Witches to the Centre

Well hello – 2nd blog post in 9 months – I’m on fire baby…

Look, let’s breathe out for a minute – you and I, somehow we both made it here right? Celebrating that. These are the quiet in-between days, as we all wait for the new year, and new decade to turn its face to us. The last few moments before a birth can be hushed ones, strangely enough, and I’m finding it so, in these soft Gloucestershire hills and valleys that have been home for well over a decade now.

There is a silver sliver of moon, my nest is still Solstice-twinkly, and I have a delicious bundle of knitting to keep my hands busy, while my mind floats over the 13 moons that have just been.

Some years ask questions, some give us answers. I’ve heard that said many times. After 4 years of questioning, 2019 gave me answers, plenty of them. Some of them took my breath away, some of them scared me rigid, some of them left me aching and in tears.

I found a new tribe on the rebellious streets of London, and the most fantastic and determined activists right on my doorsteps; all of them have become beautiful friends.

I gave up trying to be the artist I needed myself to be, and in the process become the artist I wanted to be, without plan or direction. I sit in front of a piece of paper, and somehow the art finds me. My inner witch knows what she’s doing, and I know better than to subvert her with my own rigid ideas, or try and get all Virgo with her; she’s wild and having none of it. It means that my style of art is changing, and who knows where it will end up.

I’ve kept to my rhythm of travelling between the oceans of the east and west, stopping in the woodlands along the way, and I really hope next year lets me continue that blessing way. I’ve swung between artwork and activism, and I’m imagining that will continue too. Most of all, I’ve learned that as long as I keep the smell of earth nearby, the ocean in my ears, and witchcraft and wildness centre stage, then I’m going to be ok. All the rest is detail.

When you have come to the edge of all light that you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen. Either there will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught to fly..

Patrick Overter