When I posted a call for potential guest posters, and Angie from Bare Roots Studio sent me an email, I was overjoyed. Long ago, I fell in love with the writing she does on her own blog – it’s just so raw and insightful – and wickedly witty. If, after you read her touching thoughts on the loss (and hopeful resurgence) of her daughters’ inherent natural tendencies and you want to read more, definitely check her out.
(Oh! She also sells the most incredible signs – of which I have a Japanese teacup proudly in my living room now – at her Etsy store.)
How to Turn Your Daughters (Back) Into Witches
These are my daughters. The older one is on the left, younger on right. Aren’t they lovely?
Ah yes. It gives me no pleasure – despite what you may have heard – to grind them up into one of my potions.
Stake-Burning (not steak-burning)
Traditionally witches were those folks, mostly poor &/or older women, who just didn’t fit in with their medieval neighbors. Their crimes included healing with herbs, having pets & helping birth babies. Oh, & “enchantment.”
Naturally, they needed to be killed. No need to stir up controversy in this post by suggesting otherwise.
Girls Gone Wild
In my own girlhood, I ran shirtless & dirty around the woods at the top of my street like some sort of not-cute forest waif. At home I melted crayons in the driveway. The resulting liquid was especially powerful mixed with hydrogen peroxide & my dad’s Aqua Velva. (Just in case you try it, be warned that this concoction, poured hastily down the sink when Mom pulls up, will harden & stick. Best to lock the bathroom door at that point.)
So my own girls came by their witchiness honestly. The oldest slid down arroyos & ran from what I assured her & hoped was true were imaginary rattlesnakes & mountain lions. She baked grass n’mud casseroles on warm boulders & sang “American Woman” at the top of her little lungs. Later she told wonderful invented stories to the neighbor kids.
Scooping out sections of earth to make “recliners” was my youngest’s thing. Fairy houses made of twigs & feathers & rocks was another. She also made a hair care product from spit. Then she discovered my stapler. How many pieces of her own clothing she cut up & stapled into interesting new doll fashions may never be fully known, but I still sometimes run across evidence stuffed in odd places like the rafters, or gutters.
My creative little geniuses. And then, each in her turn, they stopped.
Recently my oldest daughter came home for the holidays. She had forgotten her oral hygiene products. Glancing through the medicine cabinet she asked, “What’s in all these glass jars? We can’t even get Tom’s anymore?”
Then: “Mom! So it’s really true you’re brushing your teeth with a stick now?”
The youngest intoned, “It has come to this.”
Decades of being the sole crunchy in my own family bestows a certain immunity to such remarks. What does get to me, however, is hearing my oldest daughter referring liberally to Chick-Fil-A, Crystal Light, Cover Girl.
This is how they kill me, you know. They kill me slowly & exquisitely well, my children. My youngest whispers “Forever 21” & “formaldehyde nail polish” just to curdle my skin.
Like a witch defiantly watching the townspeople until the flames melt her eyeballs, I take this silently, but not submissively.
Synthetic Sorcery
And I draw the line at the Pink perfume my oldest left behind. In this house we refer to Victoria’s Secret as Victoria’s Butthole & that’s the way it’s going to stay, dammit.
So, though my youngest desperately wanted to keep this piece of her sister’s artificial essence, I made her give the bottle away to one of her friends.
I refuse to feel guilty about this. Its nasty components will leach into the water supply eventually anyway. And the friends’ parents could care less what their daughters spray on. For years I’ve been waiting on a sparkly pink product line for girls & women called, simply, Cancer.
Bubbling Cauldrons
Admittedly, I was not always this fierce. In adolescence & early womanhood I lost ability to craft myself, too.
Pretty soon I was tame as a boiled egg, eating snack-sized Doritos, opening fresh cakes of L’Oreal eye shadow & feeling nourished by both, at least temporarily.
All my native wildness had boiled away. I tried to get it back through mean boys & cigarettes, among other things, but those are no more soulful than Urban Outfitters.
To free myself I made a pact with the Dark Side: Nevermore would I return to the easy parking & bright lights of The Mall. I would haunt the thrift stores, the blank page & my own garden instead. I would delight in sky & book, cookpot & the companionship of fellow witches, including the male ones.
Deeper & deeper I go into the dark domestic arts as I age. For instance: Lately I’ve been harvesting my pee & excess shower water to feed my indoor plants. They love it. They whisper very complimentary things.
Also I made dish soap. It does not contain pee.
Magic Production
So now I grind up my daughters’ fingernails, hair from their brushes, pour in their wicked humor. I cast my spell.
May my oldest finish that pearl painting she created from thin air, simply because she wanted a painting of pearls, & make many more. Though she’s graduated from grass n’mud casseroles now, may she continue cooking, preferably with organic ingredients. May she at least consider essential oils.
May my youngest’s trade of a sewing machine for my stapler be permanent. May she stop saying her Buddha drawing isn’t good enough. May she actually practice her guitar.
May they always play in the mud, knowing also they can fly. If they’re in the mood.
Homemade Ginger Beer: The Happy Birthday Drink
Can I “become” a witch or is it a born identity that you just know?
I lost my witchiness in my teens, after I was mocked and threatened at the bus stop for not shaving my legs. I tried to buy into the rampant consumerism, but the obsessions I got seemed more like being addicted to a horrible drug. It never felt right. I thought there was something wrong with me for not wanting a myspace page, or not wearing makeup until I was 15. I’m so happy I found this blog, by accident, looking for a homemade soap recipe. Now at 25, I’ve found who I’m supposed to be. Who knew- it was ME the entire time!
Side note, but still slightly related: I opened the trash can in my apartment building and sitting there, not touching exposed trash, was a $110 Fox racing brand men’s jacket. So I washed it and kept it. It’s so comfy! And it’s a style that can be passed off as a women’s jacket. Who would throw that away? This kind of thing happens at least once a week. What is WRONG with people?!?!
I love this. So inspiring – I think I’ll get out my guitar and forage around in the dirt for a while.
Thank you so much for reminding me who I used to be. From this day forward I will embark on the journey of finding my true witchiness again.
This actually made me tear up.!
I have two young daughters and I can only hope that they take 10% of what I teach them when they leave.
On a side note- (we are not religious) and I mentioned to my (then) 4 year old that I considered myself a kitchen witch. I explained that it was not the same thing as a Disney witch, and that it isn’t something we talk about with other people because they might not understand. (We have very fundamental Christian neighbors). This conversation came about because she was asking why I left some newspaper pieces in a bucket that I was watering the compost with, and I explained how the paper will decompose into soil. She asked me if it was magic, and in a way it is. Just like using food to heal can be magic, if we know the right “potions”.
She thought about is for a few minutes, and then asked- “Am I a little witch?” It melted my heart. I replied that if that was what she wanted then that was OK.
Now that they are a little older (5-7) and becoming more aware of what the other kids are eating or doing (video games esp) they ask me if it’s bad, or why we don’t do it. And they ask me about mainstream commercials trying to sell products. I dont homeschool in the traditional sense, they do go to a public school- but I am extremely proud that my daughters can ask inquisitive questions about what is going on, instead of accepting the commercialism of it all. (so far- I’ll just have to wait until they are in their teens!)
Also about the urine for house plants: my aunt uses ammonia in hers (a few table spoons mixed with water I think) so that would essentially be the same thing right? What exactly does it do for the plants?
Urine is a great source of nitrogen and is a better fertiliser than conventional shop-brought ones (“A recent study has shown that the growth and biomass of the plants were slightly higher with urine than with conventional fertilizer — http://www.ecofriend.com/entry/human-urine-a-great-fertilizer-for-the-plants/). It is also an excellent compost-starter.
I am just now rediscovering my original witchy ways! When I was little and we lived out in the country, I used to run around nekkid all the time (there were terrible tantrums when I had to put on a shirt for school). I spent my days exploring ditches, making mud pies, licking the horses’ salt lick, and brewing “potions” in the front yard with my mom’s orange fondue pot. I never wanted to stop being that crunchy little kid, I just thought it was something I *had* to do–and I’m so glad to be unlearning that.
Yay, a fellow nekkid kid! Shirts are so overrated, aren’t they? Happy unlearning!
I love it! I am SO excited to have been directed to your blog… I am in love with it and the way you write!! Thank you SO much for sharing!!
Great post 🙂 I am all up for natural living!
Love this. And it happens to all of us. And to boys as well. Eventually, I think, we all come back. In the meantime, while waiting for my son to return, I’ll just keep riding my broomstick…………
This post is so sweet and your daughters are beautiful. 🙂 I’m 19 and I haven’t exactly given up on Cover Girl or Forever 21, but every little step counts! 🙂
Thank you, Kathleen! Every little step DEFINITELY counts.
This post is just beautiful, and a true pleasure to read. I’m 16, and have started the journey to finding the witch within myself again. My aunt got me really interested in what goes into and onto my body, and my sparked my love for blogs! (When I stumbled across Crunchy Betty, I immediately sent her the link) Not too long ago, my dad opened my eyes to the sneaky pair of ingredients in pretty much ALL lotions: glycerin and alcohol. He explained to me that the alcohol is to open your pores, and the glycerin gives a soothing feeling. However the alcohol dries the skin, creating a constant need to reapply the moisturizer. I find he’s much better at explaining than I am. Anyways, I was mesmerized and read all the lotion labels in the store, to find that he was so right!
Most mornings now, you can find me happily whisking oatmeal and rubbing coconut oil on my dry winter skin.
I love to know that I’m not alone, and not a freak. Thank you so much!
How wonderful to be already rediscovering your inner witch at 16! Good for you, girl!
That’s really cool to hear that your Dad taught you that. It’s great to hear that Dads are thinking about this stuff too.
Beautifully and delightfully written! Growing up is so much about needing to fit in (and it’s a lot easier to fit in with the many than fit in with the few). The fortunate ones grow out of that and rediscover their true selves… playing, standing, and soaring. Some sooner, some later.
You really hit the nail on the head there, Stephanie. Thank you!
Loved your post. I have always been witchy. Now looking for potions and remedies to take that I am done with chemotherapy. Finding some that are working for me. Thank you.
So glad to hear you’re finding witchy potions that work for you! Maybe one day you can share them with others coming out of chemo. Thank YOU!
I hope my daughters, now 16 & 17, never loose their sense of wonder and adventure!
Hope not, too! It helps a lot, I think, when Mom keeps hold of her own sense of wonder & adventure….:)
You’ve cast a good spell. One day they will call themselves witches.
This entry made me smile…once upon a time as a little girl I created things with mud and berries. As a cash strapped teen I made masks and hair stuff with friends. But then once there was spending money the pretty bottles of the store beckoned.
But not that long ago I remembered that there was an alternative. Now my fiance affectionately calls me a witch with my lotions and potions. He even requests them for himself. Must have been that spell I cast as I made him his first balm.
Nothing sexier than a partner who recognizes & appreciates a woman’s inner witch, I say….!
This is divine! My two darlings (now 20 and 17) also had fun outside concocting potions while I tended the garden. Their combo of crushed Easter eggs, pond water and who-knows-what-else in a glass soda bottle became legendary when it fermented into a potent fly trap/exterminator. Fairy houses, outdoor restaurants and any pet they desired–chickens, rabbits, ducks, canaries, tropical fish, dogs, cats (not all at the same time, of course) gave them a great background in Biology. (They are both into the Sciences now, but I often hope that one day they’ll renew their zest for the Arts).
Hilarious! Wow, it sounds like you provided an absolutely heavenly environment for your kids. I’ll bet they’re the most creative scientists around because of it.
Thank you for commenting, Sandra. I’ve been checking out Greenwoman Magazine & think I’ll just have to order it now!
THANK YOU! For writing this. I’m in my mid-30’s and have lost this side of me. This gives me hope of recapturing my lost self.
You’re so welcome, Skydancer 93! (Thank you, Betty, for posting it!) Don’t worry, you’ll get it back!
I think your post is speaking (very wittily) to the fact that in our country we may have pockets of people with traditions but as a whole America’s tradition IS consumerism…how sad for us!!! I have been thinking on this lately. As I look back on my own journey I can see how I am affecting my own mother and 22 year old daughter. It is wonderful. Just yesterday I was speaking with my daughter about a toothpowder I had made. She really was interested. So I decided that I will make a book with notes and recipes and… cool “other” stuff I haven’t thought of yet! So,when she is ready to embrace more it will be right there for her to try.
That’s a stupendously wonderful idea, Tawney. How great that you’re able to share your insight, wisdom & new/old traditions throughout generations! I think we all have a responsibility there. And yes, absolutely, consumerism is de devil!
You are a wonderful mother! I had grandparents who lived much like this with a farm in the middle of nowhere Missouri who grew and raised almost everything they needed to survive. My mother however did not like to live in non-comercial world and taught me very little about the wonderful ways of the earth. I did pick up things that will help me from the wonderful people I was blessed enought to call my grandparents. Sadly though they have all passed before I seen to getting the recipies and wealth of knowledge I should have. I am only 27 know, but wish I would have smarter about things. Your childern will thank you one day. And if not, your grandchildren will. I wish I had more people in my life with your influance. As a mother myself now I am so greatful for websites like this one! It helps me put a piece at a time back into my family puzzle. So I’ll stop rambling on like idot now, but I just wanted to say “Thank you” from your family who hasn’t even been born yet just incase you don’t get to hear it. 🙂
I am a proud witch! It skipped a generation and my 80 yr old Grandmother could not be happier I have came around in the last 5 years. When i was little lemon juice, vinegar, and baking soda was all my Grandma needed for about anything. I remember drinkng green tea with fresh mint with her when I was little. We drank goats milk from Miss Sandy out in the pasture and it made the best homemade ice cream. I am so blessed to have all those memories, and for giving me the ability to see the beauty in all things natural. She taught me that the Lord provides for us if you just take the time to look around and use what he gives you. I am also blessed to still be making memories with this Angel He gave to me.
I also have a daughter,11, and beautiful like yours;), that is very much a little witch in her own right. She has turned many of her dads shirts into stuffed animal clothing using a stapler. She has been very interested in everything I have been learning over the years. She also loves to share with her teachers, whom I know think I am some kinda of crazy, no poo, hippy! I know the teen years might bring change but I have great hope she will be a better witch than I!
I am also blessed to live in a time where I can find blogs like this and women like you. Have been reading Crunchy from afar for quite sometime. Thanks to all that are here to help me learn and feel secure in the changes I am making!! Isnt it strange that people think you are so ” out there” when you are just getting back to the basics? Thanks again!
What a lovely comment, Tommij, thank you! Your memories made me smile…I was close to my Grandma, too.
Also, I agree: It IS just so nice to be welcomed into a like-minded community!
THANK YOU for sharing this blog!!! Again, thank you. And Angie – I’ve been trying to post a comment on the “How to CHOOSE…” post, but it doesn’t seem to be working for me. Or, I have mucked it up because I’ve tried to post it like 20 times. Either way…
Thank YOU for reading! But then, Angie’s always have impeccable taste, don’t we?:) So sorry you haven’t been able to post your comment over at Bare Root People — it doesn’t seem to be stuck in my spam. Maybe my site is temporarily bewitched!
I visit Crunchy Betty to learn fun stuff, smile and laugh. This is the first time I’ve had tears in my eyes: they’re good tears… full of warmly recognized comraderie. During the last two years I’ve made long, leaping strides back to the wild woman I was in my early twenties, almost forty years ago! (How is that possible?!?) My own lovely daughter seems cut from the same cloth as your two. She’s been out of the country during this time of my enlightenment, and is returning sometime this summer. Are we gonna have fun, or what!
Thank you, Angie, for sharing. I’ll be sure to tell my daughter she’s not alone.
And thanks to you too, Betty, for turning me on to another terrific writer!
~m.e.
Oh boy, m.e., did I get chills reading your comment. Thank you so much. I hope you & daughter have one wild ride through the sky together!
A note to Betty: You have established an absolutely wonderful community here. These are the nicest people I’ve ever “met!”
Your daughters are beautiful!!! -&- your writing makes me feel like I’m soaring through crunchy clouds, on my broom of course…
HA! Thank you, Binxi. They *are* beautiful young women, aren’t they? I’m ridiculously proud of them.
Loved this post! You crack me up 🙂 My daughter is almost nine and thankfully so far she is totally into making as much as we can ourselves and staying away from “nasty gross” things as she puts it. Here’s to hoping the teen years will be good to me lol 😉
Best of luck, Bella! Sounds like your daughter is awfully lucky to have your example.
You are so sweet Angie!! Thanks 🙂 I just found your blog so I am excited to look through your posts and find some good stuff.
I have been raising my children to be druids, druidess’, and wiccans! My boys are 7 and 8 and my daughter is 2 and a half. I love this post and it definitely inspired and motivated me to keep it up! Thank you!
Never, ever, ever, ever give up, Autumn! We’re quietly saving the world!
Love your title Angie! And what beautiful girls! Don’t worry – they will slowly rediscover those witchy ways instilled by Mom. Mine are 28 and 20 now. And, while they still may visit Forever 21 from time to time, they’re always texting or calling for advice on how to make that face cream, or what essential oil should they put on this festering pimple, or help, my throat hurts send echinacea money.
Really, the eye rolling days are over and they get it now.
I just had to leave them alone for a while so they could think it was their idea.
Thanks for the poetry and the laughter
Yes, in my zeal for absolute crunchiness 24/7, sometimes I forget about the emails & texts for home remedies…. Thank you for the reminder!
Love it! Part of me is the daughters, part of me is the mother, part of me is the grandmama, all stirred up into one generation of Good Witches, whatever our potions may consist of, they have all been mixed with love.
I like the wildness,the experiments, grass, mud, Aqua Velva….I used to go in my closet and mix Cashmere Bouquet powder with various liquids…my brother had a chemistry set where he made Stink Bombs….not so different , huh?
Hello, fellow Good Witch! Love *is* the key ingredient, yes.
HERE HERE! I am a daughter of a mother whose middle names were (and still are) synthetic and processed, and it’s made a very long journey in my adulthood of trying to overcome the excess weight and other problems related to less than savory foods or products I was raised on during a time when I was too young to know better. I started this journey in high school and college, when I started using herbal remedies instead of synthetic medications. I scrimped and saved (and still do to this day) for new ingredients, new books, and new tools to continue divorcing myself from the chemicals that shaped my childhood and have left their lingering heaviness on my current body. I thank the universe for the internet for giving birth to communities like this one where information is shared and support is given. Because of blogs like this one, since the start of the new year, I’ve made my own deodorant, am in the midst of a no ‘poo transition, use all-natural body wash, have made my own lotion, wool dryer balls, and I have soap nuts coming in the mail today and a bottle of vinegar with grapefruit and orange peels waiting to become household cleaner!
Your daughters are so blessed to have you to encourage/remind them of their inner witch =D
Guess what, Mae? *My* mom just subscribed to Crunchy Betty! That just illustrates your point about the power of online communities like these, where we can create new connections & discover amazing new abilities.
Congrats on your journey…seems like we’re all there with you, in one form or another!
I LOVE this!!
Thank you!
Inspiring and well-written! Thank you for sharing. 🙂
Thank you for reading!
Awesome. Wow, talk about synchronicity- I was thinking about this topic yesterday, not sure how to bring it up. It’s sad that we lost, almost completely, the tradition of passing natural remedies, herbal knowledge, and ‘magic’ from generation to generation. I too lost touch with the ‘craft’ in my teens to early 20s, crazy the stuff that I exposed myself to. I started becoming more natural again when synthetic products began to cause me to have allergic reactions. I am trying to convert my family (Mom, Dad, etc.)- but it seems that buying stuff ‘on sale’ is much easier (and preferred) than making something that would be cheaper, healthier and most likely better. My husband is incredibly supportive and is comfortable with our lifestyle- I think, in part it comes from him growing up just outside Seattle, WA.
Your daughters are beautiful, I’m sure that they will return to ‘magic’- just as soon as they are done experiencing what they can on the other side.
{(^o^)}Sarah
Sarah
“On sale,” yes, it’s the bane of our times. Cheap in the short term so often turns out to be astronomically expensive in the long term, doesn’t it?
Much appreciated, Sarah!
I, too, lost my wildness for a while in my 20s and early 30s. Now in my late 40s, I am joyfully embracing my real self, and killing off that powerless fool I had become. I’ve never been happier or felt more myself.
Boy, do I hear ya, Grace. Congratulations!
Grace, I have experienced the same thing, during the same ages! Sad to have lost those years; glad to be me again. =)
I am a daughter recently getting out of the learned consumerism that we women thing of as a coming of age rite. I just turned 30 and am ashamed it took me so long. Keep your head up…your girls will come back to you.
By the way, beautiful words.
Much appreciated, Tif.
And hey, give yourself a pat on the back for turning away from consumerism by age 30! It’s not easy at any age, I don’t think. Thank goodness for supportive gathering places like Crunchy Betty, eh?
I sorely needed this post this morning. I work with tame women, and I am vey clearly the outcast. My wildness does not suit my workplace (I work with children and that part is very fulfilling) and I have had many a day where I lusted for the ability to shed my wildness for the chains of mainstream culture, just to fit in. Perhaps one day I’ll find my tribe again, but until then, thank you for posts like this.
You’re not the only one, Erin! Boy, yeah, the workplace can be a tough one. Hold your head high!
Thanks for sharing Angie – what lovely daughters you have (and what super cool signs you guys do!). Oh, and judging from your photo on your blog, there’s no way you are mom to 2 grownup daughters (unless that photo is at least 20 years old). 🙂
Lovely. I’m the daughter in this situation, and I absolutely still think I can fly. Also I mix random things together to see what happens. I’m 20. I’m never going to outgrow this.
And when my mother rolls her eyes at me, I have a legitimate internet source to point her to!
Excellent attitude, Margaret. And I’d be honored to serve as a reference for your mom!