I am leaving my little cottage on the lane; in fact, next week will be my last here. We found a period townhouse in a small village on the coast. It’s just that little bit closer to conveniences, which my partner has been missing dearly since we moved out here.
Saying good-bye to this place will be hard. I appreciate the quirky charm and homey vibe of the house, and the unspeakable beauty of the landscape surrounding it. I have formed relationships with many of the trees, and have finally identified the sun and moon rise patterns along the ridge.
I’ve mentioned here before how uprooted I feel. How it seems that once I left the nurturing environs of my family farm, I was fated to ever be a wanderer.
This isn’t the worst fate one could have. I’ve had the privilege of experiencing, and making a temporary home in, spectacular places: from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, from the wide desert of Nevada to the all-American mid-west, and so many places in-between.
But it’s still hard.
My heart is tender as I say good-bye to the other-than-human-person friends I have made in this place, and I feel a deep foreboding that I will never see them again. I will miss looking out at the Knockmealdown Mountains; with their deep roots of peace and stillness. I will miss hearing the Raven, who perches in the tall pine in the front garden speaking her strange eldritch language. I will miss the rabbit field, and the badger ring. I will miss the brooding standing stones that guard a long-used path. I will miss the song birds that come to our feeders every day. I will miss the SW wind that whispers in the tall trees. I will miss the expansive view and the wash of clear stars and the total silence.
I return now to the world of human-persons, with their chatter and cars and clink, clink, clink. Which has its own magic and beauty.
Wish me luck!
Confessions of a Hedge Witch 