The Witch of Forest Grove

As I type this one of my creepier eight-legged familiars keeps edging closer and closer towards me… as long as they don’t jump on me all should be well and this post finished. This past weekend I went camping deep in the forest with chatty ravens, feather-dropping barn owls, a pair of mouse-hunting eagles, and a very large and loud pack of coyotes. Oh, and there were plenty of witches there as well passing bottles of homemade mead around the campfire of fragrant cedar logs.

The massive fir tree near the fire was oozing golden sticky resin which I collected and put on log in the fire so it melted and smoked to release its scent. Talk about fresh incense! I had lots of time to carve sitting under a canopy of trees in the sunlight.  I finished a wand as much as I could with just my knife and some sandpaper and then started on another. I have a bunch of things to make for friends before I can get back to carving for the botanica.

I also got to talking with one of the lovely witches about my feather collection and she graciously gifted me with goodly amount of blue heron feathers for my crafting. They are large and lovely and soft and will make a beautiful smudge fan. My sweetie also found a robin’s egg shell in the woods which may end up inside another familiar vessel. I found a massive felled hazel branch already split into two staff-sized lengths which I of course took home. What a beautiful relaxing weekend of carving mixed with rituals of drumming, chanting, a tambourine and a flute — just lovely.

Here she is now, my eight-legged friend half a foot away from my computer when she started off on the other side of the room… she’s now throwing herself off the shelf and then dangling in the air from a thread like a bungie jumper over and over – it looks kinda fun.