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.

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.