Old Magic: The Ancestral Secret Commonwealth

Village magic is an ancient, bawdy and merry tradition that is wise and humble....

Village Magic: The Ancestral Secret Commonwealth

Our ancestors live on inside us, and our lineages of wisdom are calling to us to remember the ancient mothers who birthed us, and threaded us onto a loom of love.

My psychic vision is ancestral, and is deeply wedded to the land of my birth, Yorkshire, and more particularly to Mam Tor and the Hope Valley in the Peak District, and to the ferocious and inscrutable magic of the coastline of the North Sea coast where dragons, mermaids and deer shamans once walked and weaved magic.

While I was pregnant, back in 2019, and in the aftermath of my mother’s death in 2018, when the door into the fairy hill was still swinging wide open, I wrote this following essay on the spirit of my ancestors and the kind of welcome to magic they wanted to reach out into the world through me. It was a very cosy kind of glamour.

Just yesterday, as I was thinking to share this essay here, I stumbled across not one, but two pieces of writings posted on this online Village News bulletin that poured a complimentary cup of tea, from a similar teapot of ancestral memory. The first was from the mythstorian John Matthews, who wrote about his uncanny encounter with traditional magic of the land. I could feel through the cracks of his words, some of the same magic I have felt over in my own motherlands, and the dark glamour of ordinary village folk who have been embedded into a land spirit so deeply they became it.

In Spirit Weaver, I wrote about my Auntie Margaret, who was one of the Well Guardians in the sacred landscape of Hope Valley (a place I believe has a more ancient and powerful ceremonial landscape than Stonehenge or Glastonbury). What was strange to me about the recollection of my Auntie is that she was a devout Christian who attended church and tended the village events of the seasonal wheel of the year. I remember my shock when my mum told me Auntie was a Christian. In all my years going to the farm and crafting with Auntie Margaret I have never known that. She never once mentioned it, there was no mention of Jesus Christ or pictures on the wall. I do remember her telling me about “God” who she called the Higher Power. The way she defined or presented it was not a religious god, but a spirit of awesome creative power that watched over everything, from within everything, always.

It was something that you could call upon at any time, and it looked after you, and guided you, and crafted your life as you crafted back your reply, in collaboration.

In his essay, John describes people who follow traditional magic this way, and for me it feels a beautiful summary of the essence of the people of my motherland who practice what I call “Village News” (all the local news of the village folk, and all the non-human news from the landscape, environment and ancestors and beyond, the thread-web of the great weaving of life, that in days before all the “mod cons” ensured our survival).

He says:  

“Traditional groups meet in a rural setting which they have probably used for generations, and which is their own native space; their members are drawn from local, rural communities (with occasional exceptions, such as myself); they are concerned with the seasons, with the right relationship of mankind to the earth…Their observance of the seasons is as precise as their ancestors’, whom they remember, fondly, as links in a chain stretching back into the distant past. They are thus, in as much as they are like anyone, closest to the Hereditary families of wise people, who like them seem to have no roots but to gravitate to one particular place and lock onto its energy centre. They themselves scorn labels, seeing what they do, and are, as so much a part of natural living that it needs no categorizing….Many are Christians, who attend local church services and honour a god who is younger than theirs but who nevertheless stands for many of the same principles. They see nothing strange in this, being above all supremely adaptive and knowing that all gods are one god. Nor are they to be confused with the medieval idea of ‘Witches’, burned in their hundreds by zealous Christians. Most of these, they well know, were harmless old women fear of whom was fuelled by horrific images conjured up every day in the local church. Despite this the Traditionals were always there, silently looking on, following a path that is at least as old as the bones of the earth herself.”

Then, as I was musing on this beautiful articulation of a certain kind of “magic” that would snort at such a fancy term to describe it, I came across another piece of writing by David Bentley Hart, talking about the old fairy folk book The Secret Commonwealth by the Scottish pastor Rev. Robert Kirk, who described the folk practice of the faery faith back in the Seventeenth century. He talks about how ‘fairy sight’ of the old folk traditions was considered to be irrevocably entwined with the spirit of the land, or what I call in Feminine Magic School our “Land Mother”.

Our ecological mother imprints her own DNA into us, forging a bond that can facilitate deep psychic communication, just like children often report telepathic communion with their own birth mothers. I have certainly found that my own “second sight” was opened by the soil and bone memory of where my kin lived and died.

“Kirk’s real concern, as it happens, was not simply the fairy realm, but also that rare breed of mortals who enjoy the ability to see its inhabitants with their own eyes. In large part, it is a treatise on the “second sight,”…Fairies are, says Kirk, nothing but those elemental guardians of the nations who, according to scripture, have been appointed as wardens in the earth, but who frequently forget their roles and resist the sway of God. They are dangerous, but not evil; they are, rather, morally neutral, like the forces of material nature….Once removed from his or her native heath, says Kirk, a prophet loses the ability to see the other world, and becomes just as blind to preternatural presences as is any other mortal. A true seer draws his or her preternatural strength from his or her native heath, and when separated from it is like Antaeus raised up off the earth. Not only is every fairy a genius loci; every seer is a vates loci with a strictly limited charter.”

Now, what I would say, is that this ‘second sight’ doesn’t necessarily leave you when you are no longer on your ancestral lands, it’s just that the ‘locus point’ has to be found through your own birthplace mother, or ancestral navel, until you drop right down into the center of the earth womb, and reconnect up with another land mother elsewhere, like a sprouting toadstool. I now live in the Appalachian mountains, and Mam Tor, my ancestral mother, forged the connection with this other land “Auntie”.

One of the things I share about in my musings is the power of the feminine womb spirit of our ancestors and land mothers. This is the maternal aspect of creation that births us and loves us, feeds us, fusses over us, and want us to wear a warm coat in the winter, and have a nice packed lunch. Ancestress magic is a central part of feminine magic, and threads us back into all the ancient mothers whose wombs have spun everything seen and unseen into being. It is our womb kin who roots for us.

Sat on top of my ancestral fairy mound, or “Doon Hill”, the perspective is different from our modern modes. From this viewpoint, the Ancestors as I know them are very bawdy, good for a laugh, morally ambiguous, not really “do-gooders”, yet incredibly kind and competent. Like the fairies, their moods change with the weather. They believe in feasting and frivolity as much as earnest silent prayer. They are pranksters, merrymakers, tricksters, clucking aunties, wide eyed garlanded maidens with diamonds for eyes. Their world is wise, merry, uncanny, cunning, both joyful and bleak.

Theirs is a love that is rooted and deep. It does not forsake you for small misdemeanors, but it might scold you, then invite you in for supper and tea.

Ancestress Magic

My childhood homeland of Yorkshire has always felt like a mother to me, especially the magical sacred ceremonial landscape of Hope Valley, in the Peak District of England. Every step of my healing has involved a re-braiding with the memory of this ancient landscape, and the wisdom it is keeping about the ancient traditions of the Goddess and the Mother culture - including the legacy of the Forest Mystics and Magdalene devotees, Robin Hood and Maid Marion, who wove garlands of flowers and placed them on nature altars. I believe this area is part of a grid of geomantic magic every bit as powerful as Avebury or Glastonbury, and that its secrets are ready to reveal themselves. The heart of this tradition is the Ancestress Magic of the feminine mysteries beloved of the Old 'Uns.

On top of Mam Tor are burial chambers thousands of years old, with family burials in Treak Cavern suggesting that Neolithic people lived around Mam Tor 7,500 years ago. Mam Tor was also home to later Celtic tribes who lived in terraced round houses on the peak almost 3,000 years ago. This indigenous Celtic tribe called the Brigantes worshipped a Goddess called Brigantia, likely related to the goddess Brighid – and her memory lives on in the land. In the 1970’s an ancient stone head sculpture of their Goddess was found in a garden in the village of Castleton, at Rose Cottage, site of the village’s ancient well, and where the Garland Ceremony started every year in May. The sculpture was 3,000 years old.

Rituals, such as Well Dressings and Castleton’s Garland Ceremony with a King and Queen have likely descended down to us, in an unbroken line of spiritual memory, from these Ancestors and their Goddess of the land.

Shall we open the magic door and visit these old ‘uns who sing on within our bloodlines?

Come on in, and make yourself at home. Let's put on the kettle and have a chat. Everyone seems to be talking about Ancestors these days; ancestor worship, ancestor healing, ancestor honoring. I want to talk to you about the Mam Tor Ancestors and Ancestresses from my neck of the woods, and a lineage of the Goddess rooted in earth, memory and practice for at least 7,000 years, based in the ancestral lands of Hope valley, in the peak District in England, where the Derbyshire dales and Yorkshire moors meet each other for a kiss and a bit of a knees up.

I want to welcome you inside an old world, still quietly existing, where you're invited to take your shoes off, let down your hair, and feel what it’s like to belong to an ancestral family that is entwined into the legacy of the land and the ancient Goddess lineages. Now before you ask, this is not ancestral healing as such, this is ANCESTRESS MAGIC. This is every day feminine magic – it’s motherly, warm, cosy, inviting, creative, fun, it connects us to the web of all the folks who still live within the earthrealm, and all the plant Ancestors who live alongside them.

In the Mam Tor lineage the Ancestresses of the motherland want you to feel welcome and at home. As long as you wipe your shoes on the mat when you come inside, and follow basic rules of common decency, there's no need to have complicated notions and be prostrating yourself at every moment with thanks. In fact, the Ancestors will think you pompous and rather strange if you do. Asking and thanking too much often insults their dignity, which is rooted in the law of generosity. As mothers, they want to feed you, and they trust that you'll return the favor. The greatest gift we can bring along is our own fullness, our own awen, so we can weave together.

At this time, we need to meet the Ancestors in their realm and call upon a very ancient feminine magic. Ancestress magic is about befriending the spirit of the land and place, and the Ancestral Mothers. It can be summed up in one phrase "Village News'. It's true, the Ancestors like to gossip. They know everything about everyone, and they have vast, interconnected networks of information, that span across all timelines. It makes our tech world look rustic.

Village news is about starting a conversation; listening when proper, and then sharing from our own heart. It’s that instinctive feminine trait that cares and likes to know what’s going on with everyone else. Scientists would call it entanglement. It is an ancient form of uploading and downloading information, and making sure that you’re up to date with all your friends and neighbors, including those who have fur, those who are green, and those without a body. 

In fact, nature herself loves nothing more than a cup of tea and a chat. From Tree root neural networks to mycelial networks, which science makes sound all fancy, in the feminine terms what it really is this: village news. The trees chat to each other and swap stories, and they alert each other to what's happening elsewhere. That’s the feminine desire to connect. When we enter a wood the birds start singing to each other, telling each other about the human entering their world - they are chattering about you, and telling all the forest about your life story.

Most importantly, as humans, we are connecting to the Ancestress Line – the foremothers and grandmothers whose wombs birthed us, and who hold us safe within their magical bloodline, which still runs through our own veins encoded with their memories, and their old wisdom. As they birthed their babes, they rooted their love into the future, and are still with us even now.

Ancestress magic is something that accompanies us everyday, and is very familiar. This is why witch's spirit helpers were called 'familiars'. It’s not grand and epic, it is a relationship that you build every day, by sharing news, stories, confessions, ideas, inspirations, and just chewing the fat, having a laugh together, sitting comfortably in silence, or swapping tales, and having heart-to-hearts about the small stuff, and the big stuff too. Nature becomes like family. This is kinship. Just share what’s on your heart, listen, and let that deep love bond grow, day by day.

In middle English ‘familiar’ meant to know someone in the sense of being ‘intimate’, or ‘on a family footing’, it also means ‘to serve’ in old French. It means you’re one of the team, you’re belonged, and you’re not too fancy to roll your sleeves up and muck in if necessary to help out. This familial bonding extends out to all of the web of life, because we all came from the same cosmic womb, and are all siblings and relatives of that dazzling stardust that once birthed us.

This heart-full familiarity and kinship is the bedrock of this connection to land, place, people.

You don't have to do complex rituals all the time, or be too serious. In fact, the Ancestors and the spirit of the land has a wicked sense of humor and cannot abide anything too serious and pompous. As you begin your Apprenticeship into Ancestress magic, most likely they will set out to 'prank you', which in my lineage is called 'taking the piss' - which is an old ritual to check you don't take yourself too seriously, and can take some heat. The Ancestors do have some serious work to do, and they don't want to get stuck with self-righteous bores. Indeed, to call them up, your best bet is to really make them laugh. Tickle their fancy, make them smirk; entertain them.

This is why, since time out of mind, with a sly wink and a bawdy nudge, Trickster spirits have always had an honored seat within all ancient cosmologies, mythologies and sacred traditions.

You see, there is a reason for this. The only time I've ever known the Ancestors go quiet at the kitchen table, with a sorrowful look pass across their ancient eyes, is when someone mentions the times when the shadow fell across the land; when they stopped the festivals, banned the feasting, dropped the garlands, turned the dancers into stone, forbid the May day revels, and called the topsy turvy prankster rites, where all know order is turned upside down, unlawful and dangerous. Those who have lived and died, loved and lost, know one thing; life is meant to be celebrated. The Goddess herself demands it; with all her wild, feral, primal eroticism.

The Ancestress’ remember when covens of wild (sometimes drunken) women reveled across the lands, flashing their vulvas to give blessings, protection, and, well, just to show off. They remember that there is a bawdy brass to magic that calls up immense elemental forces, by the sheer power of laughter, and irreverent joy. Just ask Baubo, who is quite an expert. How the Old Ones have mourned the ways the sour taste of puritanism has invaded our very bones. 

In England, the medicine people were called “cunning folk”. Think about it, what does ‘cunning’ rustle up? It means they weren’t “nice” in a sickly-sweet cherry pie way – it meant they had nous. They were wise, and they might ‘wise you up’. The root of cunning is the title of ‘cunt’. Also related to cant, where we get incantation, canting, enchantment; our feminine wombcraft.

They were cunt wise, fully owned by the wildness, willing to fly, crawl and caw their magic alive. 

So with all this in mind, the Mam Tor lineage I know, invites you to remember this sense of familiarity and fun, this wildly enjoyable aspect of magic, rooted in the body of the land and the blood bond of our bodies, celebrated with garlands of flowers, feasting, food magic, everyday ritual, beauty, tears, vulvic sorcery, plant consorts, seasonal ceremonies and plain old love.

It’s a world where we can gather again, in all our higgeldy piggeldy humanness and heart bliss. 

I can't speak on behalf of anyone else’s lineage, but I can speak for mine. In fact, I've been asked to by the Old 'Uns themselves. I've planted the bodies of my mum and dad in the foothills of Mam Tor, and watered them with my blood, and my tears and prayers. Their bodies, like generations of ancestors, going right back to those who worshipped the old Goddess Bride and lived and loved in round houses on Mam Tor's summit, are now entangled across time.

For one reason or another, the Ancestors are on the move again, come to shake us up a bit.

They've asked me to send you an invite, to come and join them for a bite to eat, to swap stories and share news. We've all had a long journey, right? This is a moment to take refuge, like the weary pilgrims of old who stopped for a rest and a pint of ale and a pie. If your blood roots are in England or the Celtic faery lines, then welcome home. If you're from other lands, there's a place at the table for you too, for a slice of cake and a cup of tea. In fact, the aunties of the land can probably send a postcard home for you and collect the village news from your ancestors. 

You see, the world is connected by a vast network of clucking aunties and grandmothers, whose roots go all the way down to the center of the earth, where Her heartbeat connects us all.

Feminine Magic School start on January 6th, for 1-month of magical initiation

Art at the top by Kate Monkman and featured in the book Spirit Weaver