On the ten year anniversary of the online publication of Rewilding Witchcraft I have been prompted by my friend Rhyd Wildermuth to repost the essay, which remains provocative, harrowing and salient.
Thanks Ron, I've always had good interactions with and respect for the Quakers, a fascinating survival from the 1640s and the antinomian thought that fed into Blake and the Romantics, which is where I follow much of my heritage back to. Glad you found some resonance with this.
Fascinating to encounter so many Quakers here - in the last year, I have reconnected with my Quaker ancestry, and begun attending local meetings. These are good folk. But I have also learned of how Quakers were mainstays of the mining industry which scarred the landscape in my part of the North of England. I am wary of all ideologies and, while the Quakers tend to be less ideological than other people of The Book, I am still wary of identifying too strongly with them. Nature is the great teacher.
My magic is not great but I have tried to influence local planning meetings to stop more building. Lately I have been thinking that more direct baneful projects, against those who might sway decision making by lobbying etc, could be better. My thinking so far is that harming individuals is less use than making committee decisions sway towards healthier decisions for nature. Perhaps I'm too optimistic.
Always better to pour honey before poison! There is not enough bridge building and finding common ground in our present politics. Malefic witchcraft is the art of last resort, but should not be taken off the table. Each situation needs carefully weighing up. Institutions are better targets than individuals for the most part. Thanks for playing your part Matt.
I think about these themes a lot, particularly in relationship to my own Quaker practice (which I arrived at after a circuitous path that still includes a healthy respect for magick), but this quote especially resonated with me this time: “Form your covens and your working groups, for there is no time to lose. Make your ritual actions count. Be present in every action and exchange. Love one another.”
It has indeed. Though I’m a guest of the community now which matters. I haven’t DMd anyone on substack but I may try to find you if you don’t mind. Many of the Quakers I have met in the north east have held firmly to the Covid narrative. Which, as Peter notes in another comment, goes right to the neutering of witchcraft. Fear of life. Of death. It’s been confusing. Especially because I love the people to pieces!! Being unafraid of the biome and unjabbed here is a bit like being gay in the 80s. It’s fine as long as you don’t talk about it. Especially odd because around here Quaker’s tend to be very liberal! As I would consider myself on many topics. Anyway… love to compare notes off thread if you’re amenable. 🙏
What a gift… a recurring full body yes. Thank you Peter. I have a similar experience when encountering other brothers in spirit… Rhyd, Jem Bendell, Charles Eisenstein, Paul Kingsnorth. Ministers, all of you to my eye, calling us to embody, now. To notice and honor that the ache we feel — have felt for so long — in the depths of our being is nothing less than the grief stricken wail of the living earth.
I accepted your invitation. So many of us are being called into service now. The sacred anchor that holds me today… that eluded me for many years… that includes and honors my Christian brothers and sisters — like Paul — is the acknowledgement that we are all children of our mother earth and our father sun. All life here is the alchemical expression of this holy dance. I have found it in me… healed enough… to love both parents fully and without apology.
To my mind the work of the warlock, the wizard and the healer in this moment is to foster reunion. Mind and body. Yin and Yang. Left and Right. Our mother’s life depends on it.
Sending love gratitude and solidarity. So glad to have encountered your work in this moment. 🙏❤️
Thanks Brian. I'm glad to be included on that list. I'm happy to see anyone doing this work, regardless of their denomination. Though my position is that Christianity has inherent contradictions here, I recognise those sailing under that flag are doing valuable things and trying to find their own truth.
Beautifully said. My frame currently feels something like: I love both my celestial parents… and… mom needs me (us) more now. I believe the sun children are trying to help too in their way. Mine is to disagree without dishonoring. Resist without desecrating. To invite into service without coercion. We cannot overpower the sun. I do allow for the spontaneous remission of our collective cancer consciousness into balance with life. I have not ruled out the miraculous. We will not tech our way out of collapse though.
Thanks for this Peter, I didn't read it the first time around and yet identify deeply with the mad rage about the impotence of that time, rage which fueled me to write my own version through the medicine and unearthly wisdom of the elder tree. As a long time wildcrafter and medicine maker I didn't and couldn't identify with the modern version of witch even though my daily life was all about witchery and hedge cunning. if you're up for a bit of a read you can dive into the old magic (as Alan Garner would say) of elder medicine here:
"We live within systems that support and conceal those that never face the consequences of the harm that they have done. The old magic has been hidden behind mountains of comfort, convenience masking a tight grip on control so instead of the Other, we have the other us and our endless scapegoats of judgement and fear. A system that is out of balance, a system driven without regard for the whole or regard for the balance but instead fueled by a driving unquenching thirst for more, a consumption that never ceases and is firmly seated in being separated and cut off from the roots of belonging to whence from it was born."
meanwhile I find that my rage has subsided, and that I have moved on in my grief towards acceptance and a deeper sense of trust, trust in my craft as well as trust in the divine. it certainly has been helped as I stand somewhat equipped and somewhat in community while we participate in the crumbling empire.
thanks for the words Peter and may they live long and move strongly.
Thanks for sharing Natasha, glad you have found such a good ally with Elder. Enjoyed your writing too. Rage is necessary, but not a long term solution, and I see a lot of people who get lost in the aftermath of that stage in grief and hospice narratives that they are unable to escape from, and to some extent escape into. Pleased to hear that you have found a place of trust through your work as the tectonics of Empire groan and shift.
Quite synchronically, I wasn't aware of the 10 years of publication of this seminal text but also reposted the French translation we made of it a few days ago. \o/
Always great to read this one & the any of 'Brazen Vessel' again. That book has been a strong companion from the Big Apple, to the shores in my hometown, to the Smoky Mountains — up & down the eastern USA. This essay, to me, really puts across that liminality of extremes and the massive dose of time with which places themselves move. And of course the main meditation here. Even though it's sometimes too easy for me to mistake tree-time for forest-time when the leaves are bright green, this is one of those pieces it’s impossible for me to forget.
Appreciate it Will, The Brazen Vessel represents a particularly fertile decade of work. Glad it has been a good companion to you. Hope you are able to counterbalance the fumes of the Big Apple with more time amongst the green.
Thank you for sharing this essay again, Peter. It's as all as true now as when you penned it. I return to it and reread it occasionally. I hold it in my heart with other eye-opening writings, such as the essay "Learning to Die in the Anthropocene" by Roy Scranton https://nyti.ms/3r5mkip and Peter Gelderloos's book, "How Non-Violence Protects the State."
If witchcraft is fighting CO2 levels and climate change, then it is on the wrong side already. Then it is complicit with the forces that are destroying all life on earth.
CO2 levels are the mainstream monoculture response to the crisis. The main tool that empire uses for thousands of years in order to maintain control is fear, and it is wickedly good at fear mongering. Can we use witchcraft to break that spell? If we don't break that spell then nothing else will make a difference.
The point is Marius that witchcraft, the mainstream version, has sat on its hands whilst the world burns. This piece was written a decade ago, and I have plenty to say about the disaster of the Fourth Industrial Revolution which has been the astroturf psy-op taking advantage of very justifiable anger at the ongoing rapacious greed and destruction wrought by late stage capitalism. So it is unlikely that we are on opposite sides here. If there was serious concern about CO2 the international focus would be on bringing China to the table to prevent their incessant building of coal fired power stations, not the authoritarian green agenda which benefits only the rich. Thanks for engaging, I hear you.
Huh?! I can't parse your argument or fathom your absolutism. CO2 levels are an easily comprehensible measurement of how bad global warming is and will become. It should rightly inspire fear but it's not a fear that "empire" or "mainstream monoculture" deals in.
While humans are putting pressure on the environment in many ways, and there are real risks of environmental collapse, CO2 levels and the resulting global warming are clearly the tool that empire uses to increase control, and they are our least problem.
We could argue if higher CO2 levels or climate warming (related or not) are scary, but my point is that if we act out of fear and if we don't find better ways to govern ourselves then all our actions will end up increasing the problem. Witchcraft out of panic and fear is a terrible force, like everything else we do. Organizations of all kinds will keep exploiting our unprocessed emotions, this is empire at work for thousands of years.
Thanks Ron, I've always had good interactions with and respect for the Quakers, a fascinating survival from the 1640s and the antinomian thought that fed into Blake and the Romantics, which is where I follow much of my heritage back to. Glad you found some resonance with this.
Fascinating to encounter so many Quakers here - in the last year, I have reconnected with my Quaker ancestry, and begun attending local meetings. These are good folk. But I have also learned of how Quakers were mainstays of the mining industry which scarred the landscape in my part of the North of England. I am wary of all ideologies and, while the Quakers tend to be less ideological than other people of The Book, I am still wary of identifying too strongly with them. Nature is the great teacher.
My magic is not great but I have tried to influence local planning meetings to stop more building. Lately I have been thinking that more direct baneful projects, against those who might sway decision making by lobbying etc, could be better. My thinking so far is that harming individuals is less use than making committee decisions sway towards healthier decisions for nature. Perhaps I'm too optimistic.
Always better to pour honey before poison! There is not enough bridge building and finding common ground in our present politics. Malefic witchcraft is the art of last resort, but should not be taken off the table. Each situation needs carefully weighing up. Institutions are better targets than individuals for the most part. Thanks for playing your part Matt.
I think about these themes a lot, particularly in relationship to my own Quaker practice (which I arrived at after a circuitous path that still includes a healthy respect for magick), but this quote especially resonated with me this time: “Form your covens and your working groups, for there is no time to lose. Make your ritual actions count. Be present in every action and exchange. Love one another.”
I am currently living in a Quaker community in New Hampshire. Would love to compare notes!
Oh, neat! I imagine immersing yourself in the full community experience must be quite something.
It has indeed. Though I’m a guest of the community now which matters. I haven’t DMd anyone on substack but I may try to find you if you don’t mind. Many of the Quakers I have met in the north east have held firmly to the Covid narrative. Which, as Peter notes in another comment, goes right to the neutering of witchcraft. Fear of life. Of death. It’s been confusing. Especially because I love the people to pieces!! Being unafraid of the biome and unjabbed here is a bit like being gay in the 80s. It’s fine as long as you don’t talk about it. Especially odd because around here Quaker’s tend to be very liberal! As I would consider myself on many topics. Anyway… love to compare notes off thread if you’re amenable. 🙏
What a gift… a recurring full body yes. Thank you Peter. I have a similar experience when encountering other brothers in spirit… Rhyd, Jem Bendell, Charles Eisenstein, Paul Kingsnorth. Ministers, all of you to my eye, calling us to embody, now. To notice and honor that the ache we feel — have felt for so long — in the depths of our being is nothing less than the grief stricken wail of the living earth.
I accepted your invitation. So many of us are being called into service now. The sacred anchor that holds me today… that eluded me for many years… that includes and honors my Christian brothers and sisters — like Paul — is the acknowledgement that we are all children of our mother earth and our father sun. All life here is the alchemical expression of this holy dance. I have found it in me… healed enough… to love both parents fully and without apology.
To my mind the work of the warlock, the wizard and the healer in this moment is to foster reunion. Mind and body. Yin and Yang. Left and Right. Our mother’s life depends on it.
Sending love gratitude and solidarity. So glad to have encountered your work in this moment. 🙏❤️
Thanks Brian. I'm glad to be included on that list. I'm happy to see anyone doing this work, regardless of their denomination. Though my position is that Christianity has inherent contradictions here, I recognise those sailing under that flag are doing valuable things and trying to find their own truth.
Beautifully said. My frame currently feels something like: I love both my celestial parents… and… mom needs me (us) more now. I believe the sun children are trying to help too in their way. Mine is to disagree without dishonoring. Resist without desecrating. To invite into service without coercion. We cannot overpower the sun. I do allow for the spontaneous remission of our collective cancer consciousness into balance with life. I have not ruled out the miraculous. We will not tech our way out of collapse though.
Thanks for this Peter, I didn't read it the first time around and yet identify deeply with the mad rage about the impotence of that time, rage which fueled me to write my own version through the medicine and unearthly wisdom of the elder tree. As a long time wildcrafter and medicine maker I didn't and couldn't identify with the modern version of witch even though my daily life was all about witchery and hedge cunning. if you're up for a bit of a read you can dive into the old magic (as Alan Garner would say) of elder medicine here:
"We live within systems that support and conceal those that never face the consequences of the harm that they have done. The old magic has been hidden behind mountains of comfort, convenience masking a tight grip on control so instead of the Other, we have the other us and our endless scapegoats of judgement and fear. A system that is out of balance, a system driven without regard for the whole or regard for the balance but instead fueled by a driving unquenching thirst for more, a consumption that never ceases and is firmly seated in being separated and cut off from the roots of belonging to whence from it was born."
https://www.earthlingsemporium.com/experience/hedgewalkers/elder
meanwhile I find that my rage has subsided, and that I have moved on in my grief towards acceptance and a deeper sense of trust, trust in my craft as well as trust in the divine. it certainly has been helped as I stand somewhat equipped and somewhat in community while we participate in the crumbling empire.
thanks for the words Peter and may they live long and move strongly.
warmly
Natasha
Thanks for sharing Natasha, glad you have found such a good ally with Elder. Enjoyed your writing too. Rage is necessary, but not a long term solution, and I see a lot of people who get lost in the aftermath of that stage in grief and hospice narratives that they are unable to escape from, and to some extent escape into. Pleased to hear that you have found a place of trust through your work as the tectonics of Empire groan and shift.
All my very best,
Peter
cheers Peter, and thankyou. yes the plants hold me well and many green blessings your way.
Quite synchronically, I wasn't aware of the 10 years of publication of this seminal text but also reposted the French translation we made of it a few days ago. \o/
Merci beaucoup Kazim! Entanglement in action...
Always great to read this one & the any of 'Brazen Vessel' again. That book has been a strong companion from the Big Apple, to the shores in my hometown, to the Smoky Mountains — up & down the eastern USA. This essay, to me, really puts across that liminality of extremes and the massive dose of time with which places themselves move. And of course the main meditation here. Even though it's sometimes too easy for me to mistake tree-time for forest-time when the leaves are bright green, this is one of those pieces it’s impossible for me to forget.
Appreciate it Will, The Brazen Vessel represents a particularly fertile decade of work. Glad it has been a good companion to you. Hope you are able to counterbalance the fumes of the Big Apple with more time amongst the green.
Thank you for sharing this essay again, Peter. It's as all as true now as when you penned it. I return to it and reread it occasionally. I hold it in my heart with other eye-opening writings, such as the essay "Learning to Die in the Anthropocene" by Roy Scranton https://nyti.ms/3r5mkip and Peter Gelderloos's book, "How Non-Violence Protects the State."
If witchcraft is fighting CO2 levels and climate change, then it is on the wrong side already. Then it is complicit with the forces that are destroying all life on earth.
CO2 levels are the mainstream monoculture response to the crisis. The main tool that empire uses for thousands of years in order to maintain control is fear, and it is wickedly good at fear mongering. Can we use witchcraft to break that spell? If we don't break that spell then nothing else will make a difference.
The point is Marius that witchcraft, the mainstream version, has sat on its hands whilst the world burns. This piece was written a decade ago, and I have plenty to say about the disaster of the Fourth Industrial Revolution which has been the astroturf psy-op taking advantage of very justifiable anger at the ongoing rapacious greed and destruction wrought by late stage capitalism. So it is unlikely that we are on opposite sides here. If there was serious concern about CO2 the international focus would be on bringing China to the table to prevent their incessant building of coal fired power stations, not the authoritarian green agenda which benefits only the rich. Thanks for engaging, I hear you.
Goosebumps
Huh?! I can't parse your argument or fathom your absolutism. CO2 levels are an easily comprehensible measurement of how bad global warming is and will become. It should rightly inspire fear but it's not a fear that "empire" or "mainstream monoculture" deals in.
While humans are putting pressure on the environment in many ways, and there are real risks of environmental collapse, CO2 levels and the resulting global warming are clearly the tool that empire uses to increase control, and they are our least problem.
We could argue if higher CO2 levels or climate warming (related or not) are scary, but my point is that if we act out of fear and if we don't find better ways to govern ourselves then all our actions will end up increasing the problem. Witchcraft out of panic and fear is a terrible force, like everything else we do. Organizations of all kinds will keep exploiting our unprocessed emotions, this is empire at work for thousands of years.