Seasons of Moon and Flame. Danielle Dulsky

are immersed in a constant flow, and we are all being cocreated by innumerable liquid currents, our old rough parts eroded away and new patterns marked by unforeseen surges. We are all in conversation with one another, with the world, and we must constantly consider and reconsider what we would like to be saying.

       Return to Embodiment

      The most powerful and harmful systems have benefited considerably from the human animal’s detachment from its feeling flesh. We have been taught to frame the intellect as king and reason as god, leaving our holy bodies to be servants, at best, to mind and thought. We have been indoctrinated toward transcendence of the earth, the elements, and our creaturely selves, housing long-standing traumas within our bodies, much to our detriment and that of others and the wounded planet, as these traumas unconsciously play out in our lives. Our bodies are where we meet the world, dissolving the false boundary between our individuality and the infinite, and conscious embodiment is how we integrate that meeting place into our lived-out-loud stories.

      As Witches, healers, and wildlings, we intuitively know that our magick is channeled through the body, through our very roots then out, in, up, and down again. Our magick is a dance with the wilds; thus, our breath, our movement, and the sounds we make matter. Our own healing, our own wholeness, matters. Magick is sensual, and there can be no separation between the malleable beauty of our own soft skin and the writhing collective of nature, both seen and unseen, grotesque and lovely. The imperative is to get low to the ground; feel the hum and the pulse not just in our hearts but in our bones; get under our thinking minds; get dirty; and reforge a felt intimacy with the spirits of land, sea, and sky.

       Live Cyclically

      To live cyclically is to welcome the transitions, to resist tallying the wins and losses that deny this hard Witch’s truth: All ends only to begin again. I invite you to reframe time as a living, breathing force that is always swelling and thinning, ebbing and flowing. I invite you to cultivate a renewed sense of in-the-skin nature intimacy by feeling into the words I offer here, and I invite you to come home to the hallowed lands where those wild hags are waiting for you.

      Ours is a journey of eternal becoming, an ever-expansive experience of being breathed in and out by nature itself, incarnation after blessed incarnation. To live cyclically is to be more forgiving of the self and, sometimes, of others; to acknowledge that we are all living altars; and to embrace those cocooned seasons of rest, self-care, and rejuvenation as often as those blooming, generative phases of creation, activism, and ferocity.

      How do we know when it is time to rest and when it is time to rage? When is it time to reflect on our most pivotal experiences in solitude, and when is it time to use those lessons to make beautiful art, to march to government buildings, or to dismantle broken systems? Listen to the hags; they will tell you. How can we know when we must spend an afternoon engaged in frenzied art making or radical spellcraft? When is it time to wander in mourning or dance in ecstasy? The hags have seen it all, the many heartening joys and well-shed tears, but their wealth of experience has hardly made them apathetic. Let them teach you their cyclical ways, and let them teach you through your own feeling body. These ancient elders, like you, are clever travelers on the path of eternal becoming. Let us listen to them, and this is sure to be our wildest year yet.

      

      Your journey begins here, in the House of Initiation. Take a breath, hum so loudly your teeth rattle, then whisper: “It begins.” Imagine this house at the center point of a simple map. To the east lies an ivy-walled cottage surrounded by lush blooms and kept well by the wise Garden Hag. To the south stretches sandy and hallowed grounds ruled by the loving Desert Hag, with the spectral Sea Hag enchanting the gray and salty waters to the west. Finally, in the north looms a haunting snowcapped peak where the Mountain Hag awaits you. Here, you are at the epicenter of your spiral journey. Here, you are the wild and sovereign hag who has learned a softer witchery, remembered how to dance with time, and made peace with her position in this wicked and wondrous world.

       The Spiral Journey

      Where you go when you leave your House of Initiation is entirely your choice. You might begin by asking yourself to what season you feel most akin. Which of the thirteen moons lives in your soul all year-round? Perhaps begin there. If you are only in need of some story medicine, a quick hag lesson, or a timely ritual, look to the appendices at the end of this book for summarized descriptions and see where the specific themes carry you. Of course, should you be feeling practically minded and find yourself on the cusp of a new moon, look for the chapter that is beginning for you in this moment, according to the season you are in. When all else fails, book divination always serves well. Leave it to the Mystery, flip to a page, and see what word-witchery awaits you. Permit your Craft to breathe. Grant yourself space. Leave out what is not for you, and let these words be invitations to remember, more than instructions to follow.

       Hag Lesson #7

      What is wild must always change.

      Each chapter is a single moon cycle, a single lunar “season,” with three chapters dedicated to spring, summer, and winter, respectively. There are four chapters dedicated to the autumn season, accounting for the enigmatic “thirteenth moon.” Included in applicable chapters are descriptions of rituals and ceremonies for the celebration of the equinoxes; solstices; and the cross-quarter days, called Beltane, Lughnasadh, Samhain, and Imbolc in the Celtic tradition. Each chapter is organized as if you are a guest, a visiting apprentice, in a magick-rich hag’s home. The “Grandmother Speaks” sections describe your mystical encounters with the elder; here, the hag shares her lessons, stories, and words of wisdom for each phase of the moon cycle. The spellwork, ceremonies, and opportunities for reflection are all deeply rooted in the hag’s words to you. While the work is sometimes cumulative from moon to moon, know that you are fiercely encouraged to become the outlaw and stray from course from time to time.

      Surely, This Babe Wakes Wild

       An Ode to Time’s Outlaws

      She is a keeper of secrets, that old Witch, and she just remembered how to slow-dance with time in those forbidden dips and forgotten lifts that defy all our modern schedules and queer our many labels. She has begun a new naming, an initiation of the Holy Wild fool. Surely, this babe wakes wild on this seemingly mundane morning, for her breath comes easier and she’s moving with a certainty only gifted to time’s outlaws, only to those who hold hands with the dark and sacred cosmos, touching solid skin to stardust and whispering aloud to all things alien and infinite. Yes, surely this babe wakes wild; you can see it all in her moments of pause, in that stillness and silence that responds to loudmouthed demands for answers. This year will most certainly be her wildest one yet, truth be told, for she’s come home to the Mystery and rejected those tired rules and outplayed maneuvers meant to birth the best life.

      Surely, this babe wakes wild even now, even as the moon sets demurely and the sun rises in its daily ceremony of jewel-bright becoming. They are time’s outlaws, too, you know. The sun and moon have a good laugh together just now, when they pass one another in the sky, at the human creatures’ bustling and going about their business, snickering with an ease that eludes the frantic hearts — but, surely, this babe wakes wild, for she’s taking her lessons from those crawling celestial orbs now. This is her initiation, and she’s set her tamer ways to burn.

       A Softer Witchery

      There is much to be said for self-discipline, for keeping our promises to ourselves, for harboring a deep knowing that any new way of being in the world is going to come with moments of intermittent discomfort that must be welcomed as small rituals of growth and learning. No long-held pattern