Garden of the Witch - Part One
How do you usually imagine a witch garden and its plantings?
Gardens often combine aspects of the world and aspects the Earth for aesthetic and/or practical, human-centred purposes.
Yet humans usually interact with the Earth in unfortunately ill-informed ways.
Humans have rarely been able to balance their own desires with the needs of other species.
Witches are humans, of course. Anyone thinking otherwise is obviously deluded.
If you love hummus, do you grow all its ingredients in your own garden?
If you love pita bread, do you grow all its ingredients yourself and bake it yourself?
Are you well acquainted with the history of domesticated plants?
Do you know much about useful plants from a human perspective?
Have you thought much about the usefulness of plants in relation to the needs of other species?
Do you have much knowledge of necessary ethics?
How do you usually think about the politics of gardening and and politics of non-gardening?
What is your acquaintance with weeds?
What is your acquaintance with lawns?
What is your acquaintance with biocides?
What is your acquaintance with the greenhouse effect?
What do you know about no-dig gardens?
What do you know about land tenure in relation to gardening?
A careful assessment of ethics is always necessary in relation to people and places, and non-places.
What do you know about the liminality of places and non-places?
What have been your experiences of place-based education in relation to a sense of place, an awareness of local history and local geography and local biology and local weather systems and microclimates, and a feeling of belonging?
What is your acquaintance with nature writing?
Witches, by definition, have long been regarded as socially and politically out of place, particularly by bullies in positions of power.
Witches have long been regarded as out of place in communities and neighbourhoods dominated by opinions associated with hegemony.
Witches have often also been regarded as economically out of place by bullies in positions of power, and by bullies with a desire for more power.
Real witches have never been bullies. They have expressed righteous indignation by opposing all forms of bullying.
Real witches love peaceful, healthy, community gardens in which they can express themselves through the interactions between nature and culture.
Where do you most express your authentic self, and how?
If you have a place-based identity, how did you acquire it?
If you do not have a place-based identity, what are the natural and cultural reasons for its absence from your life?
Politics, by definition, is associated with competition.
What have been your experiences of community life?
What have been your experiences of political life?
What have been your experiences of artistic life?
What have been your experiences of resolving disputes?
What do you know about competing needs, incompatible practices, selfish desires and ruthless ambitions?
What do you know about compatible needs, co-operative practices, sensible desires and reasonable ambitions?
How reasonable are your ethics, both in theory and practice, and how do you know?
How do your ethics relate to your opinions on gardening, and non-gardening?
How do you move about within your activity space, and why?
How would you describe your cultural landscape, and why?
How would you describe the social spaces you most value, and why?
How do you assess the value of any sort of space, and from which point of view?
How do you define the purposes of the gardens you most value?
What do you know about human migration?
What do you know about the migration of other species?
What do you know about the social and material aspects of spaces, and the political and economic aspects?
Perhaps you have a strong sense of place associated with your cultural identity.
What do you know about environmental psychology, including the emotional bonds particular people have with particular places?
How do you think about gardens, and nature, and culture, and the Earth, and the world, in relation to time, and space, and a sense of purpose, and meaningfulness?
How do you think about gardens in relation to sustainability, and wisdom, and truth, and beauty, and therapeutic necessities, and conflict?
What do you know about absolute space and time?
How do you think about the relationship between humans and the universe?
What do you know about the domestication of fungi and micro-organisms?
How do you think about the largest scales of natural interactions and the much smaller scales of natural interactions?
Most people do not have a well-informed relationship with nature. They may even despise the people who do.
How much do you respect nature, and how do you know?
What do you know about histories and mysteries associated with wonderful witches?
What do you know about the genius loci of your current physical locality?
What do you know about the genius loci of your current digital locality?
You have access to this grimoire, and present, because you have access to an ethereal garden, a virtual cottage and a digital library.
It is only possible to reach the library with access to the cottage.
What do you know about globalisation in relation to a sense of place, and a sense of purpose, and a feeling of meaningfulness?
What do you know about industrialisation in relation to a sense of place, and a sense of purpose, and a feeling of meaningfulness?
What do you know about tourism in relation to a sense of place, and a sense of purpose, and a feeling of meaningfulness?
What do you know about conflict in relation to a sense of place, and a sense of purpose, and a feeling of meaningfulness?
What do you know about community gardens and allotment gardens and communal gardens and urban parks and Chinese palace gardens and English landscape gardens and French landscape gardens and garden squares and common land and village greens?
What do you know about litter and other waste and pollution, including illegal dumping and brownfield land?
What do you know about guerilla gardening?
What do you know about environmental remediation?
What do you know about quality investments as enchantments?
What do you know about the breaking of delightful spells through political interference?
What do you know about the binding of dangerous spells through political isolationism?
The garden of the witch is where delightful spells are bound and dangerous spells are broken.
What is your acquaintance with the numinous, and in which contexts?
What do you know about noumena, and how did you acquire that knowledge?
But how do you usually make indirect observations of anything, or anyone?
A phenomenon is experienced directly, whether accurately or otherwise.
A noumenon is experienced indirectly, whether through understanding or through ignorance.
What do you know about demonstration gardens and experimental gardening?
What do you know about forest gardens?
What do you know about medicinal plants?
What do you know about aromatic compounds?
What do you know about the improvement of air quality through gardening, including indoor gardening?
What do you know about bioretention, bioremediation, phytoremediation and rain gardens?
What do you know about the design of experiments to ascertain causality and efficacy?
What is your acquaintance with compost?
What is your acquaintance with container gardening?
How do you compare urban gardens with suburban gardens and rural gardens?
Gardens are usually intended to be contained in restricted spaces, even when they spill over into neighbouring areas.
Yet nuisance plants have devastating environmental and economic consequences, in much the same way as nuisance animals, nuisance people, nuisance fungi and nuisance microorganisms.
What do you know about domesticated animals?
What do you know about feral animals?
What do you know about wildlife?
What do you know about kitchen gardens?
You may or may not associate a spirit of place with local food production.
What do you know about the slow food movement?
How much are you reliant upon the food industry, and why?
How much of your idea of the magical is actually produced through factories?
Perhaps you are haunted by the exploitative practices associated with your former consumerism.
Perhaps you are seeking a magical garden in which to restore your sense of self after experiencing abuse.
What do you know about horticultural therapy?
What do you know about comfort food?
What do you know about therapeutic gardens?
What do you know about special words and special works in relation to the powers of nature?
What do you know about companion planting?
What do you know about beneficial insects?
What do you know about deep mapping and bioregionalism?
What do you know about psychogeography and cognitive geography?
What do you know about community development?
What do you know about ecopsychology and ecospirituality?
What do you know about sensory gardens and nature therapy?
What do you know about the Adelaidezone as a virtual cultural region?
What do you know about Frugality Cottage and its garden areas?
You may already know that the Adelaidezone is not associated with parochialism, patriotism, nationalism or any other unenlightened belief or practice.
The localism associated with the Adelaidezone is principally historical and geographical. It is only partially political and only partially economic. It is mainly ethical and sensibly environmental.
The concept of a homeland is political. It is how foreign lands, foreign ideas, and foreign people are identified.
What is your acquaintance with biosecurity in environmental, economic and political terms, and especially in terms of quality of life?
How do you distinguish between real dilemmas and false dilemmas?
What do you know about no-win situations and how do resolve them?
What is your preferred approach to understanding the impossible, and why?
Perhaps you regard quality mental experiences as an invention, or even as a fallacy.
What is your acquaintance with clinical psychology and counselling psychology?
How do you compare leisurely gardening with nature therapy and art therapy and dance therapy and music therapy and writing therapy and aromatherapy and hypnotherapy?
What do you know about conflict between neighbours, particularly in terms of incompatible expectations?
What do you know about boundary disputes and boundary-related disputes?
What do you know about noise-related disputes and smoke-related disputes and visual pollution?
How do you usually assess the causes and consequences of various disputes within neighbourhoods?
Perhaps you do so through observational techniques, whether ethically or otherwise.
A culture of well-informed kindness supports the thoughtful reciprocity of enlightened democracy.
Such practices also support good mental health.
But what is the very best mental health, from your point of view, and how is it achieved and maintained?
Time does not heal mental shocks and ongoing mental anguish. It only provides the opportunity to learn from those experiences.
But when is learning empowering, and when does it cause a deepened feeling of powerlessness?
What do you know about the politics of neighbourhood character?
What do you know about controversies associated with insensitive property developments?
What do you know about controversies associated with other inappropriate indoor and outdoor activities and products?
What do you know about the politics of weeds?
What do you know about the politics of allergies and other hypersensitivities?
What do you know about autoimmune diseases?
What do you know about quality research and evidence-based practice?
What do you know about integrative psychotherapy, eclectic psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy and body-related psychotherapy?
What do you know about therapeutic relationships between people?
What do you know about therapeutic relationships between people and other species, and with environments more generally?
How accurately do you assess your own mental health, and how do you know?
How do you try to prevent yourself from being deceived by the images people portray of themselves?
What do you know about the modification of behaviours, whether human or otherwise?
What is your acquaintance with ethnography and hauntology?
What do you know about the ghosts and other spirits associated with Frugality Cottage, and its garden areas?
Where do you usually encounter fairies?
How could incantations help that to happen, if at all?
How might structured interviews help, if at all?
How might unstructured interviews help, if at all?
How might landscape architecture, if at all help?
How might informal gardens help, if at all?
All narcissism is a sign of vanity.
How do you know your attitude towards gardening is not associated with hubris, vanity, narcissism or corruption?
The very best mental health is associated with adequate reasonableness, adequate respectfulness and adequate self-respect.
How have you already attempted to invest in the very best mental health, and for whose benefit, and with what results?
What does investing in the very best mental health mean to you in practice, and how is it related to gardens and gardening, if at all?
Hubris is highly abnormal. It is a sign of mental problems as well as a cause of them.
Perhaps you associate interpersonal encounters, of any sort, with obligations rather than mutual consent of the most enlightened variety.
In human terms, work involves effort, regardless of motives.
But what is good work and how does it relate to the very best mental health?
What is the locus focus of your work, and how do you know?
Perhaps you have a focus on chickpeas or olive trees or olive oil or lemon trees or sesame seeds or garlic.
Perhaps you have a focus on the history of gardens and gardening.
What do you know about Persian gardens, paradise gardens and Islamic gardens?
How do you imagine paradise and the Garden of Eden?
How do you imagine Elysium?
What do you know about herbaceous plants?
What do you know about herbs and herbal remedies?
What do you know about Italian formal gardens and French formal gardens and the various influences on Baroque gardens?
Working entirely altruistically is possible when the resources to support it are available.
Sometimes, it is necessary to work entirely altruistically, whether in a garden or elsewhere, even when the available resources are inadequate.
It is necessary to do so for the greater good, and for the long-term benefit of humanity and/or other species and/or better mental health.
What have you been learning about objectively powerful ways to support good in the world?
Perhaps your idea of the powerful is associated with chanting and/or singing.
Perhaps your idea of the powerful is associated with saving seeds.
Perhaps your idea of the powerful is associated with delicious food.
- The Cottage and Cookery - Part One
- The Cottage and Cookery - Part Two
- The Cottage and Cookery - Part Three
- The Cottage and Cookery - Part Four
How is it possible to maintain sufficient security in life through which to develop and maintain the very best mental health?
If you are often a clownish sort of individual, you are probably incapable of investing in enlightened philanthropy, regardless of your net worth.
What do you know about gardens in relation to philanthropy?
Perhaps you are more interested in investing in vanity than sanity.
Perhaps you contribute nothing to the enlightened re-enchantment of the world.
Perhaps you believe you lack elegance or even relevance.
Perhaps you believe it is impossible to define mental ill-health accurately.
Perhaps you believe it is impossible to define mental good health accurately.
What do you know about botanical gardens?
What do you know about Et in Arcadia ego, and how do you know it?
What do you know about The Secret Garden, and how do you know it?
What do you know about the Paradiesgärtlein, and how do you know it?
What do you know about Alice in Wonderland and her acquaintance with the Dodo?
What do you know about common factors theory and the Dodo bird verdict?
What do you know about common rue and the cimaruta?
What do you know about Benedicaria?
What do you know about the Pantheon in Rome?
What do you know about Balm of Gilead?
What do you know about the Gudea cylinders?
What do you know about energy-efficient landscaping?
What do you know about green roofing?
What do you know about the Still Life with a Silver Jug by Willem Kalf?
What do you know about the Vase of Entemena?
What do you know about the Verbena genus, particularly the common verbena/common vervain, and its significance?
What do you know about Namerimburrudû incantations and other incantations?
The gentle, community reinforcement of better, more peaceful, reasonable
and responsible approaches to living are currently providing the only
chance for people of all ages and backgrounds to overcome loneliness and
addictions and all other wasteful and complicated habits, including
unhealthy patterns of thought.
What do you know about the Olive Trees series of paintings by Vincent van Gogh?
Over the months ahead, there will be much research to do in various ways, and in various locations, regardless of whether you regard yourself as a witch or not. You will require remarkable observation skills, extraordinary communication skills and advanced patronage skills.
How and where will you acquire those skills?
How do you know you are already investing in a sensible approach to sustainability?
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