In the past, a village was the social structure of a group of families who lived and died, worked and interacted with each other. The edges of the village were often determined by some sort of hedge to mark the borders of inside and safety and outside and the unknown and dangerous. However, there were those who refused to stay within the confines of the village; these people were the adventurers, the healers, those who felt connected to nature and magick and were often viewed as not quite part of the group by the rest. The feeling of safety from being part of a group and the idea that the other is somehow strange, wrong, or different still lingers within many of us today.

Walking a spiritual path of Witchcraft can place us in a unique position where the Hedge can be viewed as a metaphor for the boundaries between the world of the mundane in which we live and the world of the magickal where we practice ritual and spellwork. Some who practice view these as two very separate places and journey from one to the other in extremely specific ways. Others see this edge as a much more fluid place where one can draw on the skills and energies of both as needed. After all, a hedge is not a solid boundary but composed of branches and leaves with pockets of light and air flowing back and forth consistently.

No matter how you choose to practice, the overreaching goal should be to learn how to balance walking between the two worlds, often referred to as “Riding the Hedge”. You don’t want to get stuck in the demands of the everyday mundane and lose that awareness of magick. You also don’t want to get so involved with the magickal that you are not able to navigate the requirements of your physical existence.