Fashion for the Modern, Solitary, Hedge Witch

 There are women, and men, that know how to dress. No matter their weight, height, or circumstance they seem to have an inner beacon that guides them towards the clothing and shoes that most flatter their figure and personality. That isn’t me. 

I was born in the mid 1970s, which means that I began developing my first fashion sense in the 1980s… pause and let your imagination run wild, colorful, shoulders padded, hair stiffly sprayed, jeans rolled tightly, beads long and plastic.… There are rumors that we damaged the ozone layer and the global ecological balance with our sense of fashion. The 1990s had me in the backwoods of Pennsylvania immersed in the early days of homeschool culture. Most of the homeschool families then were highly conservative, religious, and had stay-at-home type mothers. Sewing was trending with that collective and the look leaned towards homemade jumpers. It was a fascinating phenomenon. The transition into the early 2000s found me pregnant off and on for over a decade. It wasn’t until 2011 that I experienced my last postpartum recovery year and I could really ask myself if I had a shape, and if my wardrobe had a style. 

And then there’s my hair. It is wavy and aging. It isn’t quite wild enough to make me look like a genius, and it isn’t ever tame enough for me to even try being trendy like a Disney princess. I have witch hair. It has a mind of its own and usually reflects my mood. Ponytails give me a head ache after awhile. I like hats, but they are only appropriate outside. They aren’t trending much anywhere that I go, not that I care much about fitting in, but I’m not necessarily trying to stand out either. I could wear some type of cloth on my head, and sometimes I do, but they don’t stay put and seem to send a confusing message of religious submission. Heavens forbid if I were to inadvertently make some religious patriarch think that I honor his thoughts on theology far more than my own… I’m not asking for trouble. I’m just trying to figure out what to wear and how to manage my hair without feeling odd, destructive, or sending the wrong message… but I’m often alone these days, so what is fashion to me if it isn’t practical and comfortable?

Spaekonas (Mothers Who Speak the Future into Being)

The mundane is sacred and enduring.

The profane is profitable and locomotive. 

The work of the housewife is noble and invaluable.

The work of the abortionist is lucrative and enroyalled.

The child in the arms of the mother is soothed, nurtured, cherished.

The child in the hands of the medical savior is sold off piecemeal.

They campaign against mothers to slander the most distraught as norm.

They are discrete regarding the crimes of professional slaughter and they legalize atrocity.

Who are they?

Many a bright womb is celebrated and enlivened by the joyful acceptance of a father’s love.

Many a family is created in the bosom of paradise, 

Growing, wriggling, thriving, shining like a nebulae.

The dark caverns of misery, and the corridors of shame will not engulf the 

 Morningstars of Love and Fidelity.

They will not shoot from the sky the evening stars of belonging and hearts entwined.

A mother’s love, the archetype of the highest order of the feminine, has been kenninged into

The fabric of humanity.

Signatures

 Throw me your bombs and weapons of war.

Throw me your sorrows and sufferings.

Throw me your ambitions, your pomp and circumstance.

I’ll accept them all into my nothingness.

From my vastness of not being they will emerge again as butterflies.

They will flit about in the Garden of Venus,

Quenched by the storms of Neptune,

Guided by the light of Alcyone,

Taught by the wisdom of Celeano,

Comforted at the Hearth of Merope.

After you have learned to dance with the butterflies

You will sing with the stars.

You will sing with the terra.

You will sing with the mari.

You will sing from the now.

You will sing from the then.

You will sing in harmony.

You will sing with melody.

You will sing for time.

You will sing for tide.

You will sing with longing.

You will sing with satisfaction.

You will sing with me and mine.

We are the winds of change.

We are what never was and will not be.

We are impermanence and improbabilities.

We are won’t and can’t and don’t.

We are why.