What is the "Hedge" in Hedge Mystic?

hedge, hag and hawthorn

I love words and their histories. They leave a trail for the language sleuth to follow, linking people and ideas across time and continents. They give us deep insight into beliefs that would otherwise be long lost.

In my recent article, The Crones of Christmas, I looked at the etymology of crone. Today, because of how words and language evolve, I'm going to look at hag because it relates to hedge. 

The Online Etymology Dictionary has a comprehensive entry for hedge if you want to dive down the rabbit hole. 

We begin with the proto-Indo-European word kagh- "to catch, seize; wickerwork, fence." The fence might be manufactured or naturally composed of shrubbery, small trees, and underbrush.

According to the Century Dictionary, by the mid-14th century, hedges were "often used by vagabonds as places of shelter." From the 1530s, the derogatory phrase "plying one's trade beneath the hedge" was common. Examples would be things like hedge-priest, hedge-lawyer, hedge-wench. If this is contemptuous usage, then why use hedge-mystic? 

Read on, it gets better

There's an interesting linguistic connection between hag, hedge, and haw, the fruit of the magical hawthorn tree, known as a hægberie (hagberry) in Old English. Haw also means "enclosure or hedge."

From the 16th century on, hag means a repulsive old woman. In Old English- hægtesse, Middle Dutch- haghetisse, Old High German -hagzusa, and German -hexe. These northern European words carry the connotation of witch, sorceress, and enchantress. 

The first part of these words, haga, means an "enclosure," the same meaning as haw and hedge. 

Old Norse and Old High German have words that literally mean hedge-rider, used for witches and spirits. Those words provide the second half of the words for hag in the various languages mentioned above. Ultimately the ending "tesse," "tisse," "zusa" comes from the Proto Indo-European *dhewes which means "to fly about, smoke, be scattered, vanish." Very witchy indeed.

It's getting interesting now. The old woman with spiritual or supernatural powers connected to the hedge and the hawthorn tree. We begin to see a story emerging and a picture forming in our minds.

In the old Northern European paganism, the word hægtesse meant "woman of prophetic and oracular powers." There was no equivalent masculine form of hægtesse, meaning this was a spiritual function performed only by women. Ælfric of Eynsham, an English abbot who lived from 955 AD - 1010 AD, uses hægtesse to translate the Greek "pythoness," aka the Delphic oracle, who was greatly feared and respected. Later, the word was used for local wise women.

Haga is also the haw- in hawthorn. This is an essential tree in the northern European pagan religion. This connection holds several layers of folk etymology, with haetnesse used as equivalent to a goddess and applied to Minerva and Diana.

Now we weave in the Roman Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, and Diana, goddess of the moon, hunters, and crossroads.

However, this is a later layer imposed as the Romans moved north across Europe and, upon encountering the indigenous gods and goddesses, tried to make correspondences between them and their own pantheon.

The connection I really like is the one to the Three Weird Sisters. They're a powerful trio; Shakespeare even mentions them in Macbeth. 

The Three Weird Sisters, the hægtesse, are powerful supernatural women known to the Norse as The Norns and the Greco-Roman as The Fates. These women spin the lives, fates, and destines of humans. They create the web of all past, present, and future human affairs.

From The Online Etymology Dictionary ...

"Later, when the pagan magic was reduced to local scatterings, it [hægtesse] might have had the sense of "hedge-rider," or "she who straddles the hedge," because the hedge was the boundary between the civilized world of the village and the wild world beyond."

This is the meaning I want to invoke. This is why my tagline is "over the hedge and into the imaginal."

A hedge is an archetypal place. 

It's the boundary between civilized and wild, ordinary and extraordinary, this world and the other-world. It's a shadowy place; there's darkness under the hedge. It's the left-hand path. It's the jumping-off point for inner journeys that take you from ordinary waking awareness to altered states of consciousness and the realms of the unconscious.

The hedge is the edge. Ordinary reality comes to a stop, and a different reality opens out before you. 

I want to be a hægtesse, a hedge-rider who straddles the hedge. But, in fact, I want to do more than that. Like the larger-than-mortal Cailleach, I want to step over the hedge in a single stride.

With courage and clarity, I want to leave the safety of the known and the status quo and venture into the vast expanse of spiritual experiences. 

This is the work of the mystic (it's also the work of the shaman; in this sense, the two might be interchangeable). 

We now have a new word that aptly describes this exploration from Dictionary.com...

"Psychonaut is a word based on Greek roots that translate to "sailor of the mind." In English, it's a blend of psycho-, a prefix used to describe mental processes or practices like psychology, and terms like astronaut, whose "space-traveling" evokes being high or spiritual transcendence. The term was apparently coined by German author Ernst Jünger in 1970 to describe the psychedelic, drug-induced experiences with his friend, Arthur Heffter."

Psychedelics are certainly one way to enter an altered state of consciousness. But there are many other gentler and effective ways. 

Breathwork, meditation, prayer, contemplation, yoga, dancing, drumming, chanting, fasting, sound baths, and guided journeys are all effective means of entering a different brainwave state. 

Creating, especially when preceded or combined with any of the above, is also a powerful way to get into the flow of an altered state and engage with symbolic content that opens up experiences that are out of the ordinary.

Some years ago, before I knew the history of the word hedge or the meaning of psychonaut, I explored the practice of shamanism. I never adopted that path as a personal practice. Yet, it continues to inform and illuminate my spiritual practice precisely because I see a close connection between the shaman and the mystic.

The word shaman and its methods feel worlds away from my own experience. However, my familiarity and admiration for the great Christian mystics Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Meister Eckhart, Jakob Böhme, and Emmanuel Swedenborg and my unconventional linking of shaman and mystic gives me a place to center my experiences using a context and language that feels aligned. 

I explored the experience of the hedge in an art journal project a few years back. I had not at that time stumbled into my love affair with the word hedge, so the project was named Edge Dweller, but today I could call it Hedge Dweller. 

Edge Dweller was constructed to help me work through a time when my belief system collapsed. Finally, I was letting go of long-held ideas, forms, and language. It was terrifying because what I was replacing it with previously would have been viewed as direct opposition to my faith. In the long run, though, that was an illusion. In retrospect, the actual fear manifested because I was taking responsibility for self-authorizing my beliefs and not relying on an outside authority, however prestigious, to validate and legitimize what I believed. 

You can stay inside and feel safe when there's a fence or a hedge. When you jump the hedge, you have extraordinary freedom, but with that freedom comes the responsibility of creating, understanding, and legitimizing your beliefs for yourself. As a result, you no longer think like the herd inside the hedge. Instead, you individuate and claim an independent and free-thinking mind. 

You must stand alone. You must be able to look in the mirror and come face to face with yourself. You will have to stand before the Divine with humility but without flinching; knowing where you have arrived is as honest and integrated an understanding of the mysteries as you, a mere mortal, can manage. 

The leap over the hedge is a leap of faith and a terrifying one. 

You can watch a video of Edge Dweller, see all the artwork and listen as I narrate using a prose poem I wrote to further amplify my exploration. 

Where are you in your spiritual journey? 

It's OK if you're safely ensconced within the hedge and never move from there. But it's also OK if you feel the call to ride the hedge or leap the fence altogether.  

"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." ~ John 3:8

Like Hildegard, you may find that you are a feather of the breath of God, and you are blown over the hedge and into other realms. 

Thanks for exploring hedges and edges with me and traveling for a time as a shaman, mystic, and psychonaut into the realm of ideas and spiritual experiences. 

As always I encourage you to share your experiences in the comments. We all need a safe space to share our spiritual journey.