The Witch's Spot

I have lived in very small town in Western New York all my life. The home where I grew up was surrounded by farmer fields that produced crops of beans, corn, squash and cabbage during the summer months an pumpkins and apples as fall approached. Along with the Dairy Farmers and few small local farm markets, there wasn't a whole lot this little town had to offer, one grocery store, a few pizza shops, a gas station, a liquor store pretty much summed up the town, which was always fine with me, I could never handle living in the city with all the noise and sirens and commotion.

My current home now sits on the edge of a forest with a creek that runs through it. This creek is a hot spot for fisherman when the salmon are running and I could always hear them battle the salmon as they would try and run upstream. My back yard is my daily meditation for my morning coffee, journaling and watching the wildlife as I gather up my bearings before I start another day.

It was a cool fall day in late September and I felt like hiking in a favorite place of mine that is a wooded area on a bluff that over looks Lake Ontario. The late afternoon sun was warm on my skin as the cool breeze brushed over me as I hiked off the normal hiking trail made for visitors and wandered into the woods. Off in the distance, I noticed an object, as I walked upon it I realized that I had discovered an old stone fire place. It was all that was left from a cabin long gone by the elements of time and man. This fireplace stood tall amongst the round cement markers anchored deep into the decaying earth outlining where the cabin once stood. As I stood there and listened to the whispers in the wind, the voices in the crashing of the waves at the bottom of the bluff, I knew this was no normal farmer's cabin. This was the cabin of a witch.

I could feel her presence all around me, in the trees, the fallen leaves. I put down my backpack and water bottle and sat in front of the hearth of the fireplace looking inside, I noticed some rocks had begun to fall but inside there was still the old rotted rusted grate that must of held her cauldron. All of a sudden, visions of her swirled in my head as she brewed her healing elixirs. As I stood up and looked around, I could see the table where she would make protective amulets, burning candles as she utters her sacred rites. It was as if I was back in time right there with her.

Before walking away from this old remnants of a cabin, I notice that the trees encompassed where the cabin once stood had eyes carved into them. A tree facing each of the four directions, North, South, East and West, these tree's forever watching and protecting her sacred place. I couldn't help but put my hand on one of the tree's to try and feel it energy to try and tap into what secrets it's held, would it show me all the history of people, the storms, the draughts that it has seen.

This old fire place, all that is left of her sacred place has now become mine, as this is the place that I come to sit with her essence to detox from all the noise of the world, social media and just humans in general. I sit in silence to watch the deer walk around me, to hear the crow calls and the lake crash into the shoreline. I am honored that the spirit of The Witch's Spot allows me to share her sacred place and this story with you all.