Witchcraft in North Carolina (p. 9). [Chapel Hill] : The University. Kindle Edition. 

I’ve hesitatedto discuss guns in folk magic because they aren’t a part of mylifestyle.  Not volentarily at least.  It never feels like the right time you know?  Because of all of the mass shootings.  Because of the outright threats against public figures and private citizens.   Because of the unease the clockwork of theseevents brings in my specific country.   I support my country’s constitution and value the art of weaponrydeeply, but I also grew up Southern California in the early 90’s…  Violence,especially gun violence, was a source of terror for me frequently as a child.  I even had little rhymes I had made up to help me feel safe, ones I still say to myselfwhen I hear that dreadful clap in the night. It’s just another tool of blood and warmagic—which I suppose I appreciate, but all the same, not my personal tool ofpassion. Or magic.

When it comes toour folklore and the folk magic of liberty, protection and steadfastness, a pistol or a rifle is one of our magical and spiritual tools—like it or not.  And on another note— Southern andSoutheastern USA folklore does have more than its fair share of charmsregarding the creation of a witch through shooting a silver bullet at the fullmoon.  I’m not saying it’s how we makewitches… but it is one of our strange ways.  Itis specific to us.  We climb to hilltopsand shoot through handkerchiefs at a full moon to become servants of theMan-in-Black and his jaybird.  I touch on a bit in my book, and I encourage you to embrace the facinating notion that firearms are intrinsically linked to our cultural history so also our witchlore.

I have a deeprespect for people who hunt their food and defend themselves; I suppose that’swhat I always hoped guns would be used for; practical purposes.  I grew up with ethical hunters; folks whoused every icky and squishy part and never took more than their pantry freezer and the shelfdate could withstand.  We regularly got gator and elk from cousins when there was enough to share, and damn was it good.  My perspective haslong been ecocentric and respectful to the system as I see it.  It’s theviolence between us humans I find so distasteful and terrifying.  I see the art in sharp-shooting, in weaponry-enthusiasm,engineering, in the history of liberty behind the weapon, the beautifulmechanics of this revolutionary tool and the practical applications it's brought into our lives.  A weapon of liberty and opression; it's quite the nuanced matter.

American hero Lt. Holloman's modified M1911 pistol; with a “sweetheart".  On loan, Tukwila WA: Museum of Flight

The human need for apotropaic charms are a deep and personal interest to me;  a unifying force shared and syncretic between so many culutres and peoples.  Who knew that guns have a lot to do with magic, and with witches?  Guns were used to shoot silver bullets at the images of witches or at hauntedcattle, they could be bewitched by one touch from a witch.  The Frank C. Brown collections, Journals of American Folklore anda few of the general folklore collections of the 20th century have a bit to say about guns and witches, surprisingly.  According to these sources,guns were especially prone to witch-tampering.  So, I suppose I see why practictioners of old would want to learn some basic gun-bewitching, for their own sake and that of their friends, family and familiars.  

We witches had a knack forquelling gun violence I suppose.  Our ancestors often thought it was in the nature ofcharmers, bewitchers, enchanters, witches, sorcerers or conjure folk alike to passtheir hands over guns and cause them to misfire, or otherwise faulter in some way.  In some cases,these suposed rifle-hexers would bewitch a gun so that it could fire at no beast (likelybecause witches move in or are served by animal-shaped familiars and as ithappens, there are plenty of tales Southern U.S tales of a hare or rabbitcatching a bullet and a suspected witch being found with a corresponding woundin place of the hare).  Witch-men and witch-womenwould mutter simple hexes or other incantations to make a gun useless tohunters.  Even a witch in one’s presence might make the weapon ineffectiveto fire.  Likewise, one simple charm referenced in Brown's collecion references a wife who was reported to cause her husband’sgun to fail by knotting the corners of her apron.

Witches couldreportedly also bless a gun or charm it to never miss as well.  Luckplayed a large role in the matter of North American gunlore I’ve found; theidea that the capricious spirits of the world could make this weapon powerfulor useless seemed to be of some worry to some of the common folk.

Notable Gun Auspices:  reported in Popular Beliefs and Superstitions: A Compendium ofAmerican Folklore: Ohio edited by W. Hand

To dream of firearms means trouble

Bad luck to point an empty gun and bad luck to look down the barrel

Stepping over a rifle is bad luck (especially a woman doing so, apparently) Good luck to fire a shot before hunting

Save your first shell for good luck

Blood of the first kill blesses the barrel

Some would bullets before loading for luckRunning water and silver shot will rid the weapon of witching
To Make a Gun Useless :reported in the Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore Vol:VII: [7904]

Brown’s bit of Illinois folklore claims that a gun can be enchanted through a tree-knotting spell.  A hickory sapling or withe is tied into a knot by the charmer in the name of the devil, and the gun was not to operate until the knot was undone.

One can enchant another’s gun by taking a bullet from the gun, tying it with string and hanging it from a willow over a stream where it will shake in the stream.  As it’s kicked about by the water, the gun was supposed to become shaky and waiver until the bullet is untied.  Again, this hex is done in the name of the devil.

To rid a gun of bewitchment however, it was reported that allowing the water from a stream to pass through the barrel would wash the witching away.

Gun Bewitching: reportedin Daniels'  Encyclopedia of Susperstisions, folkflore and the occult sciences of the world

To Prevent Every Person from Hitting the Target- Put a splinter of wood which has been hit by a thunder bolt behind the target. No person will be able to hit such a target. 

To Cause Rifles or Muskets to Miss Fire- Speak these words: Afa, Afca, Nostra , when you are able to look into the barrel of some person's gun and it will fail to discharge; but if you desire it to give fire, recall these words backward.

To Prevent a Person from Firing a Gun While You are Looking into the barrel- pronounce the words: Pax Sax Sarax.

Firearm magic hasan unsettling wildness and indirectness to it despite the very art of it beingaimed and intentional.  Typically, ablade swung is with focus and with great limitation.  But a gun… One second of time passes and lifetimesare changed irrevocably.  I suppose that's why I'm facinated by the natural way that we as humans have used magical practices as a rebellion and reaction against this very tool of rebelion and reaction.  The way we merge our natural and unnatural fears with our spirituality and creatre tools meant to avert evil, facinates my restless mind.  Spiritual and physical protection-- how do we change as we percieve it?  What power comes of it?  The metaphysical potential of protection magic against any weapon, or the use of hexing-magic to prevent the operation of weapons is a part of that fabric of New World folklore so many of us are working to preserve and restore-- the actions and reactions of time and change.  I make no commentary on what thismeans in our social climate.  I'll keep muttering my protective charms and wishing for a kinder world.

Correspondences of Gun magics:Realm: Hilltops, graveyards, homesteads, woodlands, battlefieldsElements: All (fire in spirit and air in travel, water to purify and restore, born of earth)Sphere: Mars, LunaMoon: FullMetal & Stone: Silver, lead, galenaApotropaic herbarium: Hickory, wllow, asofoteda, barley, pokeberryAnimal associations: Rabbits, hares, hogs, deer, houndsColors: Gunmetal grey, matte black, blood redSymbols: Hearts, skulls, stars, crosses, prohibition sign (circle with slash)Gifts: Rebellion, opression, survival, violence, choice, consequence, steadfastednessAnnointing: Blood of the first kill, kiss from the owner, hickory lye, streamwater, silver, hair

-Cross, Tom Peete. Witchcraft in North Carolina
-Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore
-Daniels, Cora L. Encyclopedia of Susperstisions, folkflore and the occult sciences of the world
-Botkins, B.A. Treasury of Southern Folklore
-Hand, Wayland D. Popular Beliefs and Superstitions: A Compendium of American Folklore: Ohio

You'll all be toasted tea soon enough.And food for the dead, the devil, the dark.And all traditions will pass onwards.As they do.
I was never big on Lughnasa and Lammas; they aren't big parts or even really known parts of my culture and are not part of my regional celebrations, but, the feast of Grains, High Summer and the Feast of Bread and Roses all occur at this time of year, and so it gives me something much like the bread-tide to look forward to.  This year, I grew my first ancient grain garden, specifically in the name of the Harvest Mother.  Amaranth, barley, wheat, oat, poppy.  They grew small, but well, and this first harvest is just the offering portion.  I wonder what the equinox will bring...

She is the Headless One, and all schemers love her,She has no qualms, or troubled thoughts for those that come to bother.GamblerThieverCheaterDeceiverOn this dark night, we built your altar.We made an offering at your shrine;of stolen coins and drugged wine.A knife for the threat, a key if you're slick;Loot from a bet, cards for the trick.All I ask is you keep the ne'r do-wells from me,And if I'm the swindler, let me get away free.

Fire. Morning/Midday. Midsummer. Masc/Fem. Mars/Venus. Warrior.  Healer.  Sky-reacher.  Herald of summer..  A pink syrup.  A violet dye.  A brownish/beige tea.  A calm after a fire.  A rage of color after a stormy season.  Standing tall, and blooming in an upward spiral towards father sky.  A clock for summer and the witches who trace their paths by the change in the land as the sun and moon do their dance.

Fireweed/Willowherb syrup. (true color).  
I have come to regard fireweed highly. She is the herald of Midsummer in my region; growing tall, proud and plentiful wherever she likes. For the last few years I've taken up making candied flowers, syrups, teas and tinctures of her.  But syrup, especially mixed with a little honey and served on plain vanilla ice cream, is a favorite.  I harvest her from my own rain garden where she constantly tries to overshadow my Ficus and rush-- she longs to touch the Venus at the center of the Venusian rain garden. She is passionate and belongs where loving and clawing things grow.


In my work, her element is fire, her tide is morning and Midsummer, her moon is whenever, her nature is Venusian and Martian, and she follows strife with hope; balances grief with remembrance, and brings a wild healing to her every touch.  She is famine food in the PNW and is known to bring the fire of life to the dying. She ever reaches to the sky. Flame and Wind. She is respected here. 
Does willowherb play a part in your work come summer?

The syrup recipe is same as my spring sweet violet recipe; lemon, water, sugar, a handful of fresh flower -- balanced right? Four elements.  In other ways as well: earth grows the herb, which is boiled in water, over a fire and requires a good deal of time in the cooling air to achieve color harmony.
Give her 13 (witching) hours still in a warm dark place (like an unused oven) and bottle her up.  Keep in the fridge about 3 weeks.  Some folks have a sensitive stomach to the plant so be weary if you're knew to her. Especially if making tea from the leaf.