i decided to call this blog project a litter witch because that's a term i came up with to describe one aspect of my spiritual practice, a practice that is rooted - how can a spiritual practice not be ? - in the material world.
i love finding things, i love scouring the sidewalks for ground scores, i love the surprise, the unexpectedness, the delight of seeing what is out-of-place. ooparts galore in the archeology of the streets. a dowsing, an oracular pulling.
it started long ago - maybe in grade 3 or 4 - i would do my hunting in a neglected part of the Morison Elementary School schoolyard, an unused parking lot in the north corner. i balanced on the narrow concrete curb looking into lot and grass on either side, finding bits of rusted metal, broken plastic arms of toys, washers and pennies.
i kept it up. as a teenager my friends would poke fun at my downward cast eyes, they would point out fire hydrants and bags of garbage, suggesting i may want to take those as well.
i kept the small treasures in the pockets of my jean jacket, one side for metal and natural substances (wood, shell, feather) the other side for plastic. i'd spill the contents onto café tables to amuse my pals.
often i would hang the round or holed objects from safety pins, dangling bits of metal from each other. when the clusters got too large i'd remove them from jacket or bookbag and fasten them to a contraption i made that hung in my room, chains festooned with pins, sunglasses, lost hardware, twisted wire, hoodie draw-strings.
a litter witch is a blog of words, the things i find most often.
