The Way Through the Woods

INTRODUCTION:
LIFE'S CHALLENGES SENT TO TEST YOU

There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.

It is underneath the coppice and heath,

And the thin anemones. Only the keeper sees

That, where the ring-dove broods,

And the badgers roll at ease,

There was once a road through the woods . . .

Rudyard Kipling

Night is falling. You have stayed out much later than you intended, and everybody knows you should never walk through the woods in the dark, but you are partway through now and to go back wouldn't make any sense. You wish your coat was a protection against more than just the cold and damp. Something is shuffling on the path ahead - is it a badger, making its way home to its sett? Or is it something more sinister? Concentrating on your breathing, you try to quicken your steps: in the dim light it would be easy to stumble and fall, and you must keep your footing. Thoughts are becoming muddled with anxiety, and it is hard to think logically about the direction you should go in. As your panic threatens to rise and engulf you, you will your body to cooperate. At this moment in time, you are in danger of completely losing sight not only of where the path is but of where you were going in the first place.

Folk tales are full of warnings about the dangers of the woods. Even the post-modern retellings of these stories echo the same advice: 'Never stray from the path through the forest,' writes Angela Carter in The Company of Wolves, and even in childhood the fairy tales talk of little else. Little Red Riding Hood warns us of wolves that run through the trees in the night, while Hansel and Gretel whisper of witches who dwell in the woods and eat little children. But what does the fairy tale have to do with real life?

When faced with the wonder of a woodland glade, is it any wonder that we feel inspired to wind our storytelling around the boles of the trees, draping them, moss-like, from the great limbs that rise above us? Of course, all these stories hint at the woodland as a metaphor for our inner landscape. Humans have always had one eye on the woodland as a place of wildness, representing something of our own psyches: our generation today is not the first to conclude that woodland spaces are magical and essential to our mental wellbeing. While woodland can be a place to walk, to sit and rest your back against a trunk, or to watch the signs of nature unfurling across the year, it can also be somewhere to take your troubles. When you are in the company of a being that has existed for centuries, it can sometimes help to put your own problems into perspective.

But what about those bigger issues - the ones you didn't ask for? We've all had them - the dramatic life changes that leave us sitting on our metaphorical backsides on the ground, wondering what hit us. It might be the sudden and unexpected end of a relationship, or the death of a loved one, or - even weirder as we expect it to be all plain sailing - the beginning of something positive in your life such as a new job, or a new relationship. These situations can all come with a sense of bewilderment, as you must gather in your wits and try to work out what just happened. You might also start to lose sight of yourself and forget who you were before.

That is what this book is about. How to navigate those sometimes-earth-shattering life changes that leave you feeling vulnerable, alone and afraid, those times when you think somehow that everyone except you knows what they are doing, that maybe you missed a turn on your way through the woods, or lost the map, and now you are stuck in an unfamiliar landscape, wondering how to get home. But before we get on to the business of those changes themselves, let's think about some of the tools we might need on this journey; if I am going to be your guide, I probably need to tell you why I can help you navigate this stretch of the journey.

Before we start, I'm not going to tell you that I'm the world expert on everything. In fact, I might go so far as to say I am quite ordinary. I don't believe in people setting themselves up as 'special', as it can lean into elitism. In fact, as I get older, I have come to realise we are all extraordinary beings. I am what is called a Gardnerian Wiccan. If that term is new to you (outside of Charmed or other fictional realms), for the purposes of this introduction, it's useful to know that Wicca is a spiritual path which is matriarchal in nature and seeks a spiritual connection with the divine in nature. It holds the divine feminine, in the form of the triple goddess - a concept we'll come back to later in the book - at its very heart. The only demons we battle are our own inner ones. For me nature is everything - a connection to the divine, a consoler when I am down, an inspiration when I need to create and sometimes just a comfort blanket to wrap myself in when the world feels a bit mean.

Wicca is a path that encourages study, and because I am naturally curious, over the years I've explored everything from psychology to neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and hypnosis, to English literature and world religions. I've spent most of my adult life learning one subject after another - it's become a life choice of sorts - so I do have several tools in my basket to help me navigate the stony path through the woods, not least those we use as modern-day witches. As well as a closeness to nature, these include an understanding of the value of ritual and time being set aside for spiritual practice; knowing there is still magic in the world; an ongoing cooperative relationship with the divine; and an ability to sense where the road ahead may be leading. In this book, I want to share some of those tools with you - crafting exercises to get you in touch with your sense of inner playfulness and creativity, and rituals to help you punctuate your life changes with a little celebration to acknowledge them and give yourself some closure.

If you have not encountered ideas around magic or used the tarot before, it might feel a little odd at first, so I will tell you what I often say to my students: it is healthy to give yourself permission to believe in magic. But what is magic? This is a tricky concept, as there are many different definitions out there. However, rather than see it as a dark art belonging to the occult, I think of it as something more akin to creativity. When I do magic, it's a little like an active prayer - asking the universe to help me create a desired outcome under grace, as long as that does not involve harming others in the process. Just because you have asked for a change, however, that's not to say you will always get it. Magic can only really work if the thing you are asking for is capable of becoming that thing - you can't go against nature. For example, if I do a spell to turn someone into a donkey (think Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream), it is unlikely to happen, but if I ask for help in completing a project I am working on - a new home, a new relationship - and I am already working towards that goal, it is more likely to happen. Meanwhile, as I will explain further later, in consulting tarot cards, I am not necessarily divining the future or consulting an external force, I am simply exploring my own unconscious. I am using the cards, rather like a storytelling device, to identify what is around me and within me, but which I may not be consciously aware of - yet. If you feel sceptical right now, don't worry. I am one of the most cautious people I know, but over the years I have I have realised that life without enchantment would be a grey and colourless place. I prefer to live in a world where magic (creativity) and divination (storytelling) are a possibility rather than one of scientific certainty, where the goalposts often change as a new school of science disproves or opens up the theories of the one that came before.

I'm also a lifelong journal keeper. Feelings can be slippery things, like minnows, darting about and changing direction in the stream of life, and memory can fail us. In common with most people, I need time to process how I am feeling about something before I can articulate it to anyone else. Capturing the likeness of feelings on paper can be a helpful way of absorbing or analysing a particular situation, and acknowledging those emotions. Whatever you record, whether it's a lot or a little, it can be useful when looking back and assessing how things are (or were) for you. How you record your journaling - on paper, on voice memo, on film or in interpretive dance - is entirely up to you.

The point of life for me is that we're here, having a very physical experience. Wicca is an embodied religion, which means we're not in the business of hankering after heaven. For us, where we are now is where it's at - paradise is already on earth, and it's generally found in nature. That doesn't mean we don't believe in an afterlife, but Wiccans try to live life to the full, and we acknowledge that life can be challenging. Although the two things may be unconnected, my life as a priestess has corresponded with life being a twisty-turny thing that surprises me at every junction. Just when I think I know what I'm doing, circumstance jumps out from behind a tree and yells, 'Ha! Fooled you!'

In the twenty-five years or so since I began my path into paganism, I've experienced the end of several significant relationships (and...