Who was it that danced in the garden, the orchard that my great, great grandparents had planted? We are all strangers here, strangers who have wandered far from our homes in a world we hardly know anymore. Our names no longer reflect our heritage, but as all children do, I played at other names. I played with names that came from the earth and from the sky, from what I wanted for myself to be.
It was a natural thing to dream. I would bend down and see myself in the dew upon the roses, listen to a bee buzzing by, and know that this was not all there was to see. Even the snow falling down in the winter, veiling all the trees in white, traceries of frost mapping out the window glass, told me stories of my past.
I ate plums and pears and cherries and mulberries from the trees. I walked barefoot on the grass. I would lie upon the ground and stare upwards at the sky, watching the clouds passing over me like a shroud. I imagined the ants would drag me down, deep under the earth, where the best things were kept. Once I stared into the eyes of a cat and saw myself looking back.
It was my childhood, how I was raised. No church could compare with that, with one single blade of grass or one drop of dew or even how the sweetest berry would melt sour on your tongue. And I was aware that we never needed an apple to know. It was there, all there already. All we had to do was pick it from the tree and eat and remember. The world. Ourselves. Our heritage. Our love. What it is to be alive and to be Witch.