Our much anticipated Speaker, the High Priestess of a witches coven in Brighton caused more than a little bit of a stir and this was even before she arrived in Broadbridge Heath. When it was found out about our plans to host a meeting with a real life practicing witch, the proprietors of the Church Hall, our usual venue requested we host this meeting in an alternative location. Then a little while later a paragraph promoting said speaker was removed from the BBH Parish Magazine... PR companies would kill for this kind of publicity for their clients! Perhaps they thought Marielle was a wicked witch in cohorts with the Devil himself, in fact nothing could have been further from the truth...
Marielle arrived not looking anything like your traditional witch, no flowing black robes, no pointy hat... actually if you have a look at the pictures below you will see that she actually looks like any other normal woman of a certain age with a husband, kids and a normal job. You would pass her by on any street, in fact I did when I was picking her up from Horsham Station! When I had finally found her and we were in the car back to the Village Centre, I mentioned the fact that we'd been evicted from our normal venue because she was a witch, she was very surprised as she is used to doing talks for many different faiths, some of whom see witchcraft as a religion of equal standing to theirs. Once the talk began, she continued on this theme saying that there are many preconceptions about what she does and that she has experienced prejudice before, but once people realise she is not the archetypal wicked 'Halloween' witch, and that she practices witchcraft for good and not evil, people tend not to be so apprehensive of her and what she does.
Marielle is on the left.
Marielle gave us an interesting talk beginning with how she got into witchcraft. As a child traditional fairy tales had fascinated her, especially those in which different herbs or vegetables were used by witches in magic spells, such as Rapunzel (radishes) and Snowhite (the poison apple). This lead to her wishing to discover if such plants still existed and if they did, could they actually have those special almost magical qualities. And so began her journey into witchcraft, which if taken seriously, is akin to a university degree in that every area has to be studied in depth and a kind of exam taken before you can progress to the next level. Marielle did this with the help of a coven of witches in England whom she visited and corresponded with.
Marielle explained that early witches were generally women who used herbs or plants to make magic spells and called upon spirits for help or to bring about change, they were natural healers or so-called 'wise women' whose choice of profession was all too often misunderstood. On the flip side however, a lot of witches were held in high esteem and viewed by the people they helped as midwives or doctors and as such were viewed as invaluable members of the communities they lived in. It was only when so-called educated men decided that their form of scientific medicine was better, and they wished to make money from it, that the rumour of the evil witch grew up and spread, leading to the persecution of many innocent women.
Modern-day witches like Marielle still perform witchcraft in a similar way to those original 'wise women', to help those who come to them with a problem. For example a spell could be made for someone who wanted to pass their driving test or an exam, or perhaps a potion could be prepared as a cure for flu or to help with stopping smoking. This could be done using elements from the pentagram: spirit, fire, air, water and earth, as well as personal items, herbs or plants, and either be placed in a bag which would then be given as a talisman, made into a potion or worked into a candle spell. No monetary payment is ever taken for spells, rather a system of bartering is favoured, whereby one skill is exchanged for another, baking a cake or doing a job in return for the spell would be an acceptable form of payment.
Marielle viewed witchcraft as her form of religion, and when asked what being a witch meant to her, she replied being close to nature. She brought various items with her from her alter, which is a space in her house devoted to witchcraft. These 5 natural objects (pictured below) represented the 5 elements of the pentangle. She also brought a set of Tarot Cards with her, but unfortunately we ran out of time for her to explain them or perform a reading... this could be for another meeting perhaps, what do you think?
After the talk, we enjoyed an extensive question and answer session, before it was time to spirit Marielle back to Horsham Station for her journey back to Brighton.
Other highlights from this meeting were Debs' delicious chocolate cake with a secret ingredient...beetroot... now that IS witchcraft! It was bloody lovely, with a cup of tea, coffee or the obligatory glass of wine.
However before all of the above we opened our meeting in our usual way with our President Rowena's monthly update on all Federation news, any other business, and also caught up with what our sub groups have been getting up to:
Notably we had the first outing of the 'Unofficial Film Club' where 4 of us went along to The Capitol to see Red Joan, a great film and a very enjoyable evening. The next planned trip is to see Rocketman at The Capitol on Wednesday 22nd May, please check Broadbridge Bombshells WI Facebook page if you are interested in coming.
Book Club are currently reading 'Black Swan Green' by David Mitchell, we will be meeting on Tuesday 21st May at 1pm to discuss the book, so if you are a quick reader and you'd like to join us just check the BBWI Book Club Face book page for more details. If you can't squeeze reading the current book into a week, our next book is 'Dear Mrs Bird' by AJ Pearce, please join us for that!
Debs displayed her photographic entries for a WI calendar competition. All shots were taken during Photography Club trips. They were great photos and we wish her good luck in becoming published... we will have news of winners in July. Photography Club will be resuming trips as the weather improves, please contact Debs if you are interested via the Facebook page, search BBWI - Photography Group for more information.
Wine Club was officially launched and our first meeting announced. At time of writing the blog, the inaugural meeting has already taken place and as one of the members of wine club I can confirm that it was a fun, social and very educational evening. As a white wine drinker, I was surprised to prefer one of the reds we tasted. We had 2 white wines and 3 red to try, discuss and grade, I had usually chosen my wine by colour and cute picture on the bottle (which is why my husband usually buys the wine in our house) but now I am a little more knowledgeable and discerning... Roll on next wine club Tuesday 4th June, please check the main website for more details.
And now onto AOB... It's not easy starting a new WI, and we on the Broadbridge Bombshells WI committee are all doing our very best to provide an entertaining, social, educational and mostly fun environment for women of all ages to be themselves. Sometimes, however, this is easier said than done! So to help us carry out this important job, we gave all members present at this meeting the chance to have an input into what goes on at their WI via a questionnaire drawn up by the committee. We specifically enquired about how much each meeting had been enjoyed, what our members did or didn't enjoy about our WI in general and finally what sorts of activities or speakers our members would like to see in our 2020 calendar.
We really want The Broadbridge Bombshells WI to reflect what our members want and we positively encourage their involvement. We are looking forward to seeing what the results and suggestions will be.
And here ends another blog... look out for the next in about a month's time.
