A witch in the city

 It is all too frequent to hear and read about the great virtues of the wild land and the untamed places, where the green genii dwell unrestricted by human hand. Exalted such as they are, these places would no longer be "wild" or "untamed" if a host of well-meaning hippies and other "nature-inspired" folk would make such areas their favorite and frequent dwelling place. Bearing this in mind, and even if we are conscious in our trips to the wild, it isn't always affordable or possible to do, especially if you live in a city that occupies a large area. What to do then? For years, on and off, as i tip toed from magical system to magical system i wondered about this. A few questions lingered on my mind, fueled by a romantic understanding of the wild grove. Are those trees we commonly find on the street cognoscente? Or have they gone dormant, their dryad leaving them for greener grass? In my mind, those questions were perfectly logical. As logical as any mystical reasoning, that is. After all, those great and proud trees were no longer in their element, grown out of nature and by nature's own devises of ecosystem practicality and homeostasis. Instead, they were used for beautification purposes or to wage a silent war against pollution and noise. I saw those trees being cut down when their branches stretched too far or sawed down when their roots threatened the evenness of the sidewalk. Not alive, they couldn't be. It was in the midst of this belief that I had my first communion with a tree. It was a huge maple growing in a near a gas station, right in the intersection of several highways. I was walking home from work, worried sick about something that didn't really matter when a certain buzzing was felt in the air, gently pushing itself into my awareness. It is a hard task to explain, but as you feel that certain tension that tells you that someone is looking at you and you turn only to find a person staring, so did I turn, but only to find a few houses, grass, cars driving by and the night to keep me company. The buzzing, however, didn't lose its strength because I couldn't identify its source. It merely became stronger and different as I moved forward until at last I discovered its source. Shining like a beacon was a tree and when I approached it something happened and the novelty of it left me in awe. Like a stream, another consciousness poured into my own, ordaining my own thoughts, giving the answers I was seeking, reassuring me and comforting me in an absolute kindness. During that congress, my spirit dissolved and responded to that foreign, so complete and infinite emotion for goodness knows how I long. For a moment, brief or not I cannot say, there was no clear line between me and the tree, just reciprocation. Eventually I came to my own senses and realizing that it just wasn't wise to stand at that particular crossroads at night I went away. Today I really wish I hadn't for no more than a week later there was only a stump left. I guess when I look back, that the tree knew it was marked to die. That would surely account for the melancholy I sensed within her, or maybe wisdom and age is tempered a bit by it. I don't know. It aids my sadness, however, when I think on it, that Maple saw fit to, before departing, to open my eyes to the wonders that are hidden in plain sight.

How is that story relevant though? To me, it showed that a city is much alive. It's different, certainly, than the life that fills a wild place, but a witch is formed by the land where she lives, not by the land that she visits and where she will always be, at best, a guest no matter how welcomed she might be. This reciprocation is what marks witchcraft. To know and follow the flow of the web and tide of place, chasing it and learning it in the midst of centuries old stones and bones. So know your city, city witches. Woo the trees that know you well for they have seen you and the ones that came before you, make allies within the graveyards that hold your ancestors bones and will one day hold your own, greet the river and the ocean that saw much misery and brought much fortune to the ones courageous enough to brave them. Parks, gardens, fountains, churches, financial buildings and courthouses, markets and other places of trade, theaters and brothels, all of this plays its part in our very own human life. A city and its surrounding places are worlds unto themselves. They have their own threshold guardians, their own taboos, and their own requests to make and gifts to give. There aren't guide books to its mysteries, only direct instruction from its guardians, if it so pleases them.