Moving Away from the Wandering Fool in Neopaganism
We must disabuse ourselves from the wandering fool cliche within the larger Neopagan community.
I sit here, on an August heat wave (96 degrees F) afternoon, in North Cambridge, Massachusetts. Luckily, thankfully, I have access to the resources necessary to afford an air conditioner. And though it could be the heat, or a rapture of personal questions I have been asking of late, my thoughts go to the home; and more specifically house spirits.
Recently, I found a copy of Claude Lecouteux’s “The Tradition of Household Spirits: Ancestral Lore and Practices” (2000, 2013). And by found, i mean i searched it out, after it was recommended by none other than Morgan Daimler. See, house spirits and ancestors have been afoot to say the least. Perhaps again, it is just the heat. Perhaps, again, they like this time of year. You know how the saying goes, “the more the heat, all the more energy, and all the more things just “POP!”
In summary, i found out we live in a 94-year old house that stands on a former Almshouse prison plantation built in 1850 — and i believe our house spirit told me.
It all started with a dead rabbit outside the house on May 24th. Ten days after returning from Ireland.
There it was, and so i had to bury it… as i have, so very often, had to do all my adult life. This time, i chose to give it a proper Irish burial, on a bed of clover, and covered with a mound of white quartz topped with a pound of butter, honey, creme, and flowers — buried at the base of our mulberry tree in the front garden (which has quite the story of its own).
When I came back inside, a 1978 postcard lay on the countertop via my roommate, after falling from some place in the basement. Just like that, a message written forty-four years prior found its way to 2022.
At the time, it felt as if the house was thanking me for the kindness i had just done. It had seen it, or felt it, and it did not go unnoticed. As the countless built up offerings also could attest to the sincerity of the bond I was attempting to make. Friends it seems, finally was a thing being reciprocated. And friends… share.. stories. Stories of “The Four Cuties from Cambridge” who seem to echo our own dynamic in the present. Four Cuties. Four Roommates. Forty-four years apart.
Some people believe that a place, has more than a spirit — it is a spirit. And spirits tend to like to draw the same type of people to Themselves.
After reading the postcard, I couldn’t help but chuckle about the descriptions of the “gorgeous males”, beer parties, and dorm kegs — make me laugh as I reflect on our own roommate talks of men, parties, and random drama we hear from the college students we know.
I wonder? Who was this Mary? Was she like us? Was Debbie an old roommate of the house too? One of the Four Cuties of Cambridge? Are we the new Cuties of the house ourselves? Really makes you wonder…
Anyway, after a few weeks, i was urged to go for a walk around and bring offerings of gratitude and effort to our local “spring”, or really the location of our local water source: Fresh Pond.
Fresh Pond Reservation consists of 162 acres of open space surrounding and protecting the 155 acre reservoir. Fresh Pond Reservoir is a vital part of the drinking water supply system for the City of Cambridge. It’s fed by the water supply’s important upland reservoirs: Hobbs Brook Reservoir in Lincoln, Lexington, and Waltham, and Stony Brook Reservoir in Weston and Waltham. Raw water from Fresh Pond is purified at the adjacent Walter J. Sullivan Water Treatment Facility and pumped to Payson Park Reservoir in Belmont. From there it flows back to the city by gravity, providing drinking water to the residents and businesses of Cambridge.
I had no idea it would lead me to the Black Nook Restoration project, which is a wetland wildlife sanctuary just a few minutes walk away from our house. It was there that i made my offerings and thanks after walking for several hours around the protected and fenced-in Fresh Pond. And it was there that a baby rabbit hopped up and around me while i was reading. Again, it seems as a thank-you and hello.
After a few more weeks (after contracting COVID during a trip to Conneticut and a week of mending by the sea) i decided to expand my vegetable & herb garden, and move it from the porch down into the back yard.
It was but a day or two when one morning I came to water the garden and there She was: the largest hare i have ever seen. We stared into eachother’s eyes and with two hops She left. I watered the plant babies with a giddiness i haven’t felt for awhile, and felt the urge to search again about hares and rabbits in Irish folklore… but this time in relation to land spirits.
After reading Morgan Daimler’s article “Irish-American Witchcraft: Connecting to House Spirits and Land Spirits” (2019), i put my anthro-archaeological skills to good use and began some digging into the local history by contacting the Historical Society and Public Records office for some historical society maps.
These maps would then lead me down quite a rabbit hole. A rabbit hole that would lead me to find out i live on an Almshouse prison plantation built in 1850.
Of course, the original and current sovereign stewards are the Pawtucket, Massa-adchu-es-et (Massachusett), and Naumkeag Nations. Long before 1620, European Trading Ships traveled through Turtle Island, or “New England”, trading goods with Indigenous communities and Indigenous cities (before they were destroyed by colonisers).
The violence the colonisers were fleeing, was projected onto the various and diverse Indigenous populations, in true “guns, germs, and steel” fashion. These early 1600s settlers brought with them more than “passive” diseases to Indigenous people. And it is true that plagues traveled throughout the region devastating the tribal nations — dramatically reducing their numbers.
In 1616, just a few years before the arrival of the english settlers, a great plague swept the “New England” coast from what is known now as Maine to Rhode Island, killing nearly eighty per cent of the Indigenous population. The Massachusett Tribes, Cities, and Villages were greatly affected. Their societies were disrupted, trade threatened and defenses against rival tribes to the north were reduced due to the losses of large numbers of their warriors. Whole villages were wiped out including Pawtuxant (Plymouth).
Great Sac’hem of the Massachusett People, Nanapashemet, residing at or near Salem, was killed by rival tribesmen during this time. It was a time of great grief among the Massachusett people. Just as the Massachusett Indigenous population began to recover, the English Invasion began. (Between 1620 and 1660, 80,000 English speaking people crossed the Atlantic writes George Horner in Red Indians, White Invaders.)
In 1630 “Newtowne”, or “Cambridge” as it is called known today, was colonised by the English via Thomas Dudley.
By 1634, Newtowne colonisers took over the Menotomy River — later called Alewife Brook — and the Indigenous Fishing Weir, and built a new boarded weir that they could control. The Pawtucket, Massa-adchu-es-et, and Naumkeag along with so many other Indigenous communities were no longer allowed to fish there, or have access, and a highway road and bridge were constructed through the swampy area around the river. This highway was once called North Avenue, but is now known today as Route 2A: Massachusettes Avenue.
About two-hundred years later, the place I am a current guest and am residing was called “Poverty Plane”, the most remote corner of “Cambridge”.
By 1849 it was also known as Cambridge City Farm, a 32-acre farm, and in 1850, an “Almshouse” was built, and housed “orphans, paupers, the elderly, and the insane” of the city of Cambridge. “Inmates” were all forced to farm, fish, and make things “to earn their keep”. In effect it was a prison, as it was based upon other prison reform architecture and even had dark cells as punishment. Inmates were segregated by gender, and by “American-poor”on the 3rd floor and “non-American Poor” i.e. immigrant refugees on the 2nd floor.
The nearby Tannery poisoned the Alewife waters during Civil War (1861–1865), and continued to be polluted by the then city sewers, and the nearby cemetery.
In 1874 they built a Small Pox Hospital, and in 1875 tidegates were constructed to prevent the flooding of the Alewife Brook, but these gates prevented fish migrations.
By 1877 The Almshouse comprised of 15-acres of fields, an orchard, a stone quarry, a piggery, and had fishing rights to the Alewife Brook. In the early 1900s Alewife Brook was dredged and an artificial channel was created allowing a few alewife fish to swim annually.
By 1915 the Eastern (male) wing expanded and doubled in size, and in the 1920s The Almshouse became known as the “City Home”. In 1927 The Almshouse was closed and sold to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston & the rest was sold for development.
From the 1928, May 4th edition of The Cambridge Chronicle, I found that the “Clow Brothers Trust Developing Housing Project on City Home Tract”. This change to the landscape from open fields to a residential area seemed as if to happen overnight according to the article as “good weather permitted winter building. Judson H. and Oliver P. Clow had already erected and had more plans for 23 two-family sized dwellings and have plans for several more…valued at $12,000 each.”
The Historical Society also provided one of the very first architectural Cambridge assessments, which showcased that our Dutch colonial bungalow with gamble eaves home was built in 1928:
Getting this was such a gift! Not only did it feel like I was seeing the house spirit in its infancy, but also the young weeping mulberry can be seen in the left-hand corner; and oh how it has grown into quite the tall beauty today! Talk about being a Time Lord looking through time!
It was from this document that I could confirm the 1930 map showing our home on the originally named “Guyette Road”, which was owned by M.F. Gadsby, and the house around the corner on Murray Hill Rd being owned by a one L.A. Healy ( hi cousin!?) If you look below, you can see that Tannery Brook was by then covered over circa 1930 (it can be seen and existed on the 1916 map afterall). The Brook today still exists between Murray Hill Rd and Froch Street, being ever the hidden water spirit that now runs through our neighborhood. No one would know that under alot of fill, it is tubed up (much like Alewife Brook itself) and feeds into the brook.
In 1947 Guyette Street was renamed Matignon Avenue according to the Cambridge Public Records, which would have been the name of Mary and Debbie would have known in 1978, and is what “four [new] cuties of Cambridge” know today.
All of this to say and suggest, look into your home’s history.
There is so much that surrounds us, so much that is unknown, but can be found if we just take the hint to look. Who would have known, that a potential ancestral cousin (Healy) used to live around the block from me now? It really makes everything ring HARD.
All of this pushes me forward to ask: what could my ancestors have done, what can i do to make amends? To help these lands and waters that have seen so much sadness and pain and pollution — but that continue to endure so? This is the question, because now that we know what happened(s) what do we DO with that information?
Moving Towards Right Relationship
I’ve written so much (3+ articles worth) about Being an Irish Pagan on Colonised Lands. But it has been a while since I have given an update on the practical what-i-do-but-you-are-by-no-means-forced-to-follow-suit applications.
So here we go!
Well for starters, i DO NOT give The Good Neighbors offerings inside the house.
i DO, however, give small weekly Friday offerings & larger monthly Full Moon appeasements to Themselves at the front doorway/on hills+tree roots or large rock/natural sites (IYKYK), often in tandem with fortifying my protections against unpleasantries as well.
I pour out whatever i have with me that i am drinking onto the ground and stone. This is of course, NEVER alcoholic as this is seen as incredibly disrespectful by many Indigenous communities throughout Turtle Island, and we listen to First Nations in this house.
Instead of booze, I just offer up the “first-of-firsts” of any new milk and creme I bring home, bits of butter, bread, baked goods, honey, and even meals sometimes on the big big deal days. Milk can sometimes even be thrown into the air too or butter buried near a bog for Themselves — it’s all about how much you want to promise (Daimler, 2015 Irish Paganism: Reconstructing Irish Polytheism, page 36).
I also leave out (not so much give as they can be shy) our House Spirit weekly offerings in the kitchen near the hot water kettle where I make my morning cups/pot of tea. This is also where i light a white candle and leave a glass of water and small snacks for the ancestors on occassion.
As for the Gods, Their offerings (besides daily-ish prayers and routine dedicated study and journeying)I’m beginning to bury Their offerings in pits, toss them into rivers, leave them by the sea, or burn them to manifest in the Otherworld. Votive deposits of broken jewelry & weapons if not used or worn in Their honour is a folk practice that goes way back.
Land Spirit offerings I make outside on the regular at their special places.
They can be a mountain, tree, boulder, or a humble stream; so I always say hi. Land Spirits can be helpful, they can be malefic, and they can also just not care about you at all. If you read Daimler’s article, you learned that a Spirit of a specific place, tree, large boulder, stream, or well — rarely are able to leave — so i gift mine with stories of my travels. Land spirits may appear in human form or as birds or animals — in my case i think it is a hare. Well spirits are often seen appearing as eels, fish (trout, black fish, salmon), or frogs, young women, or even as a fly in Irish folklore and current oral tradition.
Another offering for land spirits is to just pick up the trash!!! I have come to realise that learning & listening to the Indigenous Land you are on allows you an avenue to give back to the land with solidarity. By giving back you give respect. And once that respect cycle is begun, things really start building upon themselves. Joining local Indigenous inititatives also shows commitment, and integrity, and so much more.
Since I garden, I offer up fruits, herbs, and vegetables that i grow. I also give back to the earth honey, milk, creme, butter, etc. and COMPOST. Whether it is vermicomposting, dig & drop, pile, or trench; I’ve learned it is important to heal the soils with which we live and dream. Guerilla gardening is also fun. Rewilding the property grounds and neighborhood is also a wonderful idea i picked up recently. Planting native Indigenous plants though is by and large thee first and most important thing you can do! Increasing the soil’s water-holding capacity by building rich organic soil with mulch/wood chips/fall leaves, hugelkultur beds, and perennials, log & rock piles, ponds & swales, bird baths, etc. also helps.
Gleaning: the ancient art of picking produce that isn’t technically yours. Think tree fruit, edible weeds, berries that aren’t being picked. “I ask permission,” says Miller, a guerilla gardener, of her own gleaning, which supplies her and her friends with fruit through the winter. “Usually people are very keen for you to take it.” (Chicago Tribune, 2009). Offering to share the results, either fresh or preserved, not only helps build right relationship with the Land Spirits, but also with the Community Spirits as well!
So here i am now, attempting to build up a cairdeas (friendship) with my house and the land, pond, and river spirit(s) around me. I am actively learning practices to not only decolonise, but to heal myself so that all my relations can grow. I am enculturating myself in ways that I never thought before. I am no longer a wandering fool — ignorant of the spirits that surround us all. And I am so so thankful.
(Re)Sources
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/UAINE
- https://lairbhan.blogspot.com/2016/08/morgans-basic-guide-to-dealing-with-non.html
- https://www.patheos.com/blogs/agora/2019/06/connecting-to-house-spirits-and-land-spirits/
- https://www.libraryireland.com/Druids/Well-Worship.php
- http://creepychusetts.blogspot.com/2010/11/cambridge-poor-farm-cambridge.html
- https://www.rismedia.com/2009/06/23/guerrilla-gardening-renters-eco-activists-make-the-most-of-pocket-spaces-yield-big-results/
- https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2009-06-28-0906250348-story.html
