A Place Without a Witch — Chapter Twenty-Six

The next morning, Gemmy rose early, giving herself time to go to the Tidal Basin before the office. The city was still waking up; a few early morning joggers ran past the World War II Memorial while a Secret Service helicopter circled the White House and headed West. A souvenir vendor set up her wares alongside Constitution Avenue and some squirrels watched Gemmy from a nearby tree. Gemmy took a deep breath, filling herself with both the morning’s peace and its promise of the coming activity of a busy city day.

She knelt down by the Tidal Basin and pulled two floating plastic bottles out of the water. For a moment, she held her tiny bottle of charged water, filling it again with her intent. “Waters of the Potomac and Anacostia,” she whispered, “I return you to your Tidal Basin. As I release this charged water back into the greater waters, so I release the energy of my intent into the greater world. May those who make decisions about these two rivers be inspired by their beauty, awed by their mystery, guided by their history, and made brave by their might. May they keep developmental waste out of the rivers, to the good of all and the harm of none. This is my will, so mote it be.”

As Gemmy stood up and carried the plastic bottles to the nearby recycling bin, she thought she saw a blue pigeon flap by, headed towards the Potomac. “I like you better without the earplugs and mohawk,” Gemmy laughed.

That evening, Gemmy got off the metro train at Union Station; the place was huge, full of rushing commuters and slow-moving tourists. Gemmy consulted the map on her cell and made her way towards the main entrance; Susan’s place should be just a short walk up the hill. The few blocks of restaurants quickly gave way to a residential district, old rowhomes that had generally been lovingly restored or creatively modernized. Another look at her map and Gemmy turned onto Susan’s street.

There, she spied what could only be a community garden, directly across the street from an old AME Church. A few people, already home from work and changed into gardening clothes, were pulling weeds, or tucking seedlings into the ground, or digging radishes and cutting late Swiss chard. Gemmy slowed down, watching with delight and wondering if she could find space in a community garden in Arlington. As she watched, she realized that a few people were simply walking slowly around the interior boundary of the garden. They wore the same peasant shirts as Dale’s group, although neither Dale nor the man who’d spoken to Gemmy on the metro were present, and suddenly Gemmy’s dream came floating back to her. She crossed the street to get a better look. These people weren’t scattering compost or anything else, simply walking silently and mindfully around the garden. None of the busy gardeners seemed to pay them much attention and Gemmy was just on the verge of asking one of the walkers what they were doing when Cory came by in her motorized wheelchair.

“Gemmy, hi! Are you looking for Susan’s? It’s the next house down. I’m glad I ran into you; Susan’s got two small stairs and I may need a bit of help getting up them. Do you mind? I’m so glad it’s a nice night. This will be my first cook-out of the season. You like IPA? I brought a six-pack I heard the new Secretary’s coming to visit our division tomorrow to talk about ‘revisioning our mission.’ We’ll probably all need more beer after that.”

Gemmy was caught up in Cory‘s enthusiasm and, when they got to Susan’s, by the generally carefree mood of the dinner, although Gemmy alone seemed to sense an undercurrent of tension between Susan and Dan. Gemmy shrugged it off: “None of my business,” and by the time she left to walk back to metro, it was dark and the garden was empty. “I wonder who the heck those people are,” Gemmy thought as she rode home on an almost empty train. “They keep showing up.”

Now as Gemmy feeds Peschecat and heads for bed, you, you darling lightning bugs and peepers, you, of course, will already have guessed what was going on, because of course, we know that Gemmy’s story is really about the only two stories that there ever can be. It is both about “A Stranger Comes to Town,” and it is about “Someone Goes on a Journey.” And so you will have already guessed that those people were indeed The People Who Keep Showing Up. Now sometimes they called themselves that, only half-jokingly, in the way that strong groups have of both reinforcing their central practice and of making everything fun. And sometimes, they called themselves Dirt Worshippers and sometimes, as Gemmy’s dream-self had already intuited, they called themselves Compost. And they did, indeed, like to spread themselves around.

Now, places, of course, need priestesses and priests. Places need Witches. Places need Druids, and Magicians, and Heathens who practice the old ways of honor, and home, and hearth. Places need magic and places need listening attention. Places need people who live within, and can help to turn, the Wheel of the Year.

And just as there are priestesses and priests of the Antarctic wastes, doing magic to sustain and heal that icy place, The People Who Keep Showing Up were a carefully-assembled group devoted to the dirt, the soil, the actual ground, the Earth of Washington, D.C. Their rites, like their ceremonial shirts, were simple and comfortable, but their training could take several years and those who completed it emerged part historian, part geologist, part urban agrarian, part environmentalist, part pedologist, part edaphologist, and, of course, entirely workers of the deep magic made mostly of paying attention. They had no web page, no Twitter account, no way for new people to seek them out. The People Who Keep Showing Up had learned that those who were meant for their group would find them and that those who were not would never even know they existed. The People Who Keep Showing Up liked it better that way. They did not send members to the local Pagan Pride Day celebration and they did not get involved in Witch wars over the Pagan community temple — although they had quietly gone there one weeknight and blessed the surrounding soil. Their practice had made them practical. Earthy. Grounded. Their careful sampling, regularly recorded between the stone-encrusted covers of their Book of Shadows, showed that within a week of their paying attention rites, beneficial mycellium at each site increased, as did nitrogen-fixing weeds.

Gemmy had only just begun to notice The People Who Keep Showing Up. And several of them had begun to notice Gemmy.

/To be continued.

Picture found here.