A somber sun was setting on the season of death, and I raised my hood against the last winter wind while the ghosts of pagan-midwives drummed us...
Verses of the Wild Witch
Verses of the Wild Witch
The time of snow and shadow was upon us, and the jubilant hag who sits atop my ribs and skips stones in my blood made new demands....
Once upon an aching autumn, I set out to find the soft and rotten center of the human story. I clawed at the rank mud left by...
Some say the gods left these lands long ago, but I say the land is god. This wild solstice, I say they are still here. Sing for...
Lean close, lover. I have a confession you simply must hear before that haunted day of fire and debauchery swallows us both whole. The weather was wet...
Those wicked hours before morning found me wrapped in human-skin leathers stitched from the puckered faces of dead kings and wanting a fire. I took my time....
Vision wants memory. The bone-women were singing in this apocalyptic nightmare of mine, crouched with fleshless hands drumming softly on each other’s skulls, slow-rocking in a rhythm...
Danielle Dulsky has her next book that is about to be released in March. She has provided and excerpt from it as well as The House of...
Come sit, heathen. At long last, I’ve solved the most vexing riddle, and I can see by the ache behind your eyes that you wonder about the...
A soft and sudden flicker of warm candlelight bade me wake, and I knew the wandering hag-ghost was haunting my halls. Every Blood Moon she comes, hooded...
The Harvest Moon was fading behind the peach lace curtain of dawn, and she, that hooded ghost of a once-arrogant woman, bade me sink back into sleep...
I won’t be begging you, but I wish you’d join me on my first graveyard walk of the season. We’ll leave at dusk on the last dark...
The first harvest was looming, and my dreams became bitter tea steeped too long in golden light, juniper berries, mountain winds, and resurrected childhood memories of visitations...
A faint but persistent sourness in the once-wholesome brine of the sea cast a sudden grief spell upon my cracking eggshell heart, and I summoned a council...
Holding my grief like a slow-dying hatchling, I sought out the wisdom of the pipe-smoking hag. My plans were to prostrate myself at her feet and lament...
The moon was swelling with its usual midspring wildness, spitting its silver-light remedy straight into all my aching places, hissing its secret, slippery salve into the driest...
The silver tongue of that thinning moon was licking me in just the right places, and I crept from my bed like a lust-drunk and lonely wolf...
A midnight fit, it was. A touch of early-spring fatigue salted with a good deal of extrasensory indulgence sent me straight to a well-attended grief ritual for this, our most beloved world. Here, I came upon an ominous spirit with black-mirror eyes...
These are the days of the late-winter ache, and I’ve learned to hear the haunted call of those never-born-always-dead hags who are wiser than I can ever...
She came to my door fire-eyed this morning, retching pomegranate juice and demanding to know where my underworld words come from. I told her I woke without...
I wouldn’t bother her. Not today. Best keep those formalities tucked away in your pockets for those mannerly friends blessed with visions tamer than hers, for those...
Stand just here and indulge my snow-struck heart for a moment. Hold my hand so tightly our pitiful flesh loses all meaning; then and only then will...
Don’t follow me; not tonight. That holly-haired hag of wintertide is lurking ‘round the edges of these forbidden lands, and only shecan properly eulogize the lonely mystic...
Sit beside this slow-cracking harvest fire with me, pilgrim. The business of that swelling blood moon is to nudge our nightdreams toward our majestic dead, and I’ll...
These bones of mine were restless, and I was half-dreaming of an eyeless crow gnawing away at my storyteller’s lips. I woke with a quickening heartbeat just...
You’re sure to meet a cackling hag who sits on her highest ribs, dangling her legs and skipping stones in her blood. She’s a trickster, that one,...
Come, pilgrim. Rest here in my garish summer garden. I’ve just poured fresh moon-blood on rosemary in the name of the Cailleach, and I’ve nothing to do...
Ah, yes. I remember now. This righteous May moon is swelling between my ribs as it always does, lifting these aging breasts a bit higher and plumping...
It’s been too long, heathen. How I’ve missed those black-mirror eyes of yours! How I’ve missed those twisted-mouth expressions that relentlessly pull the secrets from my depths...
Walk with me, sinner. My cauldron is too heavy to lift, and my athame is dirty and dull from overuse. These ritual robes of mine are fraying...
How is it with you, Witch? I’ve missed you terribly on these over-grey days. Come with me to the secret place where we buried our seed-dreams last...
May we, on this longest night when the Crone-Gods rule, remember the joyful magick of the holy hag. Let’s brew something bitter for those we love and...
Oh, hold me! You are my most steadfast friend, and I’ve just awoke from the most blissfully hellish of nightmares. Take me in your arms here by...
Join me, lover. I’m weaving stick-stars out of willow branches and drinking the thickest nog I could brew in my feeble cauldron. Tonight, the full 13th Moon...
Peel the worry from your face, darling. I can only imagine what you must be thinking, finding me like this, lips quivering and cheeks streaked grey with...
I hear you knocking, and I’m coming! You’re my favorite glitter-winged, pink-pearl-wearing Priestess and, for that reason only, I will let you in. I just hope, my...
You won’t find it in any sweet, coated capsule or pricey elixir. It can’t be grown in even the most manicured garden, and I daresay that the...
On these longest days when my wire-limbed shadow stretches on for miles, when I walk on the ground a little harder in hopes of turning the Wheel...
For all of my Witch’s know-how, I never saw it coming. Her million-beamed, white-as-milk but sharp-as-tungsten-needles fem-force of holy destruction pierced my butter-soft skin from behind and...
The pods I plant now are engorged with the ruby red heirloom seeds of dissent and shielded by razor-sharp, scaled skin tattooed with my wedding vows. I...
Walk the mountain road with me, lover. I want to feel the wild feminine’s pulse beat beneath my feet and remember the language spoken by the lipless,...
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to redeem the Wild Healer, the one who wielded so much feminine fortitude in her holy hands that she was...
Yes, happy Mother’s Day to you, too. Now, kindly shove your brunch where the sun don’t shine. We are the Witch-Mothers, and don’t think we can’t hear...
You asked me once how I came to be such a stone-hearted seductress, a wanton wanderer who would forever be bride to devil and wife to no...
I don’t know what’s come over me! It just hit me, this most majestic epiphany. I’m going to throw a party that will put all other celebrations...
Let this fever work its nasty magick. I am surrendering to this persistent boil and sinking deeper into my own, personal swelter. May this fresh hell determine...
Tonight, I have set aside my demure ways in the name of blood justice, decidedly leaving my black frills and red jewels in a heap by the...
Do not pray for me, you righteous pilgrim. I beg you not to mistake this momentary glimpse into my psychic depths as an open invitation to set...
This is my house, freak. I grew the grasses long and stained the windows so no one will pray for me when I dance naked in the...
In my darkest, most indulgent moments, I yearn to birth a great, long-tongued demoness into this world. She would be conceived on an Autumn evening when the...
Permit me, those with raised brows who suck their teeth at recklessness, to invoke my inner temptress tonight. Just for the few hours between dusk and the...
My too-grey world is on the cusp of Spring, and the ghost of a friend long-gone wakes me with a challenge: “I dare you, woman. I dare...
My poorly painted eyes snapped open, breaking the crusty seal of tears and mascara, and I held my breath until my ribs ached. Yes, this was it....
Just after dusk when, but for the trees, the snow and sky seem as one, I squint to see your twisted horns in my woods. My stone...
Within her Maiden’s blood courses the wisdom of the ancients, and, little by little, she is writing her own holy book. By candlelight on early Winter mornings,...
Author box
Danielle is a heathen visionary, Aquarian mischief-maker, and word-witch. The author of Woman Most Wild and The Holy Wild., she teaches internationally and has facilitated circles, embodiment trainings, communal spell-work, and seasonal rituals since 2007. She is the founder of The Hag School, the lead teacher for the Flame-Tender Teacher Training, and believes in the emerging power of wild collectives and sudden circles of curious dreamers, cunning witches, and rebellious artists in healing our ailing world. As an Irish-American, Danielle’s witchcraft is deeply rooted in Celtic philosophy and Irish mythology. She believes fervently in the role of ancestral healing, embodiment, and animism in fracturing the longstanding systems supporting white-body supremacy and environmental unconsciousness, is committed to centering the voices and teachings of POC and LGBTQIA+ folks in her work as founder of Living Mandala, LLC and The Hag School and supports organizations and initiatives that do the same. Parent to two beloved wildlings and partner to a potter, Danielle fills her world with nature, family, and intentional awe. Find her praying under pine trees, wandering through the haunted places, and whispering to her grandmothers’ ghosts.
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