Ever since I started taking walks in the woods, I’ve discovered new things about my body. I call these walks my “altar” walks. Most witches create an altar space for their magic at home—a flat space covered with a cloth of some importance, adorned with natural trinkets like shells, feathers, stones, sticks, images of deities or goddesses, or herbs or candles. However, I've never been successful at holding space for an altar in my home. Holding rituals at home (outside of making coffee) has never been my thing. Whenever I create one, I end up neglecting it rather than spending time there praying, journaling, or even looking at it. It feels too stagnant. What I do every day is go on walks because I have a dog. We visit the same park near my house, walking behind the horse fields, taking the horse trails that wrap around the back of the park, following the silence and unpaved routes. It made sense to extend an invitation to these woodlands as a magical confidant—a great spirit with whom I could connect on a daily basis.
Research is proving more and more that we are more interconnected than we may think. Trees can talk to each other via phenochemicals in their root systems and use fungi to enhance their “talking”. Bats can hear shapes, bees can dance maps, and when we speak, it reverberates off some star in the cosmos we’ve never even seen. Our ancestors have always known this magic, and in our current age, we now know this to be true.
Having an altar and going to the altar are entirely different experiences. To have is possessive, and to go is dynamic. When I go on these walks, sometimes I pray aloud, casting visions, and speaking to the trees, owls, and deer that cross our path. Other times, I am silent, touching bark and rocks longingly, taking time to notice the changes. Going on these walks has taught me a lot about my body as an altar too—tuning into subtle bodily habits that connect to emotional surges. Our bodies are a ritual that reflects our lives.
What is alive in us (or not alive in us) is carried in our muscles, our bones, our rhythms, and our voices. If you were or are a "Bones" fanatic, you know what I’m talking about. I’ve always had this incredible shoulder tension. The knots in my shoulders would sometimes bubble like lava, ballooning and boiling beneath the surface, but any release was far and few between. I tried chiropractors, yoga, fascia release, bodywork, herbs, magnesium (which I will say has been very helpful). None of these methods on their own have done more than subdue the aching masses in my shoulders. The tension forming around my neck was visually obvious. A few weeks ago, I had just spent a few moments deeply entranced in the lichen growing on pine bark when my grandmother showed up. She’s passed on. I am clairaudient and hear and feel things more than I see them, and she is no stranger to my life. But she told me to work on the ache in my left shoulder, in particular.
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