Mystic Hedgecraft

As Alix E. Harrow writes in The Ten Thousand Doors of January, "Write a door, it opens." Create a container, it fills. Some come for tea and stay for conversation. Some come to learn a stitch and leave having said something they hadn't said before. Others arrive already steeped in ritual, or their own art, simply looking for company.

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We think of what happens here as midwifery. Midwife, here, isn't a gendered role. Anyone can hold this kind of company for another. Each of us labors through something — a decision, a grief, a piece of work ready to come into the open — and offers company along the way: attention, a steadying hand at the threshold.

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For several years, Hela has sat in a multi-generational women's circle, crossing thresholds held by the presence of others: ordinary weeks, rites of passage, her own shape-shifting, quite a few knitted sweaters. Mystic Hedgecraft grows from that model, and others like it around the world.

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This space has no fees, no paywall, no tiers. Someday it may have a physical home, and if so, a simple way to give from the heart, so cost is never the reason someone can't attend. Individuals may offer their own crafts or services in time — that's theirs to give — but the circle stays open. Hela is fortunate to hold this space: someone who opens the door, and keeps it open.

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We're midwives for each other's becoming, present for the passage.