“I hadn’t had my daily dose of lurking frogs and chirruping goldfinch flocks for so long now. I hadn’t sat on a bank of moss and grounded my energy into the earth. Instead of wildflower meadows, my dreams were often preoccupied with train timetables and unsaved Word documents. Where had all the wildlife gone from my life?”
So writes Jennifer Lane very early in her new book The Wheel. For all those of us who feel most alive when in direct contact with the natural world but have been required to spend any significant amount of time in the drab, fluorescently-illuminated, windowless concrete monuments to artificiality that are most modern offices, her words ring perhaps a bit more than comfortably true. And while it’s not particularly unusual for someone with a talent for writing who feels they’ve lost their connection to nature to collect their experiences and ideas about the importance of reconnecting with the natural world in order to regain balance in life, she added a twist to her path to reconnection that most wouldn’t think to turn to: witchcraft.
Fully titled The Wheel; A Witch’s Path Back to the Ancient Self, Ms. Lane’s narrative intricately interweaves her long-time love for nature with her long-followed but latterly atrophied practice of modern neo-pagan witchcraft. Those already familiar with the nature-centered beliefs held and practiced by ne0-pagans such as modern druids and modern witches will likely not be surprised at someone following such a path in a quest to heal a broken connection with the natural world. Those who are not are in for quite a number of eye-opening discoveries.
And to those who might be of the opinion that such ideas as witchcraft are either archaic nonsense or modern snake-oil, I would simply encourage a moment’s reflection upon the immortal words of Prince Hamlet to his friend Horatio regarding the far greater number of things in existence than his studies of natural philosophy encompass.
Look for a full review of this lively and particularly noteworthy new book to be published here very soon.
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