Why Witches?

 

The Witch's Daughter.  
Frederick Stuart Church, 1881. 

Our Witchy Tips: Secrets from Experienced Witches from Salt 'n' Pepper Books (S.L. & C.L. Vadimsky) is finally published!

Why?

This was Salt 'n' Pepper's first project, laid aside for a time while we hit upon our True Tales of Ghosts and brought that out to a surprisingly appreciative audience. 

From our co-author's point of view, S.L., Witchy Tips began when I texted her to send me her best witchy tips, and she started punching out her witty idioms. (S.L. is also a songwriter and performer, and inherited or learned the snappy humor of generations of Vadimskys.)

Where We Come From

Growing up, I used to say my mother must be a witch. 

She was wickedly smart, even without the opportunity for advanced education or any apparent interest in, (or maybe it was without the time for), recreational reading. 

We all joked about her infallible memory for details, and about her miraculous nose--she could smell scents we didn't notice, and used her nose to detect whether food was fresh or foul, the spaces which needed deep cleaning. That must have directed her day: Follow your nose! what a way to ensure being "present" in the moment.

But that's not why I joked that she was a witch. Her spooky gift was an ability to instantly, on meeting someone, know things about my friends which I hadn't figured out yet. She would remark to me, after meeting someone, and I would say, "Oh. Yes. That is it, just that." And I would discuss the "secret revealed" with the friend, and they would exclaim, and we would laugh about my mother the witch.

Now I know, though, that her gift was only the wisdom of experience. I just hadn't known yet, about the world. I can do all the things now, too.

I never called my mother a witch, to herself. My co-author's mother was more interested than mine in witchy things, when we were cousins growing up. She had a kitchen witch, or a witching ball, or something, in their house. That's how I learned that my mother felt uneasy about witches. She didn't like it. She didn't like references to witches, or talking about witches, or having witchy things around. 

Is it fear of the evil eye? or fear of the accusation of witchcraft? I didn't know.

So I apologize to her for our book's dedication to our wiser Mothers. We meant: all our mothers and grandmothers for generations, including the Earth.  And thanks for the wisdom of old wives, which science is proving true everyday.  I still acknowledge my mother wiser than I, and a saint in heaven.

Witches of Instagram

Witchy began for me earlier during COVID lockdown, when I browsed with fascination the Witches of Instagram. 

I am inclined to follow some media groups for peeks inside countercultural lifestyles, such as homesteading types, thrifty people, homeschoolers. 

Fiction writers, perhaps, love to inhabit other people, as research. Or maybe these aren't other people, they are fantasy selves and lives, if only I could have lived so many lives...

I discovered so many unique witchy devotees, some in heated debate with others. 

Some witches embraced Halloween decorations in their homes on their altars all year long, and Day of the Dead themes and decor, but some reject the brand and the darkness.

There were green witches, herbalists, white and light witches; dark magic witches; wiccans, Satanists, Christians, the reincarnated; sex magic practitioners; pagan priestesses to the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece; witches who enhanced their craft with mind- or mood-altering substances, and purely substance-free teetotallers; witches angry with baby witches, accused by others of gatekeeping; witches of color contesting the cultural appropriation of their religion.  

Many celebrate the moon phases, the zodiac calendar, the pagan Celtic circle of holidays. Some sell fortune telling, or sell spells for love, money, or spite. More sell pretty or dark objects for altars, or for sex play.

I studied the posts and between the lines. I unraveled a thread in the pasts of many, a pain, from some historic trauma, abuse, deprivation, rejection. Some had revolted, now outcast from families who raised them in religious orthodoxy. Some were injured by men, boyfriends, lovers, ex's. 

The women seemed to be confronting the shadow. Some were spellcasting with revenge, to punish, or for the satisfaction of merely laughing about the potential for inflicting revenge. Some assumed a superiority, flaunted sexual desireability, used men as objects in sensual ritual. Some rejected beauty standards and embraced countercultural "ugly", Halloween hags, with altars of dead things and scary things, spotlighting normally secret things, fetishes and spites.

Co-Authors in Dissent

"Flaunt your warts. Witchiness thrives on self-possession."

As Salt and Pepper co-authors, we experienced the dissenting views on witches, in working through agreement on the right words. 

While C.L. researched online communities,"Salt" has just about achieved off-grid ambitions, and was innocent of the popular online witch cultures. At home in the Pacific Northwest, and in rambling independent adventures across the US, S.L. traveled alone, propelled by her own body on a bike. Salt would visit and move on from communes and communities, living off the land, or dancing in sapphic bonfire celebrations, or protesting forest destruction, or healing with foraged herbs, or writing poetry. Mother Earth haunted them.

Many of these women, too, had experienced trauma, and were building safe spaces for peace.

Salt drafts the snappy intuitive one-liner. Pepper tests the words for fitness, and initiates the longer-winded reflections wondering what we really mean? Which become a conversation.

Right from the first "tip" we debated, on behalf of all the witches with whom we had engaged. Does witchiness want humility? audacity? insouciance? 

Illustrations

"Keep your witchiness to yourself. Black hats discouraged."

After much consideration, we mutually agreed on each of the illustrations from the natural world to represent each of the Witchy Tips. While Pepper had observed many witches who embraced Halloween garb and decor, Salt knew more green witches. 

The nature drawings represent witches' connection to earth and practice of earth-based religions. (And they are very cute and funny and expressive. It is just fun to identify with the critters instead of being reminded of humans.)

S.L. advocates for less "light vs. darkness", "good vs. evil" thinking and language generally, less moral judgment. 

Is this why a black hat is discouraged? "Black hat" is also what the bad guys are called, vs. "white hats", in the hacker world. Or is just wiser not to proclaim your side?

Witchy Tips: Secrets from Experienced Witches is a hardcover gift book and journal to buy on Amazon.

Pretending Ancient Egypt

Summer Reading Camp reads Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Egypt Game 

Our 11 year old reader's school-assigned summer reading for beginning 6th grade is The Egypt Game. My kids half a generation ago read this novel at that age, I remembered as I re-read it. It's a little dated. We still found it to be a fun hook for the upcoming year's social studies curriculum in the ancient civilizations and mythologies.

Here are activities we did to increase our reader's motivation and daily anticipation of what would happen in "Egypt" today!

"Hieroglyphics"

I'm proud to share that our reader was inspired, all on his own, to create a hieroglyphic alphabet to use for secret messages--many chapters before the kids in the book thought of it!

Egyptian Feast

We prepared some Egyptian recipes, in a basic, homemade approximation. I've attempted Northern African cooking and spice mixes before, for a Casablanca Valentine's Day celebration with my grown children. It's one of my son's favorite cuisines, thanks to many wonderful authentic local restaurants. 

Our current reader however is a very picky eater. He refuses new foods presented at home or restaurants. But for some reason at our annual reading camp, he delights in wowing his parents by reporting the novelties he tried with us. 

He liked koshari, and even requested it again the next day! The dish is a warmly spiced comfort food of rice, lentils, pasta and chickpeas. He ate the chicken kebabs and kofta. He liked the pita style bread, and drank tea. He was unsure about dates, and turned down eggplant and hummus.

I wrote a menu in his invented hieroglyphs on an onionskin scroll, and set the table with lots of gold and black, jewel tone colors, urns and pots, pottery plates, "firebowl" candles, orchids, and some totems and stylized sculptures.

Processions, Prostration, Hide and Seek with "Security"

Besides food, we always need lots of physical activity between chapters. 

We held processions. My reader had to learn and act out the word "prostrated".

The little brother of one character carries a security plushie around, an octopus named Security. My reader named our own guest Octavius. We took turns hiding and finding him one day, after the chapters where Security goes missing, and is found in a mysterious place.

Assembling a Pyramid

I provide a square plate as a base and a sack of oranges, and had our reader guess the number of oranges he needed to make a pyramid. He guessed wrong but successfully built a pyramid (three levels took 14 oranges...it will be a math formula to learn eventually...).

Thoth's Choice

In the book, the kids use a taxidermy owl to represent Thoth, whom they employ as an "oracle".

Our table included Thoth, and we sought the oracle's direction as to who should read each of the next chapters, (student aloud, teacher aloud, silent reading, student's choice).

Pharaoh's Tomb puzzle box

Setting the Mood with Puzzles, Movies, Music

Ancient Egypt Artifacts Jigsaw Puzzle:
We're still working on this, after we concluded reading!

Since we were suffering a heat wave, we were indoors in air conditioning for some of our reading.It was helpful to catch some Mummy movie clips about archeologists and tomb raiding imperialists, to understand the costumes the kids in the book sought to achieve, and to see the artwork to understand why the children played at walking in the peculiar way they did.

We even caught a clip of Steve Martin's King Tut routine on Saturday Night Live, and listened to the Bangles performing Walk Like an Egyptian.

In the trick or treat chapter, we shared Halloween candy, (still got leftovers!). We celebrated the final chapter with the Christmas cookies and cider, just like the characters.

Controversies

Banned Book

What a learning opportunity for both of us! I shared with our reader that The Egypt Game is a "banned book" in many places.  

I hadn't anticipated how very challenging it was for our child reader to understand the distinctions between his taste in a book, literary critique of a book, and the removal or destruction of a book to render it unavailable or illegal to read. This made for the most interesting discussions, always asking for him to explain the "why" of his opinion.

I was even more surprised to learn that our student, who can so faithfully recite the Bill of Rights after learning about the American Revolution in school this past year, had not understood that "free speech" may include books and writings.

I did reflect on the question of cultural appropriation in our activities or even in the novel. The book was a school assignment, not our choice. We had some fun and participated in the children's awe while they engaged in their pretend play. We playfully introduced the popular cultural perception of the ancient history and civilization, and affirmed that Egypt the place, culture and people are with us today. I used a history timeline book and even trusty World Book.

My daughter as a tot used to play the Catholic Mass with stuffed animals and dolls, and, once reading, wrote her own additional book of the Bible. I could see she was learning. 

We did our best.

I neglected to include a viewing of The Prince of Egypt, which I haven't seen.  I may check it out. What do you think? I hope you enjoyed these resources ideas. 

I wonder if the 6th grade will be visiting The Metropolitan Museum of Art, as my kids' grade did?

Midwinter Drama

A Theater Mystery 

Author's Notes regarding Local and Personal History

Third book in The Freep Investigates Mysteries Series is finally out, ready early for next Christmas: Midwinter's Drama - A Theater Mystery Novel, for middle grades, teens and tweens.

The kids join a community theater production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, set in Midwinter. Like the rest of the Scooby-Doo-style series, there's a ghost story in the history of the one-room schoolhouse now used as a little theater, and then strange mishaps haunt the production. The Freep reporters have to discover the secret cause now, or the show will be cancelled!

The Shakespeare original is sufficient inspiration for all kinds of stories, but these author's notes capture some of the local and personal history behind the fictional Midwinter's Drama. 

I Was in a Play

If opportunity presents, participate in a live theater performance—onstage or backstage, in your school or community, or as the audience!

I was a tall child, almost always the tallest in the class. Everyone wanted to be the tallest, and they were always measuring themselves against me to check. My best buddy then was small and cute. Teachers called us "Mutt and Jeff". Mutt and Jeff were a pair of physically mismatched friends in one of the first newspaper daily comic strips.

When I was in fifth grade, about ten years old, I had a starring role in a school play. It was a musical, The Seven Old Ladies of Lavender Town. (The "Operetta in Two Parts" by H.C. Bunner is in the public domain and currently available as a free download from Forgotten Books.)

I volunteered to play the part of The Duchess in the school musical. My best friend volunteered to be The Fairy. But then we found out that one person had to play both parts, because the Duchess is revealed to be the Fairy in disguise. My friend really wanted the part. The teacher assigned both roles to me, figuring I could play the fairy more easily than my short friend could play the duchess. She had to play one of the old ladies.

My costume was simple. I wore a pleated gauze skirt and a satin blouse. It was my Easter dress. Because I had big feet, (adult size), and because grown up women did not wear flat shoes that year, my dress shoes had heels. The only thing I remember about the play was how the audience gasped when the curtains opened to reveal that I was really the Fairy! The transformation was marked only by a cape made of lace with glittering threads, worn around the shoulders of my same dress.

I tell this story because of the cat fight in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream between Helena and Hermia, the tall and small jokes. The theme sparks a subplot within Midwinter's Drama, where everyone is still growing, and adolescent performers may hide budding anxieties about size, shape, and competition for attention.

Both my own children performed in their middle school musicals. My daughter didn't get the lead she read for, but as one of the more mature looking girls, played one of the mothers.

My son and his buddy decided in eighth grade, the year they were graduating to go up to high school, that they would do every school activity offered before they left "childhood" behind. They were awarded very funny roles in a musical which played more like a comedy variety show. Their ridiculous costumes, (involving a farmer and his pig), were a perfect fit for their spontaneous shenanigans.

My daughter eventually performed in multiple productions, as cast or crew—even as Dramaturg—in college theater. We got to meet theater people!

The farm next door

The Little Red Schoolhouse

One Room Schoolhouse

As a child, my daughter had participated in a youth community theater program run by a warm and talented young adult student named Miranda. Miranda's teenaged brother helped out too. My kid performed as Amponsah, the narrator of a series of Anansi stories.

The troupe rehearsed and performed in our town's Little Red Schoolhouse, built in 1873. This schoolhouse was the first in the area built to serve as a tuition-free public school following New Jersey's 1871 Free School Bill. The new law made public school free, with compulsory attendance, nine months a year, for children ages 5 to 18; it established a school tax to pay for the schools. The one room served grades 1-8 for two local municipalities. It served as a school until 1950. The building is now used as a community resource. The schoolhouse is next to preserved farmland and across from the flood plain where cows graze.

When little "Amponsah" grew up, she worked for some time as a historic interpreter playing, among other roles, the schoolteacher in the historic one-room Bunker Hill School, relocated to and preserved at the Red Mill Museum Village in Clinton, New Jersey.

Ice Skating

When we had winters here, our family and friends skated outdoors on local ponds and even on our own backyard, which used to flood and then freeze into a glassy freeway!

Author's Brother on Frozen Yard

Homeschool

Before I even had children, I was interested in the homeschooling movement. My children did ultimately attend fine schools, after preschool education at home. I remained involved with homeschoolers through my family law work, through friendships with some of my favorite families, and as a children's librarian.

All these experiences contribute to Midwinter's Drama, but this story is fiction. Not even the schoolhouse in the story is identical to the real one, but an imaginary composite of many American one-room schoolhouses. The children in the Freep mysteries are mostly homage to the children, ethnically and economically diverse, whom I taught in church classes, in schools and at the library.

Shakespeare for You

A Midsummer Night's Dream is often children's first exposure to Shakespeare. They may have to read it, in middle school or high school English classes; or maybe at an even younger age, they have the opportunity, with their family, to see the play performed. Perhaps the fairies are considered appealing to children, or the themes of love, law, and competition, suitable for teens.

My family has seen the play many times, performed and set in both Midsummer, and Midwinter, in ancient Greece, or in Victorian England.

I hope the summary, quotations, and explorations of its plot in Midwinter's Drama: A Theater Novel help young readers enjoy and understand the play.

You can find and read the entire play for free online at Folger Shakespeare Library.

Other Shakespeare enjoyable for children, (at least my children fondly remember these!), include, believe it or not: King Lear, (there was a storm outside the theater just as the storm raged onstage, and my little boy especially enjoyed the Fool); and The Tempest, with shipwreck, sorcery, monsters, and love, on a desert island.

Teens are often required to read or see Romeo and Juliet. Also popular are Macbeth, with its witches and war, and Hamlet, with its ghost.

In books of poetry for children, Shakespeare's is often included. In third grade, my son had to memorize a poem. He was inspired by this one from Shakespeare's Richard II:

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England…

 

Now that gives me a pang of nostalgia for national pride. 

May all my readers be blessed, in sleep, in dreams, and on waking.