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“Witchcraft is the magick of the Earth itself. It is the essence that can bind life together.”
― Dacha Avelin, Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft

“You alone are Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit.”
― Dacha Avelin, Old World Witchcraft: Pathway To Effective Magick

“Witches work with the truth of the Earth itself.”
― Dacha Avelin

“A witch works with the truth of the Earth itself.”
― Dacha Avelin

“The jar quickly drained between them, with Kimmie drinking most of it, until only the soaked flower lay at the bottom. Kimmie reached in with her fingers and brought it to Lee's face with mischief glistering in her eyes. She tickled the tip of her nose and trailed it down. Without thinking, Lee closed her eyes and parted her lips. She felt it fill her mouth like a soft spider. The petals were jellied and lush as she bit softly and chewed.
The taste was an overwhelming version of the liquor itself. A phantasm of undiluted shifting flavors: honey, leaves, bubblegum, ash, blood. When she finally swallowed, she lay back on the ground with the force of it.
Her skin tingled like something was coming up through her pores. Thin roots sprouted from every inch of skin that touched the grass: the back of her head, her shoulder blades, her thighs. They probed into the dirt and snaked their way down, farther into the earth, branching and spreading below her. She could feel the roots glowing. An electricity crackled through her, and she knew it was the power of the land. They were connected.
She sensed the groundwater flowing below as it fed the wells of the houses tucked into the mountains. When she focused on the water itself, she could access the memories it held, of every living thing that ever made a home on this land. A dinosaur lapping from a creek with its long tongue. A prehistoric woman peering down into its reflective surface and seeing herself staring back.
She could sense the coal, the natural gas, the zinc, the marble, nestled like treasure deep within the clay and stone.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“She knew of a flower that grew in the clearing where she performed her rituals. It was the darkest green, so dark that it appeared black to most. She'd never seen it anywhere else, nor could she ever identify it using her numerous botany books. Her grandmother believed it grew out of the ashes of their words and intentions, that their work seeded and fertilized the blooms. If anything could offer transcendence in digestible form, it would be this.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk

“Listening to Eunice's lullabies wafting through the nursery window, Harriet placed her palms on top of the earth. She allowed the sweetness of the moment to seep down through her hands into the soil. A tear escaped and splashed into the dirt. The buds responded immediately. She watched one, bent and brown, begin to unfold into a vibrant purple freesia, opening layer by beautiful layer, then turn to face Harriet.
Harriet used her touch to sprout butter-yellow dahlias and sweet pink fuchsias, forget-me-nots the color of dusk and honeysuckle that dripped with nectar. Before long, Eunice's flower garden was a wild array of colors and scents, as if summer had skipped right over winter and spring. Bees roused from their nests, swarming hungrily from blossom to blossom, and Harriet spotted more than one eager blue tit exploring the newly bloomed gooseberry bush.”
― Chelsea Iversen, The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt

“Harriet understood now that she'd always had more control over the garden than she'd ever known. Perhaps control wasn't the right word. It was an understanding--- some strange understanding both she and the plants had together. Either way, she knew now that she could ask this garden, any garden, to respond to her touch, to her thoughts, her emotions, and it would respond.
She let her hands fall to the bare earth and closed her eyes. She began to push happiness from her heart, down her arms, and out through her hands. The feeling was so intense, so filled with love that tears brimmed along her eyelashes. Eunice breathed steadily beside her, while the insects nearby hummed busily, and the smell of freesias filled her head.
Eunice gasped, and Harriet opened her eyes to see a green thread of life prodding up through the dirt, exploring the air above, doubling in size with each passing moment. She watched her cousin examine the bud as it unfurled into a tiny cream primrose with a sunshine-yellow center.”
― Chelsea Iversen, The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt

“Although Harriet found fulfillment in the vegetable patch and the food it provided them, she discovered that she was most drawn to the small mounds of untended earth that sat around the grounds.
Nearer to the house and along the rock wall, Harriet could feel traces of flowers too--- more intentionally planted at some point in this home's history. Whenever she placed her palms on the earth, she was both reading its vibrations and giving something of herself to it. It was an exchange that she was beginning to understand more, certain now that it started with her. She had a unique touch that somehow awakened an urgent attentiveness in flowers and other plants, and then, once they blossomed, they became whatever she needed them to be. A sort of call-and-response. Here, she could be her full self, and the plants responded beautifully to that. She supposed she'd never been her full self anywhere before, which was why she hadn't understood the depth of her own abilities.
This morning, she could feel the presence of once-grown peonies and lily of the valley in the earth beneath her. Her heart leapt as she watched the peony stems grow to life and then the layers of pink peel open before her eyes--- an offering, a blessing, a study in delicate beauty. It was more like a dream than her reality, especially as it was still not yet spring. With another touch, she prepared the way for the wispy, hanging flower bells, but she did not stop there. She moved her way around the stone wall, sensing which flowers wanted to grow here, and she gave them life. Growing these flowers gave Harriet something tangible to focus on, and she hoped the fragrances and colors cheered Eunice and Lewis as much as they cheered her.”
― Chelsea Iversen, The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt

“It would be two years before the townspeople crowded around to see the peculiar garden of Harriet Hunt, gawping at her floral creations, the trees she had made grow in such a short span of time, the beauty of it all.”
― Chelsea Iversen, The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt