*Please note this transcript is generated using an automated service and it may not be 100% accurate
A quick listener note before we get into the episode. This episode mentions historic persecution of witches in England. We don’t go into too much detail, but we do talk about some of the physical punishment and violence that people persecuted as witches faced. We also talk a bit about modern-day prejudice against contemporary witches.
It’s early autumn and the trees have started to shed. The mulchy leaves mix with nutshells on the forest floor. Other than me and my dog, there’s no one else around. As we sit here, in Epping Forest in the late afternoon, the branches cast eerie shadows. I can see why so many people associate ancient woodlands with spooky happenings.
You might have heard tales about the ghostly figure wearing a tricorn hat, riding a horse into the night. Apparently, that’s the spirit of notorious highwayman Dick Turpin. Some legends say that Boadicea, queen of the ancient Iceni tribe, haunts these lands.
There can be a mythical atmosphere to old woodlands and it’s easy for my mind to wander. Perched under this tree, I can imagine the three witches from Macbeth gathered around a cauldron, casting their predictions.
I love a spooky story as much as the next person, but I am definitely a sceptic. However, when it comes to witchcraft, there is a deeper history here that I want to explore. The history of the people who were persecuted as witches.
Essex, the county in which much of Epping Forest resides, has a violent history when it comes to witches. According to Colchester and Ipswich museums, between the 1500s and the 1800s, around 1000 people were accused of witchcraft. Now, this was just in Essex.
In the sixteenth century, Essex was home to “the first major” witch trial in England. Some documents suggest that the first person to be executed as a witch in England was an Essex woman.
The dubious title of the first is, of course, interesting and important when it comes to understanding our history. But it’s possible that many people, women in particular, were persecuted and killed well before the sixteenth century. We just can’t say for certain based on the documents that have survived.
It was in the next century that witch hunts in Essex would reach their peak. That’s when Mathew Hopkins, the self-styled Witchfinder General, led the charge of persecuting so-called witches. I can picture him in his tall hat and knee-high cavalier boots. Imagine him skulking through the towns and villages that surround this forest, cloak billowing in the wind.
As I sit here, amongst the shadows of the forest I’m reminded that this is a place that has witnessed all sorts of things. What have these trees seen?
In this episode, I’m going to be thinking about that as I discover some of the witchy history of the Epping Forest District, that’s some of the areas that surround these woods. I’ll be chatting with a historian at the Epping Forest District Museum and exploring some witchy items in the museum’s collection.
I also want to find out about contemporary witchcraft. Nature is a big part of modern-day magic. To many people, the forest that I’m sitting in right now is a sacred, spiritual place. So I’m going to learn about some of the realities of being a practising witch today.
It’s a jam-packed episode. I’ll hear poetry, I’ll participate in a ceremony and I’ll meet a mummified cat. I’m Talia Randall and you’re listening to Voices of Epping Forest. Episode 3, ‘This Place is Magic’ .
I’m on Sun Street in Waltham Abbey, Essex. It’s a pedestrianised walkway decorated with mosaics. I see one with red and white tulips and a bright yellow sun with a face. I’m about to head into Epping Forest District Museum. The museum itself is a former Tudor residence, a Grade II listed building and the facade is that classic Tudor style, painted white with black intersecting lines. I’m here to meet with one of the museum’s historians.
My name is Amy Stock. Um, I am the Collections Officer at Epping Forest District Museum Trust.
Amy leads me to a room at the top of the museum. A small office filled with books and documents. I’m here to learn about the history of witchcraft in this area. And we begin with a very strange artefact.
In the box we have a mummified cat, which was found in the walls of the Waltham Abbey church. And yes, it is a very interesting object.
So we’re lifting open the box. I feel like, scared.
I will admit when I found him in the stores, I jumped a bit because you don’t expect it, but here he is.
Oh. My god.
So, he’s, he’s quite desiccated, bless him.
Can you describe what we’re seeing?
What we’re seeing here is a cat, um, or the remains of a cat. Um, and it is quite literally mummified. There’s, um, evidence of bones in its little feet. Um, it’s still got whiskers, in fact, on just one side of the face.
Oh my god. I can see they’re so wispy.
Yes. Um, and, um, I won’t handle it too much. No. ’cause obviously I want to make sure that we preserve it, but I’m sure that, that you can quite clearly see its face.
Um, yeah, I can see the sort of cavity of the eyes and
Yes.
Just the way that its ears are positioned it looks it still looks quite animated.
It’s quite a bit of a harrowing object at the same time. Yeah, it’s a fascinating one.
Absolutely
It was buried in the walls of the Waltham Abbey Church. It was supposedly done to bring luck. Although an alternative explanation is that it could have been a way of warding off witches. So they were believed to be able to walk through walls. Come down chimneys walk through doors without you know, thinking about it, um, and also their familiars as well, who might creep on doing errands that intended to cause harm. So it’s not clear whether or not this particular cat was still living when it was placed in the walls. Um, I think for my own peace of mind, I hope not. Yeah. Um,
yeah, let’s go with that story..
Yes, and it’s quite rare to find cats that are. It’s buried in churches, they’re more commonly found in domestic settings, like houses and farm buildings. Poor little fella.
Poor little fella. Do you have a name for it?
I was talking to my colleague about this when we were bringing him back from our external store, um, and I said I think we should call him the Abbey Tabby.
Amy gently covers the box so the Abbey Tabby can go back to the museum’s stores. The mummified cat was found in Waltham Abbey in 1986, in an air duct. Seeing it, and thinking that it might have been placed there to ward off witches, makes this history real. It’s a world away from imagining things in the shadows of the forest, because this was a practice that people actually did. They believed in it.
I want to find out more about the wider witch history in this area. There isn’t much about what may have happened inside the woods itself, but there is a lot more information about the Epping Forest District, Essex as a county and the neighbouring areas.
So, in Essex in general, there was the infamous Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins. So between 1560 and 1680, 317 women and 23 men were tried for witchcraft in Essex alone. Um, and around 90 to 100 were hung. I mean, prior to this, in 1645, there were only 36 witch trials in Essex, so it just goes to show how influential he was.
I’ve highlighted a few from the areas in which the museum covers. From 1570 to 1666, there were 19 people accused of witchcraft just in these places alone. There are examples from Theydon Mount, Chipping Ongar, Stanford Rivers, uh, Thayden Garnon, Loughton, Roydon, Nazing, it just goes on and on and on. It just goes to show how rife the fear of witchcraft was in the area. Um, even though not all of them may have been found guilty, they would have been held in a jail awaiting judgement.
Um, and the conditions of the jails at the time were absolutely horrific. Um, some places required family and friends to pay for the food and water of those kept in the cells. And if you couldn’t afford it, the accused were left to starve. There’s just so many instances in Essex alone of Matthew Hopkins his, the things that he did.
In one day alone, just on his accusation, 18 witches were hung. This was in Bury St Edmunds on the 27th of August, uh, 1645. Um, and one of those hanged was John Lowes, a 70-year-old vicar of Branderton Church. He couldn’t have a Christian burial, so to, uh, quote what it said in the document, it says, composedly and in an audible voice, read his own funeral service as he walked to his hanging.
Whoa, that’s a bleak image, yeah.
It is so, yeah. And the stories are like that. While the accusations are laughable, the actual outcomes are just awful.
It’s really shocking when you hear a historian say these numbers out loud. To hear the documented stories of individual people is harrowing. There’s something about how these events were recorded that I find particularly interesting. I want to ask Amy more about that.
Your research is based on historical documents from courts? Is that where you would kind of find this information?
Yeah. So it would have been information from courts, documents, anything at the time that would have been, you know, um, would have detailed information about the accused.
When we think of witch hunts and it’s a phrase that we still use today, isn’t it? We think about a group of people, a mob being whipped up into a frenzy and in a historical context, we might think of like, passions running wild and people with torches chasing a woman and burning her at the stake or executing her or whatever and in a modern context when we use witch hunts we think about maybe an online context and a pile on or whatever.
Yes yeah
And like first of all that’s really interesting but also what strikes me is we think about this emotional people out of their right mind hunting someone but actually when you look at the documentation, it’s really clerical and clinical and administrative and thought out and planned. And that’s quite chilling.
Yes. Yeah.
What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah. So Matthew Hopkins actually had a printed document that he went through and he basically detailed it within this document, how to find a witch. Um, there were various different instances of things that you could do to find a witch. One of them was pricking them with a, with a needle or something similar to that into a spot on their skin.
So like a mole or just a blemish. And if they didn’t feel any pain, then they were a witch. But nine times out of 10, these little needles that they use had a retractable head. So when it, when it touched their skin, it wouldn’t hurt.
so it was like sleight of hand themselves.
That’s it. Yeah. So they’re, they’re being, um, just as. You know, cunning as they’re saying that these witches are.
Its really scary
And some of the crimes are just they’re not even really crimes. They’re just the sort of accusations and people have gone. Oh, yes, of course. They must be a witch because there’s, you know, that’s the evidence. But it’s not really, it’s not evidence at all.
Yeah, it’s just that the fact that people accused of witchcraft often elderly unmarried unwell or simply disliked figures in the village. These people would be publicly humiliated and made to feel ashamed of themselves for things that they may have just been superstitions that they held or practices that they did. A lot of them were well women – women who would help with like childbirth like midwives themselves With herbal remedies and things like that. They’re just normal people.
The, the thing that you said about the retractable, um, spike to test if they felt pain or not. If the Witchfinder general was really convinced. Why did he use a retractable? He obviously didn’t believe it actually. He just wanted to maybe, you know, control and eradicate these women and people who were different. He doesn’t even stand by his own tests.
That’s it. Yeah. And I dunno how much of that was him or the people that were following him. Or if it was a case of, oh, we just want to condemn people because we want these people out of the way.
And just a suspicion of like, people who could be self-sufficient, who knew what herbal remedies will help or could be poisonous or, you know, just really wanting to suppress that knowledge or that self-reliance.
That’s it. Yeah. The idea of, you know, women having knowledge beyond what they’re supposed to know, which is, you know, just looking after the home, I suppose, as it would have been. Yeah. Um, so them having a voice, I think was the thing that I think upset a lot of people.
Absolutely. Especially when you have a population that is largely illiterate, you know, so any kind of form of knowledge is dangerous.
I can’t stop thinking about the retractable spike. It’s such a contradiction. There’s another historical object from the museum’s collection that also contains fascinating contradictions. It’s a brown, bulbous bottle with a bumpy texture, and it’s in remarkable condition, considering that it’s dated to 1660. It was found not far from the museum, by the Waltham Abbey Historical Society. And it was taken from its display, especially for this conversation.
One of the objects that we have with us today is known as a Bellarmine bottle. Um, and they were used as a type of witch bottle, which were used as a safeguard against witches. So the bottles would often contain hair and nail clippings, urine, salt or iron nails, which were considered to protect against evil. Um, so the bottles were usually hidden under floorboards, within walls or chimney breasts. Uh, yeah, there’s like a face on the bottle here. Um, and it, it kind of, I, I think
It got like a long nose.
Yeah, sort of like Merlin-esque. He’s got big eyebrows, a long beard and a pair of eyes. Um, so the face is thought to be Bartman, who was a legendary wild man. Um, and the nickname Bellamine made, made fun of an unpopular cardinal who opposed the drinking of alcohol.
What strikes me about this practice of the Bellarmine jugs is that you said people would put hair, nail clippings, urine, these kinds of bits toward against witches. That’s quite witchy. Yeah, it is.
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. The superstition is very witchy.
That’s another one of those contradictions.
It is definitely, yeah it’s odd.
I don’t know, there’s just all of these very human, fallible, um, just ways of thinking and being. It makes me feel linked to them. It makes me feel like it’s quite contemporary.
It’s incredible when you think about what might be under our feet. When I walk in the forest, I think about all the history and the stories yet to be uncovered. And about what hasn’t been documented. Before I leave the museum, Amy and I turn the conversation to contemporary witchcraft. There’s something about her that I didn’t know when I first arranged to come in.
As well as being the collections officer here, you’re also a practising witch yourself.
I am indeed, yes.
Which I didn’t know when we, when I got in touch, so that was, um, so interesting and if you’re happy to, I’d love to hear a bit more about your practice and what it means.
Yeah, of course. Um, so I started formally calling myself a witch in 2018 or 2019. Um, although I’ve always had a connection to nature and a sort of otherworldly feel to things.
I started off by building a little altar on my bedside table. Um, so I had a few things that felt important to me and the more I learned, the more I collected. And once a month or whenever the next Sabbat is coming up, I correspond my altar with flowers and, um, different symbols and bits and pieces that relate to that Sabbat.
And what some witches might term as an eclectic witch. Um, so I take inspiration from various forms and areas of magical practice and sort of make them my own. I’m still a bit of a fledgling, but there’s people also call that, um, a novice or a baby witch. Yeah. So I’m still learning, um, but I generally feel most connected to my craft when I’m outside in nature, doesn’t matter what the weather is. I’m just happiest outside. Um, and just, yeah, getting involved in nature.
Amy mentioned the word sabbat. Some contemporary witches use this word to refer to a festival or ceremonial day, and you probably know some of them already—the summer and winter solstice, the spring and autumn equinoxes.
Amy also talked about nature being a big part of what she does. I know that the days of the Witchfinder General are long gone, but is practising your craft out in nature always accepted?
Witchcraft is a very personal thing for many and not all witches will be out of the broom closet and feel confident to practise in a public place for fear of scrutiny.
Yeah.
It’s that fear again of not being understood, of being interrupted, of um, answering questions that perhaps you don’t feel confident enough to answer just yet.
I want to dig into this a little bit more, so I’m off to meet a lady called Debbie.
I’m a high priestess and we’re in my shop.
Debbie has run a specialist witch shop for nearly three decades. There’s a woody aroma of incense in the air. I see books, crystals and figurines on display. There’s usually gentle music playing, too, but we’ve switched it off so I can record.
Can you tell me a little bit about your practice as a witch or as a high priestess?
So I have a coven. A high priestess really is somebody who guides the rest of the coven, teaches them and runs the ceremonies. Uh, it’s witchcraft is beautiful and it changed my life. Uh, it’s just about being in connection with the power of nature and it just gives you peace.
Debbie has run her business for a long time and she’s seen a lot of changes, so as roadworks are happening outside, I ask her if she feels she can practise her craft out in nature.
I have tried to work outside in the forest and things. It has been difficult. I’ve done handfastings, um, in forests, but we’ve had people come across us whilst we’re in the middle of a ceremony, and either they are, it’s like a tourist attraction, or people are quite aggressive about it and frightened because they don’t understand what’s going on.
So, I tend to work in, um, private places where we’re safe. It’s something to be aware of, it’s something that took me by surprise when I first opened the shop, that I wasn’t prepared for. The level of fear and hatred. So I had people shake me till my teeth rattled. I had people walk in and throw holy water over me. They posted the most vile things through the door.
Once it was snowy and, um, I was putting salt out on the pavement to stop people from slipping over. And there was pandemonium. People were going, the witch is doing something, the witch is doing, it’s crazy.
Yeah, I’m just helping my community.
Yeah, and I said, I’m actually putting salt down to stop you from slipping. But if you want to think it’s anything else, then, you know, Go for it. Um, When they started coming in, um, the pagans of course, always came in. Bless them. Um, but when the general population started coming in, they were very, they were terrified and I couldn’t work out what they were frightened of.
They were obviously I used to say to them, you’ve seen too many movies. Um, you know, people would ask me, do I fly on my broom? And I used to say, yeah, I’ll be over tonight at seven o’clock. Look out and I’ll wave to you. And they’d go, oh, okay. I had a sign up in those days, which was, if you don’t know, ask me.
I’m happy to answer anything you want to know. But please don’t make up your mind about me if you don’t know. Um, and I think that’s, that’s the thing that shocked me the most is, bigotry and hatred is born of ignorance. So find out.
It sounds horrendous, like I’m sorry that these are experiences that you had to go through. And I think you said something so interesting about, you see something in a film, people are selective about it. So sci-fi, oh yeah, that’s not real. But the stuff about witches and witchcraft and the devil, that’s the stuff that they will take to heart. I wonder where that comes from.
I think, whether people know it or not, the whole fear of witches, it’s misogyny, it’s a thing about women having power. And that’s the thing that frightens everyone. Um, and they don’t, I don’t think they even understand it. Women are only, only valued if they were quiet, virginal, um, you know, being a mother and, and to have women with power, with thoughts who can express themselves, who teach, who heal.
That’s a terrifying thing. If we have power, it must come from a dark place. They can’t possibly imagine that it comes from a good place, a place of love and a place of light. I don’t understand why they don’t understand that. But that’s the root of it, as far as I’m concerned.
When it was all happening, I, the kind of thing I had in my head was, if they could burn me at the stake now, they would. That was the level of fear. Um, it’s so extraordinary. But, you know, we’re in 2024. I would have thought now that people knew better. It has got better. I mean, it has got better. I think one of the, the main reasons for me when I opened this, my thoughts were, I might be the only witch they will ever meet. So therefore, I have to be a representation of witches and we’re all individual and that’s one of the lovely things about the craft too.
This is about everyone is individual, everyone works in an individual way. There’s no set route to this. Um, but being the only witch they may ever meet, I tried so hard not to conform to any of their standards. So even when being attacked it was about trying to be, um, rational when I’m talking to them and trying to explain why, um, they’re wrong and to have a little think about things.
I don’t know if it worked, but, uh, that, that was kind of my main reason was I may be the only witch I’ll ever meet. So I don’t want them to go away and say, well, I’ve met a witch and she was bonkers. I’d rather they went away and said, well, actually I met a witch and she was okay. It might just that little thing might change their perception.
It’s really interesting to me hearing that about, um, taking that, I guess, ambassador role quite quickly because you are visible here Does that role get tiring ever?
Yes. it, it’s easier as I said, um, and obviously I took it upon myself, it wasn’t that I had to do it, I just, I just thought if I’m as normal as possible, and I think I’m completely normal, um,
I think everyone does.
That’s got to challenge their perception.
Talia VO: Listening to the all experiences Debbie said she;s gone through, is pretty upsetting. She was quick to tell me though, that she’s also had some wonderful times here.
Debbie: For the most part, we have such big support, the pagan population, and the people who aren’t pagan as well, who know the shop, they’re, they’re lovely and they support us, so, that’s great.
Talia: Yeah, what are some of the most, like, delightful, positive times
Debbie: I think just watching people’s perceptions change. I remember a lady that said, um, when she came in, her first thing was, oh, it’s really pretty in here. And I said to her, what did you think it was I don’t know, I thought it was going to be black, and scary, and, So that kind of thing is lovely, and when people come in with little issues, and they just want to sit and have a cup of tea with me and talk to me about it, that’s, that’s beautiful.
So really and truly, the role of the witch as the, the healer in the community, whether it’s just having a little chat to someone or making someone feel good about themselves, that’s fulfilling that really age-old role. Um, so yeah, that kind of thing makes me happy.
I love what Debbie said about fulfilling that age-old role in the community. Despite having some really difficult times, creating a safe space for people must feel really special. I want to explore this role of the witch a little bit more. To help me do that is Keely Mills.
I work as a community producer for a couple of arts organisations. And then, when I’m not doing that, I do a bit of poetry, and I call myself a poet. And then, when I’m not doing that, I’m probably watching Judge Judy, to be honest with you.
On a thundery Saturday, just before the summer solstice, I take Keeley to the Epping Forest Visitor Centre at High Beach.
I’ve never been here before but it’s an amazing space with loads of like, leaf identification and maps of how the forest was, and really great images of ducks and bird viewing platforms.
Yeah. It’s a really lovely space.
I’m going to get some honey later as well.
Yeah, we’re going to have to fight me for that to be honest with you. Okay,
great, amazing.
Jumble sale, elbows are going to come out. It’s going to be emotional for everybody.
Tell me a bit about the jumble sale elbows
Jumble sale elbow? Oh, you’re so young.
Um, yeah, this is what happens when you grow up in London, maybe there’s not as many Jumble Sales.
No, well they don’t do Jumble Sales as much, but when I was younger, you know, Jumble Sales were the thing. I once bought a stereo for 20p.
Keely and I have known each other for a while now, so our natural inclination is to joke around.
I’m sure that 20p went really far.
It takes us a while to get going.
Keely, can you tell us a little bit about your practice as a witch?
Practice is a really unusual word because I’d say, particularly in witchcraft, it’s almost like any spirituality. You’ve got to kind of create a groove. So you’ve got to practise it every day. So I have little rituals that I do to help me get through a day.
And then also, um, honouring and feeling grateful for nature, really and, and worshipping that, which is a very weird term, worship, but probably best better phrase is communicate.
You said that you will do daily rituals to help kind of support yourself, to support others. Can you give me some examples of what that might look like on a day to day basis?
So every morning I wash my face and I cleanse my face. I know. And I And I tone it and moisturise it. And then while I’m doing that, I say a little mantra for each thing that I do. And in that mantra, it’s about like how I’m going to enjoy the day or how I’m going to feel supported in the day. And then the other things that I’ll do is before I go to sleep the night before I’ll do something called, um, uh, will on the cusp of sleep, which is like, kind of saying tomorrow I will do this and normally it supports you to be able to do that and then it depends if you worship or support the wheel of the year then you will do pretty much like services or ceremonies every six weeks as well.
It’s really interesting hearing you talk about these daily rituals and practices. I think if you don’t know much about um kind of being a witch, you might think that it’s these big things that you have to do and like actually by the sounds of it, these are quite minute, quite like domestic, private, internal moments.
One of the reasons I’ve asked Keeley to join me is that she was once a poet in residence for Epping Forest. She wrote a poem from the perspective of the forest that gets to the heart of what I’ve been trying to figure out in this episode. What do we do with the history of the area and the things that the forest may have seen?
I was invited some years ago, um, to be a poet in residence of Epping Forest, and over two years, what I did is I kind of really got to know the area. I wrote poems based on the stories and the people of the forest.
Listen to Keeley as she reads her poem out loud to me in the visitor’s centre.
Here I am, your forest. I was here long before there were ever words to describe me, like ancient or creaky. My breaths have filled the hearts of tribes through all of history. Your true green lung. Trains full of children flee the grimy, greasy grip of London City to feel my air and mud. They don’t hear me laugh at the falls on my floor when slippy, hear my glee in the wind.
I’ve heard lovers whilst they carved eternal wishes into me. LP plus KM forever and ever. Felt the slow pain of branches cut and wounds of felled trees. So much timber taken. I have become warming fires and a hunting lodge for a queen. You’ve made me into matches, charcoal, axes and guillotines. I share my all with you.
The roots I grow are deep. Overlapping and woven double knit, spread like a tube map. A plan below your feet and another above your heads is sunlit, branches stretch out. Green veins press into pale sky at day, at night a soft moonlit, light joy to black fear. Even in the witching hour I give protection and I watch over all of it.
Never am I sleeping. Some of you have tried to bury deep your evil deed in earthly pit, highwaymen and crook. I’ve wept in the dark at wicked acts which have been commit, sad babes in the wood. I warn all villains that your hateful shame will never be lost or hid. There will be ghost tales and folk songs sung about what you did.
Time catches in the end. I forgive your darkness. It’s transformed into light with the good mortals I see and have seen. Mountain bikers and poets, their faces smeared with muck and walking into verses of moss green. I am a silent companion. I thank the countless souls who cherish me and still keep me clean, who fight on my behalf, keeping me safe for the families that will come and which have been.
Don’t leave me lonely. Roam your cattle. Count my tree rings, match them to all the stars I have seen die and all the battles between. Keep listening to me. Heed the lesson that we’re all kith and kin, each leaf and each stem, and a single tree is only as strong as the forest which surrounds them. I am here, the people’s forest.
Oh, got a bit emotional, towards the end.
There you go. A little performance for you.
That was so nice. What made you feel emotional?
I think because I’m actually in the forest.
Can you tell me a little bit about the motivation to write that and, I guess the emotion that it comes from?
I think I wanted to put myself firmly in what I felt might be the voice of the forest and what the forest might say to us if it was able to speak to us and write a poem itself. I know, the thunder.
Look at the, and the thunder. The thunder speaking to us. If you can hear that in the background rumbling.
So, um, yeah, I wanted to, so I suppose it’s me speaking as the forest, but so what I feel the forest would say to people.
Yeah.
If it could, ’cause I don’t think it’s, uh, aggressive, and I don’t think it’s angry. Mm. And um. But I do think it’s seen things and experienced things that, you know, and still experiences things.
Oh, you can really hear the rain coming up, pummeling on the skylights. I really feel like the poem feels a bit like an antidote to some of the violence that’s happened on this land and in this area.
I think it’s really important to say, I think the forest would say thank you to like the volunteers that work really hard like in the space we’re in today. It would say thank you to people that just take an extra carrier bag and make sure they take the rubbish away with them. I think the forest would say thanks.
And I think maybe it does. Maybe that’s the feeling we get when we go into those spaces and we do those things, we feel better, don’t we? Yeah, maybe it is saying thank you to us, but like. Yeah, without, without speaking.
Listening to Keely’s poem, connected me to all the joyful moments that have taken place here. The family days out. The restorative solo hikes, the romances. It reminds me of Emma’s story in the previous episode about cultivating a new relationship over chips and walking around the trees. With all that in mind, there is still one more thing I want to do.
I think this is a good spot. Okay. Oh, look at this tree. This tree is a beauty.
I’ve asked Keeley to create a little ceremony that we can do together in the woods.
So we’re going to do a little ritual. I’m going to do something that is all about gratitude and healing and saying thank you and love really. And also I think if you’re doing anything like a ritual or a ceremony, we do something called greening which is like cleaning the area of any human debris. So try and leave it as you found it, if not better.
Then we say a few words out loud. Mantras that Keeley has written for the day.
in healing, gratitude, and love. In healing, gratitude and love,
You can also hear the voice of Jamie, who’s helping with the sound recording.
Okay so this is the last part – I ask for forgiveness. I offer my love and understanding. I give gratitude to this forest who protects us and heals us.
I really enjoyed how simple this ceremony was. A still moment and a few words, with some friends in the forest. The environmental ideas embedded within Keeley’s practice is something I’ll take with me too.
That acknowledgement of like, what this forest has witnessed, and what it has kind of been done to it as well. Yeah. And just being like, we really need you. And we really like, respect you. And I think that as someone who isn’t a practising anything, I think that’s a really nice thing that I can take from this, is just to have a lot more gratitude for nature. But gratitude for nature that is, you know, lived and actionable rather than just like in my head.
Yeah. And there’s, I mean, there’s other things within witchcraft that we would consider to be magic, like the greening and the litter picking and whether you go and support a charity or whether you, there’s certain points in the year, like around what we call Maybon or Lammas, which is the harvest times, we would go and support like harvest festivals and go and give food, to people that needed it because it’s, it makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s an actionable thing, but it’s, yeah, it’s not about evoking weird spirits and all of that. Well, not at this time anyway.
In the next and final episode, I’ll be trying to keep up with a group of lively kids
Its not a puddle, its a pond!
Gearies Primary school have embedded nature play into the curriculum to help children with their well-being, but to also to inspire them about what jobs they might want to do in the future:
Where are our future scientists coming from? Where are our future geography students coming from?
I’m Talia Randall and you’ve been listening to Voices of Epping Forest
If you’ve enjoyed this episode, subscribe and leave a review. It really does help get the podcast out there to more people. And of course, we love it when you share it with a friend.
Voices of Epping Forest is written, produced and presented by me, Talia Randall
The mixing and mastering is by Jamie Payne
And the publishing partner is Aunt Nell.
Voices of Epping Forest was made possible through a commission from Essex Cultural Diversity Project supported by Arts Council England, in partnership with Epping Forest Heritage Trust, and supported by the City of London Corporation, Epping Forest and Essex County Council.
About Voices of Epping Forest
Many people in the UK struggle to access nature. Podcaster Talia Randall has teamed up with the Essex Cultural Diversity Project and the Epping Forest Heritage Trust to encourage more people to enjoy what Epping Forest has to offer. Epping Forest is owned and managed by the City of London Corporation.
Voices of Epping Forest doesn’t shy away from the visible and invisible barriers many people face when getting into the outdoors. The podcast also celebrates the diversity of those who visit Epping Forest. Community voices are at the heart of this podcast—these are the people broadening nature access for everyone.
To find out more about the Podcast and listen to the full series, please follow this link.
