The Witch's Garden

A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Elm at The Witch's Garden. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Elm at The Witch's Garden. Good morning, how are you? Good morning. Doing just fine. Glad to be with you. Glad to be with you too. You said Tennessee is where you are, right? That's right. The west end of the state. About an hour outside of Memphis.

00:29
Okay, and is it warm there today? It's warming up. We got incredible snow. I haven't seen it like this since we moved here, gosh, 16 years ago. We had a solid eight inches and it was beautiful. No ice, just, you know, felt like Christmas all over again. Well, I'm in Minnesota and you have gotten more snow this winter than we have, which is unheard of. I'm, I'm so confused by mother nature.

00:57
this winter and last winter. Last winter I think we got maybe a foot total for the entire season. So I don't know what's up with Mother Nature, but she's having a lot of fun with us I think. Personally, I think she's a little confused with us as well. Well, I think that's been true since humans started, but you know, it's a thing. All right. So tell me about yourself and what you do at The Witch's Garden.

01:23
Sure, we've been in business for about two years. The, uh...

01:29
The head of the business, shall we say, is Sanctuary Apothecary. So I have a little apothecary shop out here. And I'm beginning to do workshops and tours and that kind of thing. The Witch's Garden started as our flagship subscription service. So four times or eight times a year on a seasonal cycle, we send out boxes of ritual and inner work items. So I'm from a pagan tradition, European pagan background. And uh.

01:58
title it the witches garden but we're really at a point where we're working with energy healers we're working with with Yogi Yogi's and those with meditation backgrounds so you know I love our community it's really very party-colored and I wouldn't have it any other way awesome so I don't okay I wanted to talk to you because I tend to identify as pagan if anything

02:25
because I'm not Christian, although people who know me tell me I'm the most Christian, non-Christian person they know. I have a lot of that myself. And I take that as a huge compliment because I try really hard to be kind and helpful and do good in the world. And if that's what they're getting from me, that's what I'm going for. But I also am just, I feel like pagan is so much.

02:55
nature and being in the world and in the moment. And that's how I am with everything. So, Parla doesn't want to talk to you is because I saw that you grow a lot of the things that you use to make the things that you sell. And I'm all about growing things. So what do you grow? So for the last several years, we've been building out beds of herbs around the house in the garden.

03:23
and now across the landscape. So we started, gosh, close to 17 years ago, as a CSA. And we live in a home that's been in my husband's family for seven generations now. My daughter is number seven. And we started with a CSA. So we had the huge market garden and grew vegetables for several years and sold at local farmers markets and then also did a subscription service.

03:52
there that helped us, you know, understand what our costs were going to be for a whole growing season, understand what we could grow and know that we had an audience for it, know that we had families to deliver it to. And that was really satisfying, but it was an incredible amount of work for two people. We both, over the years, have taken on day jobs in other places because keeping up a house that was built in 1835 takes a lot of income.

04:20
So in my day job, I work in tech and it just became a little too much. Um, over the years, we've really started learning how to work with the landscape here. We both have a background in anthropology and are fascinated by those, I guess, intersections with people and culture that have existed for as long as we've walked upright, um, the landscape.

04:52
The landscape is a part of us to our core and that environment impacts every piece of who we are. This is the longest I've ever lived anywhere. And in that time, we've started a relationship with the land. We've really gotten to know it. Historically, the land in West Tennessee has changed so very much. We're at a point where...

05:18
big agriculture has caused a lot of environmental issues, but it's also changed the fauna and flora here. So we've, I guess, pivoted, we've shifted our focus, we've found our passion, and we're working hard to turn probably the 250 acres of this historic farm back into a native prairie and the landscape as it would have looked three, 400 years ago.

05:48
So, you know, there's trillium in the woods. There are.

05:55
heal all and hand it and dead nettle everywhere. Heal all and dead nettle are actually in my head, they're synonyms. Although some people say heal all is a different plant. So I've got to clarify myself. But now we're fully into herbs. We will probably four or five times a year will split and dig up and pot.

06:23
several things from across the landscape. We still have several things in containers that were growing out till they're a little larger. And we'll do plant sales just kind of to help us support that shift that we're trying to make on the land. And right now the larger family is still renting out the agricultural land to larger scale farmers. Our long term goal is to recover all that land to native prairie and pasture.

06:54
So in order to support that, we've been building beds. Oh gosh.

07:03
I'm so glad that we're moving away from the row crop style classic garden that we've gotten used to seeing because most of our land still really wants to be hayfield. So the herbs that we focus on are ground covers, are big, beautiful, bushy herbs that will keep the local. Some of the problems that we have are with...

07:31
grasses that have come in and taken over. So things like Bermuda grass sedge are everywhere and we're figuring out what can out-compete them.

07:41
So some of those are things like yarrow and rue have both done very well here and they're both excellent medicinal and magical herbs. We are overflowing with, I think we're up to 26 different kinds of mints, each of which can have their own purposes. We are...

08:06
in love with blackberries and strawberries. We've been building out strawberry beds for years. And again, those can be dried. So everything that we do is focused toward one, the native landscape and plants that we know will thrive here naturally and that are glad to be home. And two on...

08:32
items that have either medicinal or magical uses or both. And it's amazing what a large variety of those there are. So the landscape's becoming more and more varied over time and it's just incredibly satisfying. And honestly, so much easier to maintain. Yes, because you're working with nature, not against it. Exactly. Okay. You mentioned Roo. And every time I hear the word Roo.

09:02
I am reminded that I think that it's used for a blue colored dye. Is that correct?

09:10
Rue is not one that I know of in that capacity, maybe partly because the varieties that I have here are yellow flowered. There is also an African Rue, which is not the same plant. It's far more poisonous. That may be a plant dye, but I wouldn't know. What I use for blues are blue pea flower, which I can get locally.

09:38
It makes a lovely gorgeous blue dye that I use in inks. Okay, a friend of mine was asking me years ago about Roo and he was sure that it was used to make a blue dye and I was like I don't know. I don't know the answer to your question and Google probably knows more than I do so I'm gonna have to go look it up to find out again. I'm sorry I can't answer that one. No, that's okay. So here's the thing with with magic and

10:07
and quote unquote witches. I have a couple things about this. Number one, I have traced my ancestry back on my dad's mom's side to John Proctor, the first man who was accused, tried and hung for witchcraft in Salem during the Salem witch trials. And so I have a very special place in my heart regarding this whole witchcraft thing because I feel like I have a family line.

10:37
directly back to it. And someone asked me one time how I define magic. And number one, I had to find out from them if they meant like sleight of hand magic or if they meant magic magic. And they meant magic magic. And I said, honestly, I said, I think that magic is science and raised awareness and intent all blended together. And they were like,

11:07
is a supernatural thing and I said no I said it's all energy I said I said energy never dies it just changes form and so if you can if you can take what you know to be proven true and direct that energy to the result you want then that's magic and they were like oh oh

11:34
and they had a whole new concept of how to think about it. And so when people talk about witches and it's a derogatory term, I just have to giggle because I'm like, you know, really that's not correct. And I'm always saying that nature is magic. I have said the word magic more in the last year and a half doing this podcast than I think I have in my whole life. So what's your take on all of that?

12:05
I tend to agree with you completely, and I think that it is a capacity that every human has. I think it's largely driven by intent, and that intent is what creates the energy that you're talking about. So that comes with a regular practice, and part of what makes magic magic is

12:27
Ritual is a way to harness and guide our energies and to speak to parts of our brains and our hearts that aren't necessarily influenced by words, but by scents or emotions or, you know, general impressions.

12:51
When you...

12:55
put together, let's say you're working on an herb bag and I'm going to pick three different herbs that have to do with this particular intent. I'm doing the research, I'm spending time with each of those herbs picking and crafting, I'm spending time in a sacred candle-lit space that makes my inner self feel settled and connected.

13:25
and that all ties that intent to me and to the larger world around me. And it's also gonna make me pay more attention to that thing that I'm trying to draw into my life and do the work that comes with drawing that thing into my life. So it's not as woo-woo as people make it out to be, but it's also incredibly mysterious and beautiful.

13:53
in the way that it connects us to something that's so much greater than ourselves. Yes, and I'm going to even venture further. The surprise that comes with this, if you're trying to do something and you do the research and you pull everything together and the energy's right and it works, I'm always just astounded when something actually comes together and works the way I wanted it to work.

14:23
There is, there's always that delightful surprise. And then what is so powerful about that is the next time you do it, you have more faith and confidence in both yourself and in the universe.

14:40
that you are supported and held and you're going to find what you need. And the more you can live in that space, strangely, the more things seem to work out. I do think we kind of have a habit of living in a space that puts our attention on the things we don't have.

15:06
especially with the 24-hour news cycle where it is these days, the things that are scary in the world take up an incredible part of our brains. And magic helps us return to ourselves and to our space and to the present moment where we can kind of discover that right here, right now, things are pretty good. And that has power.

15:36
that the only moment I have is now. So what am I gonna do now? Because the next moment isn't guaranteed. I might die in the next 10 minutes and no one will even know that I'm gone yet. So you've got to be in the moment. You've got to plan for the future, but you've got to live in the moment, I think. That's very right. And another piece of that mindset that becomes so powerful.

16:04
And something that I try to talk about when I can is that

16:10
Death loses its power when you are comfortable with that assessment. The way that you just phrased things, you know, I'm not guaranteed my next moment, that becomes almost a companionable thing. You know, I'm aware of it, it's a thing that could happen. It doesn't have to scare me. And a lot of the pagan traditions...

16:40
are phenomenally good at helping us face those inner fears. And as we do, as we do that work on ourselves, our magic gets stronger and our comfort, our stability, our even happiness, our presence in the world changes.

17:00
and we become.

17:05
less fear-based. I do believe we live with less fear. We're in land that we love, we're in a home that we love, we have a strong family. And all of that is due in large part to the way we choose to live our lives.

17:30
Yes, exactly. I feel like every time I talk to someone who's not like specifically a homesteader or a cottage food producer or a crafter, I find myself very, very deep in the weeds and it makes me really, really think about what I'm saying. And I don't know, I'm really happy with my life. Like I'm 55, I've raised four kids, they're all great people.

17:59
We live in a home we love. We have like three acres that we love. We have a dog we love. We have barn cats we love. And our whole life in the last four years has just been this, this bubble of building the thing we want to build. And I feel like so many people are building lives that are about things, you know, about money or about the boat or the mansion or whatever. And.

18:28
It doesn't have to be that big. You, you can be exceedingly happy and not have all these big, huge dollar signs attached to it. You're very right. And I do think a steady practice of any kind that, that leads you back toward the natural world leads you to that understanding, you know, we're, we're made to be in.

18:57
a natural space. And in my husband's world, he's an anthropology professor, you know, there's a lot that's problematic about this divide between human space and quote unquote natural space. The whole world is...

19:18
The whole world is nature. We are a human animal. Trying to separate that.

19:25
I think that viewpoint has caused far more problems than it's helped.

19:31
Yes. And I actually that that what you just said has actually been on my mind a lot over the last six months that people are animals. We are mammals. We're no different than the dog or the horse. I mean, we are, but we're all mammals. And the prime directive for every mammal ever produced by nature is to survive long enough to procreate. That's it. And so,

20:01
The big difference between us and other mammals is that most mammals only know now. They're not planning for 20 years down the road like humans do. That's the big difference between us and the horse or the dog or the cat. And so in some ways that's really wonderful, in other ways it really holds us back as living beings. It can get in the way a little bit.

20:30
That consciousness though, that great mystery in the world is what makes us unique. There are so many animals that have consciousness and that may even have a concept of self-consciousness.

20:53
But I deeply believe that there is a spark in each of us that is divine.

21:05
I believe that two of basically everything in the world, but I think it's a matter of decree.

21:15
And I would say that we are.

21:20
far more than just animals, the greater self that's accessible to us.

21:27
I don't know that I would say is accessible to everyone. Every, every being. Uh-huh. The other piece that I wanted to kind of call out that I heard you say a few minutes ago was, um, talking to somebody who's not, not truly a homesteader. Yes. Where in, we're definitely in a middle space. You know, we're very, very connected to the modern world, but

21:58
I think the piece of our lives that's involved with homesteading, you know, I keep Angora rabbits. I spend for, I'm like a full-time crafter. I'm all in. That's the part that keeps me sane. So just for the folks out there listening who have that dream, you don't have to be off grid or have 2000 acres to find that connection. You can.

22:28
You can find it in the middle of the city. Oh, yes. Oh yes. I've talked to a lot of people about exactly that over the last year. Um, there was a person I talked to who has an apartment and, and she does all kinds of stuff that is homesteading skill. Stop. And, and I was like, I'm so happy that I'm talking to you because I'm trying to make the point that, that homesteading is not about having.

22:56
200 acres and pigs and cows, it's about being self-sufficient and being curious and wanting to be able to take care of yourself in a way that the store isn't the place you go to get the thing you need all the time. Yes. So thank you for saying that. Absolutely. But my point was that, you know, I am going to be very honest.

23:25
pagan stuff, witchcraft things, anything to do with witches, partly because of my family background but also just because it's part of it. It's very wrapped around nature. And Christmas time is very hard for me because everyone's all wound up about, you know, the birth of Jesus and da da da and the light of the world. And that's fine. If that is your paradigm, do it up.

23:51
I'm thrilled you have faith in something. Everyone needs to have faith in something. If that's yours, good. But a lot of people don't want to hear about Yule at all. And Yule is about the light of the world, but it's about the light, the sunlight coming back, not Jesus coming into the world. And there are so many tie-ins and so many parallels with both traditions. But

24:20
It's really hard to get someone who's Christian to listen to why the traditions of yule are important too. And I get so frustrated. Like I blew off Christmas completely this year. I didn't even put up my tree. I was just like, I'm not in the mood. I don't want to do this. I'm frustrated with the whole thing and just didn't. And we had the nicest, quietest Christmas day ever. It was lovely.

24:51
So sometimes I think you can just step away from all the trappings and just, I don't know, reevaluate your take on what you believe in and then maybe change how you express it. I think that's what we tried to do this year. Yes. We've definitely found our peace and it has, I mean, it's taken almost two decades. But we...

25:18
have a really lovely mix. You know, so many of the Christmas traditions are built on a pagan history. That's not new. That's not the first. You know, it happened with the Greeks and the Romans. It's...

25:35
has happened, this sort of continuation of ideas of God and goddess energy and the conflating of cultures across time. You know, even the ideas of shapeshifters, it's...

25:50
in a way it's all happened before. Yes. So I try to approach Christmas with that understanding. You know, it is, it's the...

26:02
It is the light in the darkness. It's the importance of family and community in the coldest part of the year. It's allowing ourselves to slow down into winter as a verb. We don't really hibernate, but we do need to slow down in this time. And the celebration of light and the big family meals, you know, it can be a lot and it can also bring us joy in the dark. You know, our tree is.

26:32
both Christian and pagan. And we have our own little Yule Log every year. And that ritual is just ours. Mm-hmm. Yep. I got into a very short and almost heated discussion with a relative at one point because they were like, I don't know why you're talking about Yule. Yule is not real. And Oh, I'm sorry. And I just took a breath and I said, okay.

27:03
You're clearly not interested in hearing about how I think about this. So I think we're done talking about this and I'm done talking about Christmas too. And my response and positions like that tends to be, well, you know, I'm interested in it historically, the historical facts in the time period. And, you know, this is the way cultures flow together and meet each other. And that fascinates me. And

27:34
Winter light festivals have been around far longer than Christianity. Yes. And it, it, the whole thing would have been fine, except that it was so clear that I was being shut down and shut up. When I am, anyone who knows me knows that I am terribly curious about everything. And that if I ask you something, I actually want to know. And so this person is the only way to be.

28:03
Yeah, and this person had asked me an open-ended question and I was all excited to talk about what I knew and what I felt and why it was important and they shut me down in the first two words. And I was hurt and I was frustrated. And so I guess the reason I even brought this up is that it's so important for humans to

28:32
each other and not be so short-sighted and so boxed that you can't entertain someone else's perspective. Yes. You know, and here's where all religions, I believe, somebody correct me if I'm missing something, tie together at this idea of deep listening and compassion.

29:02
Uh-huh. You know, our divinities are examples. They're ideas of our best selves and what we can be. And when we bring that into a daily practice, when we practice deep listening with somebody else who disagrees with us, sometimes we can still find a way to connect. Not always. It's got to be two ways. You've both got to be willing to converse.

29:30
But when it does happen, that really is magic. Mm-hmm. Yes, it is. And I've had it happen. And it is so amazing when you see the light bulb go on in someone's mind, when they've actually heard you, understood you, and processed it, and went, I've never thought of it that way. That's the part I love. Same. Absolutely the same. I read.

30:00
Tarot at events as well and those conversations where you know you've really reached somebody are always the most powerful and the most fascinating when they reach you in the same way. Uh huh. Yes. And I personally hate the word convert. I don't. I never try to convert anybody to my way of thinking or doing.

30:29
I just try to be a good example of the good that comes from whatever it is that I think or I'm doing. And if someone wants to pick that mantle up and run with it, that's up to them. And so it's really hard for me when people are like, you should come to my church every Sunday and become a devout whatever their church is. And I'm like, that's not really an invitation to.

30:56
to try that sets a mandate and I'm not into a mandate. If you're inviting me because you think there's some value there for me, that's lovely. But if you're asking me to come because you need more members for your church, that's not cool. So it's hard. And I feel like we're getting really far afield, but this is all relevant because a lot of the people who are doing...

31:25
Homesteading or cooking or crafting or whatever it is that they're doing They are throwing their energy into something they produced to benefit the people around them And so it does tie in to everything we've been talking about Absolutely, it's that whole concept of of bright living. I guess in the Buddhist sense that I think Would be a foundation we could say

31:55
Most of all, homesteaders really are attracted to and build a life on. Yes, exactly. All right, Elm, I try to keep these to half an hour. This was very deep for a Tuesday morning, but I appreciate your time. Thank you so much and keep doing the good work. Thank you. All right. And have a great day. You too. Bye.