Thoughts a Sennight Before Imbolc

I have not become more of a witch this year.

Between visiting Salem and staying with a friend with spell books over the summer, it became clear that that sort of witchcraft is not my thing.  And while the year has been emotionally taxing and politically frustrating, my personality is just not that b sort of witchy.

C-A July 2018.  Love is stronger than any craft.

After my dear friend C-A, the friend who had responded with such love to my initial post about witches ["I see the witch theme as having more of a sacred relationship to nature and a focus on the magical essence of life.  Maybe we can collaborate on some ideas for focuses through the year?"] died in September, before we had a chance to collaborate on discussing the sacred relationship to nature, I was nearly ready to stall the pursuit of witches indefinitely.

Yet by December, the seasons had changed again.  I had been given A Discovery of Witches and the rest of the All Souls Trilogy right after I picked up Harry Potter again, and I started reading novels of witches back to back (with a feminist space opera interlude for K.B. Wagers's Beyond the Chaos).  I just finished A Secret History of Witches this morning and pulled out Ellen Dugan's Garden Witchery to figure out what herbs to feature at the upcoming groundhog party.  The groundhog party has become my place to start or end themed years, as with last year's ten pie graduation, and I had already planned on lots of witchy touches to the party: candles, flowers, a cauldron of dry ice punch, flaming torches and the subtitle "A Summoning of Spring"

I flipped open Garden Witchery to the page about the sabbat of Imbolc.  The book, written by a suburban Missouri gardener, has practical family rituals for each of the eight pagan celebrations of the seasons.  Imbolc became St. Brigit's Day became Candlemas became Groundhog Day.  It is halfway between the solstice and the equinox, the time when days really are noticeably longer, when the weather of winter may be fierce but there are cracks in the grip of winter; it is clear that spring will comes.  For Imbolc, Dugan suggests arranging some flowers and candles in the house and then getting outside to watch the sun and do something observing nature, like taking the family to a wildlife refuge to look for eagles.   This sounds familiar.

Not my natural habitat

From all my recent reading, I've learned that witches celebrate the solstices and equinoxes (yep, I've thrown parties for those) and days in between: Imbolc/Groundhog Day as the light returns, May Day/Beltane, the harvest, and Halloween.  I've thrown parties, baked, and lit candles for those as well (many recorded on this blog).

I have been a gardener all of my life.  I wrote my 5th grade research paper on "Medicinal Uses of Herbs in Colonial America."  For 4-H Creative Cooks contents I proposed menus for May Day (with baked lemon bread), Midsummer's Eve (a lemon fool with blackberry sauce), comet watching, and the spring equinox (with a blueberry and kiwi yin-yang tofu cheesecake).  I started sending out Groundhog cards in 8th grade reminding friends to celebrate the season, whatever the season is, and my first party was 25 years ago.

So I haven't become any more of a witch.
I've always been one.