I don't know how many of you have spent a lot of time in nature, somewhere far enough from "civilisation?" To those of you who have had the chance to do so, you will already know what I'm talking about. Others, pay attention.
Its interesting how things change when you spend enough time in a place where most of the modern insanity of western society does not exist at all. Where the sun, the moon, rain and wind make most decisions for you and where the noisiest thing is a howling guard dog of a local farmer two miles away. First thing you notice is the quietness, in the beginning its eerie, soon it turns into serenity and after maybe a week, any noise done by people stands out like a sore thumb. Senses get keen, your awareness of your surroundings will change to something like how animals sense things. tiniest movement or noise will grab your attention.
The electric grid just went down for a minute. I was already lighting candles and now its back up. Old wiring + nearby thunderstorm is just lovely combination here. Damn, I thought I will have some adventure here.
Anyway, where was I...
Second thing to change is the awareness of detail. When nature is the only stimulation, soon all the birds, bugs and all sort of creepy crawlies that go around start to poke out of the woodwork. Patterns start to emerge, the flying hours of insects, when certain birds are on the hunt, when certain types of fish are feeding and so on.
Third thing is learning to handle solitude. In this nordic people are naturally quite good at. For me its been surprisingly easy as I'm very social and outgoing person, but I have a piece of a hermit in me, which I thing many witches share? I bet we're the kind who can handle living almost alone in the middle of nowhere rather easily. But I've seen it happen many times that not everybody can handle being away from people. I've had fiends stay here and leave prematurely because they just can't take it being somewhere kind of isolated from the rest of the world. For its even more so as I do not have a car here, the closest shop is 25 kilometres away and I don't even have a bicycle. No worries though as the lake feeds and to an extent my dog too. The only things I soon need is potatoes, coffee and tobacco. Two of which I could grow here if I had the energy to deal with the horribly rocky soil here.
Fourth weirdness that happens is that I do not need to do spells much, not even meditate as living like this is a continuous meditation, the surrounding itself makes me calm and peaceful, my heart lightens and I get things done way better than usual.
Also what's missing from here is the multitude of wi-fi networks, phone and internet works well enough in here these days, but instead of ten signals in the house, there's only my own modem here which I turn off when I go to sleep. Call me crazy, but I can "feel" it when there's ton of wifi around. Perhaps I'm sensitive to EMF or something?
Suffering from insomnia? Wilderness will cure you. Even if you're a coffee addict. I'm a certified insomniac if I let myself loose. But in here as sun goes down, I get sleepy and I wake up early feeling as if reborn every day. Its amazing! When I'm in a city, unless I work a lot, I wont sleep well no matter what. The only thing that does it is WORK and WORK and WORK until being exhausted. In here no problems with sleep what so ever.
Wild animals get used to you. I have had several nice encounters with birds and insects here. Its amazing, the crows are still shy but now they only leave if I walk near the shore. They used to fly away when I open the door. Today I was coming back from the fish traps, the wind picked up speed as I was in the middle of the lake and a bumblebee flew by, clearly struggling against the wind. The poor bug must have been tired as it saw my boat, it landed on the engine battery for a free ride and it only went on its way when we were at the shore again. Certain type of forest bird hit one of the porch windows the other day... I bet it was in shock, it wasn't afraid of me or the dog at all for good fifteen minutes. It was the first time in my life that I was able to pet a wild bird. I talked to it and it even let me check its wings and legs... Lucky bird as he had no injuries, other than a concussion I presume. I even got a very good picture of it. If it would have been injured, I would sure tried to help it. The problem was that this kind of bird eats live insects which it catches on the fly. How in heck you feed one of them?
I have left out countless of hermit bees which next in the walls here. Those guys are nasty looking, but very tame and useful. I have never been stung by one. They're the almost all black thin ones which yellow stripes on the back. Today while going to check the fish traps, I was trolling with the fishingrod and caught a young pike. Small pikes are super active in july, hungry and downright stupid.
Usually when they get caught and picked out of the water, they put up a insane fight for survival quite naturally. So its not easy to release them while they panic all over the place. This time I said to the pike not to be scared, that I will let it back to grow and on the same moment the pike stopped moving, just enough for me to release the hook and put him back to the water... They don't do that, unless they're too long out from water and they lack oxygen. But it felt as if this pike heard what I meant. Even though fish are very simple creatures, I know that animals sense things, they sense the mood and intent of a person very easily. The wild animals are of course much more careful and easily scared, but I have seen them listen when I talk to them and few times it seemed that they understood.
I have talked about it many times before, the way I deal with the fish. I ask them to if they want to give their life to feed me or if they want to go back to the lake. That's so native American. And ancient Finnish way as well. About a week ago, I caught a big perch from one of the traps. I was already holding it and raising a block of wood I use to knock them out before killing them and suddenly I felt as if the fish was begging me to let it go... I looked at the poor thing for a minute and told it to swim back home. Most fishermen I know would call me a crazy moron for doing things like this, but I'm old school. I do believe that there is a water guardian or a deity, how ever you want to call it and then there's the spirit of the fish. A good fisherman never angers either of them, rather pays his respect by giving offerings and being merciful with the catch. Those fishes have kept me alive, if this would be a survival situation, my life would depend on them. And nothing's more important than health, clean water and good food. The more I do this, wider my respect and love for our earth grows.
If people would just understand how dependent we are of the earth and all other living things, there would be more witches around for sure. And more compassionate people who wouldn't be bickering over insignificant matters.
Last few months have been amazing, the most craftful time I've ever had and without doing much of it either. Nature is made of magical things, spend time there and soon you will just stand in admiration of its savage beauty.
EDIT:
This post made me think of this song by Thy Serpent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYHPZ87ys8s
By my feet the flowers of witchery abloom.
carry on.
I want to have a place to hermit out!
