This beautiful wall painting from the Rila monastery in Bulgaria (from Wikipedia commons/Witches) shows the Christian church’s deep preoccupation with the subject of witchcraft, particularly as practiced in rural areas.
Nevertheless I was still surprised to hear a former Church of England vicar lay claim to the existence of “a coven of witches” in the parish of Hanley Broadheath to the north of Worcester in yesterday’s Metro newspaper. This article incidentally was juxtaposed with one about my old e-pantomime foe – see http://janetmackinnon.blogspot.com - The Wicked Blair Wizard !
Now being a solitary hedge witch my myself, I can sympathise with all good people of religion confronted with deep enmities of the kind which certain types of community, including faith groups and political parties, can engender. However, whilst I accept that such enmity can reflect a certain spiritual malaise, I would suggest that the power of this has as much to do with more mundane human psychology and relations as supernatural forces.
By way of illustrating this, I shall refer to my own frequent visits to a semi-rural community to the east of Worcester, somewhat closer to “The Faithful City” (so-called !) than Hanley Broadheath, and, unusually for the country areas of our County, served by a regular bus service, even on the Christian Sabbath.
Last Sunday, however, I took a round walk of some 10 miles to minister to the poor of said Parish : 2 cats without owners who occupy some outbuildings belonging to a business near the village in question. Attempts by me lately to get local residents ”to take ownership” of these animals – until recently only 1 – have proved unsuccessful and usually result in lengthy accounts of their domestic life and/or details of holiday destinations.
Needless to say, I am not particularly impressed, and I too have noted the presence of a certain psycho-spiritual malaise in this area. However, I have put this down not to the presence of a “coven of witches”, but to the tendency of people who live in semi-rural communities to have a “Sub-Urban” outlook and lifestyle which is excessively car dependent. In effect, they lack any deep connection with their local environment and its inhabitants, and are disempowered as a consequence
I was surprised, therefore, on entering the village last Sunday to be greeted by people who normally ignore me. The reason for this soon became clear – and I had a jolly good witch’s cackle that day ! – my high visibility tabard had been mistaken as the herald, not of the Spirit of Christmas, but of road gritting by the highway authority, which unfortunately did not manifest itself on this occasion.
This image from the Wikipedia Commons shows a full moon as seen from the Northern Hemisphere. Tonight there will be a “Blue Moon” * – the 13th full moon of 2009 – from which the expression “once in a blue moon” is derived.
