The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/author/sheri/page/4)
Sheri Barker has been a solitary practitioner for nearly forty years. Her relationships with magic, elemental energies, spirits, and her ancestors are the foundation of her daily life. They enrich her work as a witch, writer, homesteader, wildlife enthusiast, gardener, and human being. She is a columnist at The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org) and also publishes perspective essays on her blog at https://www.onthebearpath.com. Sheri lives in an ancient river valley in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, immersed in nature, spirits, and realms beyond this one. Oh, and books...there are always books, words, and creative activities to be explored!
That little wet and bedraggled baby shone his light onto a deep, haunted wound and showed me that my part of that haunted space could heal now because the rest is healing, too. It is a big release to let a ghost go. To let that much darkness go. To cleanse a haunting.
Who knows how long this land has been yearning for the return of plants that feel just right in her soil? I do not have the answer to that question, but I know she has been whispering to me about it since I met her.
I began to believe that peace goes into the making of the bread as well. By the time I made the first loaf, I knew it with certainty, and I worked that peace and some other magics into the dough as I kneaded it on the counter in the hearth center of my own home.
Never ones to miss an opportunity to teach, my guides use the magic of midnight darkness to summon a TV screen image of Dorothy, finally safe at home in Kansas, trying to convince the adults in her life that her liminal journey really happened. I hear her voice as she says: “And you, and you, and you, and you were there.”
“The key is yours, Sheri Ann. A gift of understanding, perhaps.” My child-self showed up at that moment and answered, “Only my ancestors call me that.” “I know,” she answered.