Ugh, Marketing!

.

….But here it is anyway :}

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📚 Exciting News! 📚 My book, The Kitchen Witch’s Way, will be FREE on Ream from October 24–31, 2025 as part of the #ReamRaid event! 🎉 Discover other witchy and spooky-themed stories and support indie authors. Check it out, generally, here:

https://reamstories.com/shelf/mbv7i9h9Bylj

Or a direct link to my book, here:

https://reamstories.com/sabbathmaiden?storyKey=me39vl3bc55e6d&mediaType=ebook

Thanks, as always, for stopping by :}

Follow Me

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It was a day like any other

Ascending, to the sandhills

Tall pines, warming in the midday sun

Coming, to commune

With you

.

Soft, crunchy amber needle beds

Crispy beneath my step

Your caws, all of you

Knocking, rawk-rawking

Gurbles and squawks

Sometimes, I just stand here

Eyes closed, taking you all in

My lovely massive unkindness

Eyes closed, I take you in

.

Turning, feet back on gravel

I say my goodbyes

I set my direction for the way home

I hear you

Those big black wings whooshing over my head

Again, I enter into my internal realms

Drinking in those dragon-like memories

I smile

.

I carry on, past the mailbox

Past the large drooling poodle behind picket fence

But then

I hear you again

Whoosh whoosh whoosh

Ah, they are active, I say

Today I’m lucky to hear the great wings

Multiple times

Imagining myself some land dweller of Pern

.

Past the junked car, I’m smiling

Past the house with the weird moldy year-round decorations

Smiling, your rawking echoes in the distance

And then

I hear you again

Whoosh whoosh

Hmm, that’s interesting

I keep

Walking

.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh

Every two minutes or so

And I realize

You’re following me

Zigzagging across neighborhood skies

Tree to tree

Whoosh whooshing over

Following me

.

I hold my breath

I want this to be true

The crows, they’re always searching

But not once

Have you picked up my trail

Whoosh whoosh

There you are again

And I begin clucking

That strange sound you and your brethren call

And I’m walking, past the horse stable

And you’re zigzagging, whooshing

Clucking in response

And I’m smiling, kind of

.

Surely, I think

I’ll lose you

At the sharp turn where the elder tree stands

But no

You bank left

And follow along the river’s edge

.

I pretend it’s all as usual

Not wanting to shake you off

With the depth of my need

Magic, your magic

Is such a quenching now

The hollows denying all joy

I want you

To be mine

.

I pretend, and cluck

And you whoosh

Great ancient wings with me

All the way home

You follow

.

I don’t want to look

Afraid you’re not real

But, you are

Perched across from my elevated porch

Swinging on the line

Staring

Staring at me

At me

Why me?

Oh great force of wild

Staring, choosing, being

Here, with me?

.

I’m not sure what to do

Except bow and leave an offering

I retreat behind windows

Hoping you’ll stay if I give space

And closing the door

I turn to find a place to watch you

But

You’re gone

Like a dream

You’re gone

.

The same noisy, blessed crows

Swoop in

Grateful for something beyond the clockwork feedings

Sitting here

I’m scanning to find you, beyond them

Anything to tell me, show me, Raven, still in my field

I squint, straining hard for some evidence

And my mind is filling with those ghosts

I don’t know what’s real anymore

Me, them, you, anyone

But still, I search

Beyond the fighting, squawking adolescent crows

I think of your stare, swinging playfully on the line

I will all of my senses, and feel the brush of the air as you whoosh above me

I look into that space, where I now see only a dry, withering branch

Maybe, just maybe

It shimmers

Waiting For You

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.

I am in an upstairs lobby

Green and orange stripes assault my inner teenage eye

I am

Waiting for you

.

Shortly, two cheery faces call my name

And I am escorted, beyond public view

First stop, the value measurer

The digitally moderated assessor of accomplishment

Here, is the scale

.

“You look cozy”

Their bright mouths utter

And I know they mean that it’s time to disrobe

As I peel off my warm layers

Suddenly I am travelling through portals

Suddenly, as they tell me to turn my back to the number

I am not fifty

I am sixteen

.

I am back in that doctor’s office

His look of concern, boring a hole through

My steel plated armor

Shock reverberates my core

The result of having such a strong care aimed my way

It almost feels

Like a missile

.

He sits me down

And he tells my mother

Who at this point shows a strange

Nervousness I cannot place

He says

Something needs to be done

That I need to “eat more”

And he tells me to get a burger

And maybe some fries

And he laughs

And she laughs

And we leave the office, laughing

.

But I cannot forget

The feeling, his worry

It fills all the little pretend-I’m-fine cracks

Those that are beginning to falter

It is like warm honey

And I’ve never felt anything like this before

I want

More

I make the connection

That my fragility

Might just make him stay

Might just make him enter into

Those cracks and see how

I’m dying inside

.

I do not eat the burger

I do not eat the fries

I sit, across from my fasting mother

I push things around

And silently apologize

To the waiter who will have to find my stash

She reads the paper

She does not see me

And I pretend

And we leave the restaurant

Laughing

.

“Okay, it’s time to get your vitals”

The cheery voice breaks my time travels

And I’m putting on my coat

(one that may have had weights in it in the past)

And I’m walking down the hall

And we’re all

Laughing

.

Now I’m on my back

With a child-sized cuff squeezing

I hear the beep beep measuring

Yet another standard I’ll be judged by

I wonder how bad it’s gotten

And I wonder who I am

A sixteen year old in a fifty year old body?

Still moored in the times I cannot escape?

They’re talking about the weather

And then I’m standing

An arm at my elbow

“Any dizziness?”

I say no

I ask how the numbers look

(At least I can know this if I can’t know those magickal digits on the scale)

“Great! A little low, but good.”

And then one jovial mouth says

“Trying to get my blood pressure down!

Trying to lose some weight!

You know what I mean?”

And in that moment

I am fifty years old again

And glad I have much experience with the ways/weighs

Of the world

Glad I have some compassion

Glad I can control my big mouth

And not say what I’m thinking

Instead, my fifty year old

Having been through treatment many times

Having been a staff member helping those with eating disorders

That part of me says

“Yes, bodies are strange things.”

And I rise

And we walk down the hall

Laughing

.

Now I’m sitting in my car

My sixteen year old self

My fifty year old self

And we’re swirling

I cannot decide whether I am glad

That the nurses were not concerned

Or if I am disappointed

This weird desire

To get worse

To see that look in their eyes

It stirs, brews inside

My fifty year old

Comforts the young one, confused

I tell her that there’s no way to control this

And that the fates will decide

Whether the numbers will prove us

Worthy to have someone

Look through the cracks

Into what’s dying

Instead of all of this laughing

And waiting

And weighting

And pretending

Everything is just

Fine

The Kitchen Witch’s Way Is Live!

.

Greetings, fyne readers! Did you know that in addition to poetry, I also put words together in book form? My most recent endeavor is about a skeptical, bitter young woman who crosses paths with a Kitchen Witch and her magical worldview. What a fun story to write, and it has come to pass that the first twelve perfectly imperfect chapters of The Kitchen Witch’s Way are now available for viewing on Ream! Ream is a serial publishing platform that is entirely free to join—although you can put a penny in my cup if you want to support—It’s like Substack but for book authors only. Join me if you deesyre! Here’s the link: https://reamstories.com/sabbathmaiden

And here’s a longer description of the story:

Regina is a rational agnostic with a life-long restrictive eating disorder. She hasn’t yet been able to find her way to freedom, and she’s tried damn near everything.

Everything, that is, but magic.

Somehow, Regina has suspended her disbelief and has come to find her way to studying with Ingal, a strange old woman in a quirky mountain town who goes by the title of Kitchen Witch. Regina has sought out this woman because she’s tired of her cold and measured life, and she’s hoping, one last time, to shift her mind about things. Things like finding hope and relief from her constant struggle with food and body. Things like…her lifetime resistance to receiving love.

In the wilds of Ingal’s magickal herb garden, Regina begins immersing herself in The Kitchen Witch’s Way, the old woman’s grimoire. Along with these writings, a strange crow, a fabulous bohemian caravan, and an unexpected heart connection with the town’s farmer are making it so Regina can’t quite ignore that there’s something powerful, maybe even magical, going on. And that perhaps, with that magic, she can finally find her way to freedom.

Welcome to the town of Mostly Falls, where the story of The Kitchen Witch’s Way, begins.

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Just so you know, for health reasons I am taking a short break from uploading new chapters, but please do navigate your way to the site and let me know what you think. Get cozy, wander your way through, make a comment that you made it to the last chapter, and I’ll know it’s time to get back to posting. Hope to see you there!

Ps. If you’ve any difficulties getting to/around the site, please comment and I’ll guide you through the crossroads🧙✨

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Qualify

Photo by u015eahin Dou011fdu on Pexels.com

Do I

Qualify?

.

Tomorrow

I will sit before a face

A face who has seen the times

A face who has seen the terrors

She will ask me questions

Questions I don’t even know how to answer

She will be listening

For all the tell-tale signs

.

All the tell-tale signs

That make an insurance company required to attend

All the tell-tale signs

That make a patient worth it

I already know what’s not on that list

((I’ve been on both sides, you see))

A deep yearning for a better quality of life

A desire to stop measuring everything that enters reality

A hunger to feel true desires

To tend to an age-old grief, these unspeakable embeddings in flesh

A thirst to escape

The Cage

No, these do not qualify

.

But what does,

I do know

.

This hair, falling

This blood, anemic

These bones, porous and in danger

This confusion, panic attack, overwhelm

.

I want to change but I don’t know how

I want to change but I am scared

I want to eat normally, but I can’t face the fullness

I want to stop restricting, but I can’t figure out

How to be with the terror

Of that introjected hate

Of that semen forced

.

I tried to change but I couldn’t

I told myself that I would not do this again

But here I am

I don’t feel like I can really ever change, get well

So

why

keep

trying

I could stop fasting, but then what?

My whole life is arranged, like a house of cards

Around this constant schedule of control

If I let go, who am I

If I let go, what do I do with myself

If I let go, how do I sit with

These overwhelming feelings of confusion

Disgust

Purposelessness

Meaninglessness

Drowning

Drowning

Drowning

Choking

Choking

Choking

.

I want to nourish myself

See my actions create healing, strength

But each time I try

I hit this wall, old and impervious

It brings me to my knees

.

Do I qualify

To get help to let go of a lifetime’s illusion

I don’t hate myself

I’m not dying (yet)

And I can smile and put on the routine

My blood pressure is stable

My weight is minimal but ok

My intake is spartan but not emergent

Fact is

I look like the perfect example of what society wants

People laugh at me at thinking something’s wrong

Slim, in control, and witty

If they only knew

My little girl is dying inside

.

This body is not failing (yet)

And I can put on one damn good show

But am I still worth it?

This misery, this child, this ancient trauma

Calling?

Will you help me?

Is healing possible?

Will I even be able to release

What all the ones before me could not?

Do I give up now and prevent the disappointment?

Do I

Qualify?

Transforming Symbols

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I was once asked

“What symbols were you born into life with?”

And immediately,

I thought of her

Head spinning, pea green hurling from mouth

Her

That’s the symbol I was born into life with

Literally, mother thought it was cute

Not realizing it was her life symbol, too

She named me with this

Woman, small, weak, victim

Possessed by unknown forces she’d never control

Her story, now was

My story

Always looking for a savior

But

Not even Big Daddy

Could do the job

.

Forever doomed

That was the symbol

Better just accept it

Take your meds

Hope for normality

And tell no one

.

Well

My soul wasn’t having it

And soon, I was a girl possessed by

An eating disorder, not some ancient demon

(Well at least we’re progressing here)

But it was basically the same story

Try as hard as you can

But no one, not even yourself

Will be able to save you

Accept it

Take your medicine

Follow your meal plan

Don’t trust the lies your body tells you

Hope for normality

And tell no one

.

Again, the soul rebelled and wrote a memoir

Told everyone

Went off meds

Left the nine to five

And tried its hardest

To trust the sacredness of this body

All the while battling whispering voices

You’re crazy

You’re possessed

Your body is trying to kill you

No one or thing will ever rescue…

.

Still, the soul persisted

The soul

Wanted another symbol

.

I was hard at work on this,

When one day

A great pain terrorized my core

Memories of my mother, once more

Travelling from doctor to doctor

Trying to find the cause

Trying to find the cure

But ultimately

Finding nothing

Crazy

“We’re sorry lady

We’ve got nothing to offer you

We’ve done all the tests

And there’s nothing there

So just take these medications

And learn how to manage”

Her story

Her symbol

Woman, weak, victim, possessed

Powerless

And doomed

.

Well, this pain, it found me too

As will the ancestral symbols

And at first, I was her

Looking for cures, looking for causes

And finding none

Empty looks in doctor’s eyes

“Sorry”

Her story

Had become my story

Once more

.

But again,

The soul wouldn’t settle

And it put all of its shamanic, witchy tools to the test

Trusting, visioning, chanting

Trying to transform

Trying to transform the symbols

Symbols born into this life with

Symbols it just couldn’t accept

.

The question came one day

“What would you like your life to symbolize?”

And I looked back

At a life of so many other people’s symbols

And I decided

To call in my own

From possessed to compassionate de-possessor

From anorexic to vibrant, wise and magical kitchen witch

From crazy, chronic illness throwaway patient to

Somatic healing, dreamworker and sexual abuse recovery mentor

This is what I’d like my life to symbolize

Symbolizing

The transformative journey

The decades long struggle

The persistent, never-give-up-on-myself

Stubborn goat-like fighter

The one who refused to accept the label

Of what so many of her lineage died still tortured by

A transformer of symbols

Steadfast by my own sacred soul’s side

Believing that there is more

Believing that my body is wise

Visioning another way

Communing with the Old Medicines

This journey to transform

Finding a path to heal, for all my relations

This is what I’d like my life to symbolize

To be the ancestor that finally finds resolution

Or at least the one

That will die trying

.

Thanks for reading!

What symbols were you born with/into?

What would you like your life to symbolize?

The Kitchen Witch

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She throws off the sheepskin

Stretching her wiry body that’s been through so much

She smiles, taking in this simple home she’s created

A hearthfire crackles in the corner

The scent of woodsmoke fills the air

She

Is happy

.

Shuffling into the kitchen

Before her are odd shaped and gleaming

Glass jars filled with all sorts of herbal beauties

Golds and greens and sunflower yellows

One in particular calls her aim

.

Trusting

She pulls down the shining canister

And shakes a bit of the plant into a pot

Cold water trickles from the well-sourced tap

A match hisses as she brings the stovetop to life

.

Humming and stirring

She’s thinking of magic

All of the things she’d like to bring in

Stories are words, words given meaning

And speaking them, infusing

Like matchlight, will bring them to life

.

What stories she wonders

Does she want to create and dance in today?

Here she lies focus, here she sings into being

.

The Kitchen Witch

She dances in the kitchen

She thinks back to times

When this place was but a cage

She recalls the journey, the transmutation

From being assigned to duty here

From being accused of poisonings and torture here

Through the epigenetic spirals

She’s arrived, finally

To delighting in creation here

At her healing cauldron

.

For her

Only for her

And when she wishes,

She crafts things here for others

And when she wishes

She invites the young ones

So struggling with nourishment

And body

And being alive in this cold, confusing world

Sometimes, when she wishes

She sits them right down at her splintering wooden table

And they drink tea

And talk about dreams

And look out the window onto her garden

.

The Kitchen Witch

She remembers

She re-members

She hums and she stirs

She focuses her stories, her words, her

Spell-ing

Into the waiting and willing plant potions before her

She feels the soft fur of the familiar brushing against her ankles

She smiles

She is grateful

For this long road

And how the magic

Of the Kitchen Witch

Found its way

Into her heart

Questions

Photo by Robert Schrader on Pexels.com

((Tales From Dark Times))

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I know what to eat, and when

Those meal plans were installed

In my programming decades ago

But, ironically

In trying to escape this cage

Those same structures

Only trap me now

.

Never was I really shown

How to recognize my true hungers

My true fullness

How to discern when fear

Fills my stomach falsely

How to know when nausea is caused

By the slough of word daggers

Pointed my way

When immersed in a world of grieving

When surrounded by suicidal misery

When it all is so loud

When everything seems too much

When all I seem to do is absorb shadows

When I’m already full of psychic ghosts before eating

Never was I really shown, in this,

How to hear

My hungers

Food hungers, life hungers

How

Do I detect

When it is all so loud

What the body really needs?

.

At first meal plans seemed the answer

That measuring and plotting

And eating the same every day

Would help me

Help me to know that I was getting enough

Help me to know that if I felt like puking

It probably wasn’t due…to the bread

Help me to know that I most likely

Wouldn’t cross the line

Where I feel

What I don’t want to feel

What I don’t know how to feel

What I fear feeling

Will drive me

Insane

.

Same thing, same time, every day

I thought

My calculated allotments could ensure me

My rationed experiments could help me

From going mad

.

But over the years

Of measuring, scouring shelves for perfect numbers

It’s all just left me feeling cold

Disconnected

Isolated

And confused

And here I am

Again

Asking questions

.

Yes

I know what to eat, and when

But how to deal with

Choice overwhelm

Fullness anxiety

Unexplained terror just thinking about

Throwing out my scales and measuring cups

And why opening a cookbook

Walking into a grocery store

Causes my whole system

To solidify

Frozen

In the frozen isle

.

Can I even stop doing all of this

Will I ever be able to

Let go of my strange fear of satiation?

Will I ever be able to

Enjoy and feel free with food again?

Will I ever be able to

Trust my hunger and fullness again?

I’ve lived so long by clocks and grams and labels

Why does it linger

What’s wrong with me

And how do I get help

To recover…that will last?

These

Questions

.

I’ve tried so many times

Treatment has cycled through me like a broken record

Yet, here I am

Still calculating

Still measuring

Still watching the clock

Still fearing fullness

Still mistrusting body’s signals

Still terrified that without all of this

I will kill

Myself

That without this control

My body

Will kill…me

.

I want to receive the food you gift me

I want to sit and laugh and share plates on the veranda

I want to cook with joy from the kitchen witch’s grimoire

I want to sleep through the night

I want to know what I want

I want

To be free

.

Questions

Is “free” just an illusion?

Is “recovered” one too?

Does one ever “do the work”

And never look back?

Am I like the person with diabetes, dreaming of recovering

But destined to a process of accepting and managing

Something I have to live with

Forever?

.

Questions

I keep wondering

What my why is

What my dreams are

What will inspire me to face this

Again

If what I have to look forward to is pain

If what I have to look forward to

Is finding myself here

Again?

.

I don’t think I’m fat

And I don’t hate myself

And I’m not afraid of gaining weight

I don’t know why I do this

That is the ultimate

Question

Why, when I’m tired of…

Waking in the middle of the night starving 

Being overwhelmed by food choices

Needing to weigh or measure everything

Being terrified of fullness for reasons I don’t understand

My hair falling out

Being anemic and weak

Feeling confused and unable to think clearly

Feeling purposeless and lost

Being afraid to go out to eat

Being unable to accept friends food

Having to follow a clock and meal plan to eat

Mistrusting my hunger and fullness

Feeling afraid of pain, consequences of eating more

Having to eat same food same way every day to feel safe

Having to rely on nutritional shakes for sustenance

Counting calories

Thinking about food

Every

Fucking

Minute

Why it is,

After all the reclined leather

Conversations,

That I can’t…

Just…

Eat

.

Questions

“Maybe you should get more support

A higher level of care?”

Those words, while so dreamy

In my past yearnings to be coddled

To be forced, wrapped, in warm bleach-scented linens

To slurp and chew and receive way more

Than I’d ever let myself, alone

Those words

Are suspicious to me now

A higher level of care?

How would it even help?

Would anyone understand

What I am going through?

Is the time, and money and

DRAMA

Worth it

If I eventually end up

Here

Again

Over

And

Over

Asking

The

Same

Damn

Questions!?!

.

~If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, reach out for help. Don’t get lost in that maze, alone.

National Association for Anorexia And Related Eating Disorders (ANAD) Hotline: 1 (888)-375-7767

Synergy

(You)

As universe itself

In the power of its own creation

Each of us has the ability

To reflect upon our philosophies and actions

.

As individuals and as groups we can decide

Within existing conditions

How we will take action, and

As we imagine

What kind of systems we want to create

We can imagine the world from various perspectives

From the Neolithic Mind,

From the Industrial Mind

Or from the Synergistic Mind of the New Era

What do you think will be important?

How can we begin to proactively create conditions

In the New Era?

~Image and text paraphrased from Pamela Eakins’ Visionary Cosmology