Potions, lotions & aging gracefully

Now that we are actually going to have another "Practical Magic" movie coming out, and as we've just passed the Lughnasadh/Lammas turn of the wheel toward the mellowing of summer into the first hints of autumn light...here I am contemplating things through the lens of cronehood.

With the ((ahem)) not-so-modern science of herbal scrubs and tallow balms, the tech advances of red LED lights, and rose quartz Gua Sha stone tissue massages before breakfast, who needs a glamour spell?  Midlife crisis has been pushed out to 50 or even 55 now.  Heck with the speed of life today and the way we can alter our female hormones through medication or sheer stress, it can take longer to actually get to the shores of menopause and cronehood.

I was 53-1/2 years old when my biology finally caught on to the idea that motherhood was not anywhere on my bingo card.  Hot sweats to be cooled by midnight margaritas.  

That, and I didn't meet the man of my dreams until I was way past the usual sell-by date stamped invisibly on my forehead society.  He's a gem that thinks my Venus is more Willendorf than DeMilo but loves me for every squishy bit of it.

And this late-in-life edition of my romantic story arc has also renewed my interest in how the Goddess energy within me has come back to me with a face of a much more femme fatale version of Aphrodite than a girlish giggle or batting of eyelashes.  She's teaching me that seductive arts don't leave you, the energetic rush doesn't dissipate merely because you can no longer wear CFM pumps.  

There is less attention paid to rising hemlines and more emphasis on worshipping your loving partner for their successful life experiences.  The wisdom found in having become such a virtuoso kisser, how to treat ones partner with respect and yet still appreciate that he has learned the art of being both a gentleman and a savage in a way that a younger version couldn't master.

For me, I recognize that there really is beauty in each crinkle at the corner of my eye, carved there from a well-worn track of laughter and sometimes squinting incredulity at the idiocy of some of the shit the kids say today.  Every curve, however ample some may now be, that I possess, I have earned.  Some of it through learning to become a fabulous cook and some of it because I may well be a shapeshifting as lazy housecat on occasion.

Getting older as a GenX witch and knowing the weird/wyrd road that brough modern paganism into this bizarre mutation of Tiktok and underground retro traditionalism forcefed by socio-political agendas and taffypulled media narratives, it is both exhausting and liberating to behold.  I find myself laughing at the inside joke of "to be silent" is so much easier when you don't want to participate in the funhouse mirror of the bullshit that exists in paganism now.  It is polarized and warped so much, I have a deeper appreciation for wanting to just be left the hell alone to live in a cottage in the forest and culling my own herb garden in peace.

Once upon a time I had thought to teach, to hold a coven again, to write a book.  Now?  Why bother.  Bots and ChatGPT will just make it seem like it has all been said and done before.  No seekers come forward to work through experiential training.  No one gives a damn about lineage or consistency of practice alongside generational teachers.  And frankly, I don't think I want to expend the energy on the short attention spans I see around me.

It is ironic that the window of things being something joyfully passed down skipped out of town just when I was eligible to be one ready to pass it, like getting stuck with the pentacled hot potato.  Now it is passe.  

Kind of reminds me of the way I feel about thrifting and antiquing.  There are so many glorious treasures that have been discarded in all their gently patinaed, wabi-sabi goodness, and most of the world doesn't even seem to notice their value.

Like me.  I find I feel like that from time to time too, that because I've reached "a certain age" myself, I'm now sprinkled with the invisible dust and relegated to the knicknackery on hidden on the back shelf.  

But jokes on you.  I may well be happier here, among the dusty things.  The solid things that were hand made by artisans and not meant to be disposable and easily replaced or trendy.  The things that get more beautiful as they change and age and get more mellow with time and softness.

My witchery has grown like that too.  Like a garden that has matured and has gnarled, curled branches...roses blown wide apart with trembling petals and wavy edges....moss and mushrooms...soft pathways underfoot from being trod over decades.  It is less about discoveries and new exploration than it is about books as old friends and teas/tisanes that taste like honeyed brandy.  Familiar and dark and deep and cozy.

I've become the Aunts, not Sally or Jilly.  And I'm fine with that.

BELTANE THROUGH THE LENS OF AN OLDER WOMAN 

I am in my 50s now, and I've been working my Craft for over 30 years.  Some of that was tradition-based, much of it was with a coven.  In recent years, I've been solitary, semi-retired from "public pagandom" and that mostly because I feel like the version of the Craft I knew, that I love, is not what is around today.

What the Craft has morphed into is something different than what I had come to understand and know...and while that isn't denoting judgement of it as a good or bad thing, it is and acknowledgement that it IS a very different thing these days, and I'm not convinced this iteration is something to which I feel belong.  

And I'm ok with that for the most part. 

Perhaps this is why some have said a 'woman of a certain age' is supposed to step down from the HPS role and go do her groovy thing elsewhere.  Less to do with fertility maybe, and more to do with not relating to the role in quite the same way given the modern views and modalities.

Certainly seems to be enough history to support the idea of little old ladies going off to live alone and on  her own, away from the larger community, just growing her weird herb garden and talking to cats and forest animals as if they'd answer her back.  Seems about right to me!

Which brings me 'round again to Beltane.  As a single, older woman who is both sans coven and sans spouse, I'm having a bit of a negotiation with the Lord and Lady about how this celebration fits into my current situation and what I can bring to Them as proper offering of love, respect and gratitude in my given circumstances.  

What does Beltane even mean to me in my perimenopausal life?  What does it mean that my mood swings and fluctuating hormones and trying to age semi-gracefully make me nearly invisible in this world, both IRL and in modern pagandom?  

Do I tell the 'Wicca influencers' on Snapchat and IG to get their crystal balls of my lawn?  Do I spend my time trying to figure out why everybody is so damn triggered by the version of Craft that I once knew to the point of making it cancel-cultured pariah?  

Lately I feel like my private meditations with Cosmic Mom and Dad are more like I am in session with my therapist, trying to talk-through why it feels like the gradient of everything has stolen the specialness of it all.  

So I look at the old photographs of maypole dancers, of the colored ribbons and the smiling dancers who you just know were going to steal off to into the woods, two-by-two, to conjure the summer in.  And I feel whistful.  Not just because I am without a partner, but because I also often feel like I am without the joyousness and carefree FUN of what it meant to celebrate in such a way.

Now, we have to worry about who will be upset by the idea of what Beltane is about, how fertility  works, what words are OK to use in describing such things and reenacting them in token or in truth...all of which may be unintentionally triggering to somebody. 

So where does this leave us in our modern Beltane eve?  Is any sort of light-hearted flirtation acceptable or is it all considered a dance down the path toward offense now?  

This is why I am solitary.  I am far too jaded and sick of trying to figure out how to redress things to meet with today's parameters.  I'm from the school where a ribald joke, a risque double entendre and a bit of a wicked grin were part of the Beltane fun.  Verbal foreplay before the obvious figurative descent of the May Queen's flowered crown came sliding down the pole.  I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, y'all.  Just sayin'.

So here's a health to you, how every you do or don't celebrate.  May your May Wine be sweet with woodruff and berries, may your eyes alight on those whom you love and may the year ahead be fertile and wild and bountiful of blessings.

And may your Beltane night bring you much ecstasy and merriment as your palate and social conscience will allow you! 

Plagiarism isn't the most sincere form of flattery

Just a brief comment here after a recent incident I had with someone stealing parts of my blog posts from several years ago and trying to pass it off as their own work.  

I write this blog.  Just as it says, I am the sole author of "Flying Off the Broom Handle" and have been for 13 years and counting.  The thoughts I put here are my own opinions, my own tales of experiences I've had or thoughts which may cross my cranial spaces that I felt were worth sharing.  

Sometimes I do this to give readers something to chuckle about or contemplate or question.

Sometimes I write things that were inspired by conversations I've participated in while online or in public pagan spaces.  Things that made me curious or pissed me off.  Things that made me hopeful about the larger pagan scene or made me scratch my head.

But what I write here is my own content.  It has purpose and meaning for me because I've created it, drafted the words and cultivated the phrases.  From the passionate diatribes to the satirical rants...all borne from the witchy heart that resides within my own chest.  ((thump thump, hand to heart))

And so that is why my posts...ALL OF MY POSTS...are held in copyright. 

 
I want the words out there to be read and enjoyed, yes, but I want them to be known as my intellectual property.

If what I say inspires you, then fantastic.  If you have an AH-HA moment from them, that's wonderful!  If you get fired up and want to post a reply or offer a different view than what I've shared, please do!  

But please, be respectful.  If you want to "borrow" from my words, then please do the honest thing and ask.  I generally do grant permission for private use.  

What I don't do is want my words co-opted and used as though they belong to another author, another promoted agenda for which I've not given consent.  It is like having your name stolen, your identity taken or your likeness used to peddle goods that you have no idea you've been associated with.

So yes, I do take the stealing of my intellectual property seriously.  It isn't flattering to have someone outright steal your hard work.  It feels invasive, intrusive and hostile.  Not unlike someone coming into my home and helping themselves to my physical property.  

There are laws against stealing someone's personal property, and yes, there are laws against stealing someone's intellectual and artistic property and passing it off as your own.  Hence the copyright disclaimer, which I legally update every year, as posted on my blog page.

So yeah, plagiarism is ugly and painful.  It cannot be couched in clever, honeyed fawning of "Oh, but you had put things so succinctly and so eloquently, I thought you'd be honored to have it spread to a wider audience" ---- that's so much unctuousness it chokes me. 

Artists, be they famous, infamous, or just garden-variety diarists like me....we hold our creative endeavors dear.  They represent something of ourselves that we uniquely have produced and given to the world.  

We hope that folks will like what we do.  We hope they will find it useful, charming, thoughtful or contemplative.  We hope they will respect and honor the awen that sparked it.  Or the humor which spawned it within and led to the words on the page or screen.

In my case, I hope that readers will find the connection between me as author and themselves in the reading of my blog posts and rambles.

Mostly, I hope that if my readers do have a mind toward gratitude for any of my writing, they simply take a moment to comment, be it to cajole, sympathize or offer cheerful response and comical retort.  

Essentially, like so many things in life:  DON'T TAKE WHAT ISN'T YOURS.  BE RESPECTFUL.  BE HONORABLE.  BE DECENT.

And hey, don't lie.