A Witches Willow

I am already looking forward to Autumn and Autumn's Spell.

After a particularly wet and cold spring and a long hot, dry summer I again will morph into my true self, longing only for fall's bleak and somber skies, a cup of Lavender Tea, scrying and divining for others.

As I scan my surroundings, a forgotten malady, a melancholy and tattered scarecrow, its head swinging back and forth in unison to some discordant rhythm, its garment in tatters, stands watch in a deserted field once full of rows of green stalks with ripened corn.

After the harvest all that remains of the field is spent soil, dry and listless vegetation, lifeless corpses that were cut down in their prime, remnants of what was and yet still standing in unison, like good little soldiers.    

It is silent, quiet and desolate here--like being on some, distant aloof, uncaring alien planet.

But all of a sudden a hostile wind is whipping up into a fury, as leftover discarded brown leaves whirl feverishly around me, mesmerizing but yet discordant as my gleeful laughter now mutates into a low cackle.    

The noise is deafening but oh, how I love it.

I stand quietly with eyes closed, relishing the moment.

Through the din I can hear crows noisily cawing in the distance as I squint trying to get a better look.

I am rewarded with a massive horde of black pinpricks silhouetted against the backdrop of an Ochre sky.  

It has become much more windier, sharply more colder and damp.

I look above me and catch the muted sight of the first wave of frozen pellets just starting to rain down.

In a few moments they drown out the sound of the wind and blanket the ground.

I lower my head and listen as they they pelt down upon the brim of my hat.

I draw my heavy cloak tighter around me.

Bright green eyes ablaze, I can clearly see, even through the blinding fog of snow pellets and clear through to the other side.

I am emerged in deep thought--

I've put the tools of my trade away for the time being as desperate and anguished cries and earnest pleadings for help have all but subsided.

If anyone is in need, I will easily retrieve them as they are just just sitting in the corner of my kitchen.

My mind is full of intense and deep dark colors, violet, forest green, lemon yellow, dark chocolate, indigo, black.

I realize my whole body is starting to shiver now and I reach up to touch my face but can't feel it.  

How lovely is this moment.

To feel and experience emotion, sensation, to thrive and derive much satisfaction from the little things in life, to endure and fight the good fight, to strive to survive in order to embrace all that life has to offer along with the good and the bad and become, hopefully, a much better person for the experience.

I am standing under the canopy of a magnificent ancient willow under which I have mixed my herbs cast my spells and incantations.

Many have been healed with the help of this tree.

We have an unspoken agreement, a hermaphroditic relationship that transcends all time and space.

The bitter wind continues its demonic onslaught, shaking the tree and whipping its tender and slender branches across my face like strident lashes from  a fiery poker.

I look down at the ground and note droplets of blood.

It's beautiful in a way, the deep deep red of the harlot intermingled with the virgin white snow pellets.

My high heeled boots are unsteady as I try to escape the wind, embracing the tree's trunk trying to balance myself on its voluptuous and knotted roots.

Gnarled and beautiful they are lifted up to reveal a treasure of hidden wishes and desires, providing an infinite spiritual transcendence, a bonding, a deep sexual, tempestuous experience, completeness, an exhilarating drunken and heathen encounter, an ardent no holds barred brawl resulting in an unexpected reverence for life you didn't expect.

We are like trees, you know...or didn't you?

And the willow, forced to accept its plight and struggling to understand is now faced with an experience that will transcend all, a completeness, an exquisite interlocking of passion, seduction and eroticism, orgasmic and mind altering that will cause its soul to be unleashed and set free and into the light as it heaves and thrusts itself upward through the moist and fragrant earth.

Its roots are etched with shadowy faces and ancient symbols, secrets, chalices, orbs, hidden places, nooks and crannies, long forgotten images of G-ds and G-ddesses, funny faces and fearful ones, leering and sinister demonic entities, lofty, regal angelic beings with wings unfurled and swords drawn.

I continue to brace for more of the whipping steel cold wind and then hear the murmur of the willow as it whispers in my ear, "and this too, shall pass".    
   

       ~Nightshade