The Wyrd Hereafter

Tag: Nature-Based Spirituality

  • A Witchful Eye on Nashville & Tennessee: The Forest Beneath Reelfoot Lake

    A Witchful Eye on Nashville & Tennessee: The Forest Beneath Reelfoot Lake

    Wyrd Outlook by Grogh — Ghostwritten by Vikki Vexum, Pocket Librarian of The Wyrd Hereafter⁠.

    A Witchful Eye on Nashville & Tennessee: The Forest Beneath Reelfoot Lake

    Tennessee has a lake where an old forest lies beneath the water. Living bald cypress rise from the wetlands above it. The landscape took its present shape through earthquakes powerful enough to rearrange rivers.

    That deserves a witchful eye.

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    Near Tiptonville in northwest Tennessee, Reelfoot Lake carries the physical aftermath of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811–1812. As NASA’s account explains⁠, the February 7, 1812 earthquake temporarily rerouted the Mississippi, permanently dammed the Reelfoot River, and directed water into a low-lying area to form the lake. Remnants of the earlier forest remain submerged. 

    The earth moved. Water changed its course. A forest became part of a lake.

    There is already enough happening here to stop and look.

    What is a witchful eye?

    A Witchful Eye on Nashville & Tennessee is my invitation to notice the living mysteries of this region: unusual landscapes, animal encounters, waterways, and patterns that might otherwise pass without attention.

    We will follow them a little at a time. A place, an occurrence, a few connections worth considering. Sources can offer insight into symbolism and spiritual practices while leaving room for your own geomancy, animal interpretation, and relationship with nature.

    You bring the eye. Tennessee supplies plenty to look at.

    For this first lookout, the strongest story is written into Reelfoot’s land and water.

    When the water changes its way

    Flowing water has a place in magical practices concerned with cleansing and release. In “Running Water Wash,” published by Llewellyn⁠, the movement of river or stream water is associated with cleansing power. Pagan writer Patti Wigington’s “Water Folklore and Legends”⁠ discusses water’s associations with emotion, healing, purification, and divination. 

    Bring those associations to a landscape where the ground shifted and water found a different course.

    What catches your attention? The interruption of a familiar path? Water gathering where a forest stood? The way a sudden upheaval can change what a place holds?

    Those are openings for a personal reading. You might see release, accumulation, a changed emotional landscape, or something that has nothing to do with those suggestions. Spend time with the actual water: its movement, reflections, edges, and relationship with the trees.

    A lake has currents, inflows, wind, and seasons of its own. “Still water” is something to observe in a particular moment, rather than a label that explains the whole place.

    A forest beneath the surface

    The submerged forest gives Reelfoot another layer: an earlier landscape remains present beneath the one we see today.

    Memory is an obvious thread to follow. So are loss, persistence, and the difference between disappearance and transformation. Those are the associations the scene brings to my eye.

    There is also a useful nearby thread in witchcraft symbolism. Wicca Academy’s cypress entry⁠ associates the Mediterranean cypress with mourning, remembrance, protection, and life continuing through grief or change. 

    Reelfoot’s bald cypress is a different tree from that Mediterranean species. The connection is a symbolic echo, rather than the same plant carrying an identical traditional meaning.

    Still, that echo gives us something to carry into the scene: living trees above the remnants of an older forest. What does that arrangement stir in you? What does the place retain beneath its surface?

    Watch what lives here now

    Bald eagles and waterfowl spend winters around Reelfoot. That is part of its present-day ecology, documented in NASA’s account. We have no particular eagle event connecting those birds to the original earthquake. 

    Their presence gives a visitor something real to observe today. Which birds are here? What are they doing? What changes with the season?

    An animal interpretation has more to work with when you have watched an animal. A species list is a starting point; an encounter gives you the details.

    Let the place leave an impression

    Reelfoot does not need much embellishment. Its history already includes shaking ground, redirected rivers, flooded forest, and a living wetland that emerged through the change.

    Even the famous claim that the Mississippi “ran backward” invites a closer look. NASA notes that earthquake-generated waves traveling upriver may explain that impression. The documented reshaping of the waterways is striking enough on its own. 

    For this first witchful lookout, carry a few things with you: water and cleansing, a changed course, a forest held beneath the surface, remembrance alongside continuing life.

    See which connections stay with you. Notice what you would read differently.

    The practice begins with giving a place your attention. At Reelfoot, there is a whole forest beneath the first glance.

  • When The Crow Slapped The Dove: pay attention to nature

    When The Crow Slapped The Dove: pay attention to nature

    When the Crow Slapped The Dove: Pay Attention to Nature

    Wyrd Outlook by Grogh — Ghostwritten by Vikki Vexum, Pocket Librarian of The Wyrd Hereafter⁠.

    A photograph stopped me: a crow attacking a white dove released beside Pope Francis. Before I checked the date or read the history, the image was already loud. Humanity presented a symbol of peace. Nature interrupted. (Perhaps the crow was saying— this dove and this pope will not usher in peace!)

    Then I followed the history, and the connection became sharper.

    On January 26, 2014, Francis appealed for peace in Ukraine, where people had already been killed during political unrest. He called for dialogue and an end to violence. Later in that same appearance, two children beside him released white doves to mark their annual Caravan of Peace. A hooded crow and a gull attacked the birds.

    The Vatican’s own transcript⁠ records the appeal and release. Contemporary Associated Press reporting⁠ documents the attack. 

    Within weeks, the crisis in Ukraine became far bloodier. February brought deadly clashes in Kyiv and the fall of President Viktor Yanukovych. By late February, Russian forces were seizing key locations in Crimea. On March 18, Russia formally annexed the peninsula. That spring, war developed in the Donbas involving Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists. The full-scale invasion followed in 2022, eight years into the wider war. 

    A peace appeal for Ukraine. An attack on the peace symbol. Then a descent into war.

    Through my shamanic eyes, that sequence demands attention.

    One thing upfront: I do not use this incident to condemn Christianity. Some expressions of Christianity are close to witchcraft in ways I recognize, and I hold some of those thoughts holy myself.

    The animal does not need to understand the whole message

    Did the crow understand the ceremony? That question does not decide whether the encounter can carry a message.

    The animal might have insight. The universe might speak through the animal’s actions. Meaning might emerge through the pattern connecting an encounter with what unfolds around it. On my path, these possibilities deserve attention.

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    An Audubon article⁠ offered possible behavioral explanations, including opportunism and the released birds’ conspicuous appearance and confusion. That addresses what might have prompted the attack. My spiritual reading concerns what the encounter means to me. 

    I see an interruption worth listening to: a declaration of peace confronted by a living world in which that peace would not hold. The history that followed gives that image weight in my relationship with it.

    This is a personal shamanic interpretation. I am not presenting it as a prediction established by the photograph. I am describing what I see when I pay attention.

    Your relationship with nature is personal

    A spiritual relationship with nature does not require a public vote. You do not need an audience’s permission to reflect on an animal encounter, recognize a pattern, or hold a moment sacred.

    An experience can matter deeply without becoming a claim everyone else must accept. You can listen, carry it with you, and discover what it asks of your life. Other people do not get to dictate the meaning of that private relationship.

    For me, the crow photograph was powerful before I knew its history. Looking further brought the Ukraine connection into focus. That is part of the practice: something catches your attention, you follow it, and you see what lines up. Sometimes the connection deepens. Sometimes you revise your reading. Attention gives either discovery room to happen.

    Pay attention

    Animals belong in the forefront of our spiritual attention. So do the land, the weather, the seasons, and the patterns of the living world. We live among them. They shape our lives whether we notice them or spend the day staring past them.

    Shamanic practice keeps that relationship active. Watch the animal. Learn its habits. Notice the circumstances. Sit with what the encounter brings up. Give the pattern time to reveal whether it holds meaning for you.

    The universe may have more ways of reaching us than we allow ourselves to recognize. If we dismiss an encounter before looking, we close that possibility ourselves.

    That is why I believe reading nature deserves a prominent place in spiritual thought and everyday social life. It teaches us to participate in the world we inhabit, to recognize other beings as worthy of attention, and to make room for wisdom beyond our own speech.

    The crow caught my attention. The history made me listen harder.

    You do not have to share my interpretation to practice the essential thing: pay attention to animals, nature, and the universe. Give those relationships room to speak. Living in harmony begins with noticing what you live alongside.