How I Go o Be A Neo-Pagan Witch--Part 1 Early On, The Bobcat

[a revenant blog post]

Part 1--Early On, The Bobcat

The early events/experiences that ultimately turned me into a Neo-Pagan witch involved encounters with living and deceased things in an out-of-doors, more-or-less natural environment. In parks and open land, not in a backyard or a city.

I was born in Northern California, at the North edge of the San Francisco Bay-Delta region, Vallejo, CA, to be precise. Vallejo was a Navy town, home then to a large, active shipyard that during my early years specialized in the construction and upkeep of nuclear submarines, attack and missile carrying.

What I'm getting at is that as a child I enjoyed access to a complex inverted river delta, rivers, bays, the Pacific coastline, hilly oak savanna, redwood forests, the Sierra, and lots of other outdoor places. Plus, plenty of technology. Not just technology, but the technology of nuclear warfare.

Thinking back on things that happened to me that nudged me toward Neo-Pagan Craft, the earliest ones involved encounters with living things or with relatively recently deceased things. Each of these encounters made an impression on me, left me with something that, later on, turned out to play a part in how my practice grew and prospered.

Although, let me emphasize, I didn't realize it at the time.

Bobcat

My family used to go on camping/fishing trips. On of the first ones I remember was a trip to Bodega Bay, CA, netting for surf fish. We camped in a tent on a beach South of the mouth of the bay, probably private land. There was a road down a bluff to a fairly flat area back of the beach. The campsite was, as I recall, close by the bluff. I recall that we could hear the surf but not see the surf or the ocean.

Early one clear morning, right about sunrise, I awakened in the tent and went outside. Maybe I heard a noise, I don't recall. But I do remember walking up to the camp table and meeting a Bobcat.

The Bobcat was crouching on the table, eating a lump of butter, which, before folks got careful about leaving food unprotected in campsites, was left out. I was 6 or 7.

I knew nothing about Bobcats. I moved up close to the Bobcat on the table. The Bobcat looked at me. I looked at the Bobcat. We were probably only a couple feet apart, pretty much eye-to-eye. I looked in the Bobcat's eyes. The Bobcat looked in mine. For a long time, perhaps 4 or 5 minutes.

Neither of us moved. The sun was rising. As the morning light brightened, the details of the Bobcat grew clearer and clearer to my eyes. Looking into the Bobcat's green eyes. I guess that I was transfixed.

As a grown up with a fair bit or outdoors experience, I would not expect this sort of behavior from a Bobcat. I'd never figure on getting that close to a Bobcat in the wild, let alone spending minutes looking eye-to-eye from a distance of a couple feet.

Then something happened. And the Bobcat was gone. Up the bluff, out of sight in a flash.

Crouching Bobcat, Hidden Magic...

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