Hiking for Witches

When I started to take this whole thing seriously, I did not anticipate how much brujeria was going to involve field trips to the great outdoors.

No one tells you that witchery is going to involve a lot of hiking. Apparently it does in the woods, at the beach, beside a lake or stream. Occasionally, not in this weather, it involves swimming.

It begs some interesting questions about the effect environment has on people, or about the spirits. The spirits are just as effective in an urban environment—there’s an awful lot of vodou temples in urban regions, far too many to be a coincidence, and the work at those temples succeeds just fine.

But there’s something about being out in nature, away from people and cities and their congestion, which I find enormously relieving. Peace. Quiet. A distinct lack of people and their querulous thoughts and actions and the demand to be whatever way they seem to think I should be.

A hike is rarely just a hike, too. They’re often opportunities for the spirit to speak to us, to comfort us, to impart lessons or simply to say “hello.”

I’d highly recommend hiking for witches. Go say hello to your mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers on the trail.