Broth from the Cauldron: A Wisdom Journey through Everyday Magic

By Cerridwen Fallingstar

Broth from the Cauldron is a collection of “teaching stories,” a literary Wiccan soup for the soul. It is a distillation of the wisdom Cerridwen Fallingstar has gathered from her journey through life, and from her forty years as a Shamanic teacher and Wiccan Priestess. At turns poignant and humorous, it chronicles her trajectory from a Republican cold war upbringing to Pagan Priestess, offering a portrait of a culture growing from denial to awareness. Accessible to any audience interested in personal growth, Broth from the Cauldron is for anyone who’s ever stood at the crossroads wishing a faery godmother would come along and show them the path.

• Language: English
• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Release date: May 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781631527043

Cerridwen Fallingstar

Cerridwen Fallingstar is a shamanic Witch who has taught classes in magic and ritual for over thirty years. She gives lectures tying together psychology, spirituality, history, contemporary issues, and politics in an entertaining, enlightening, and humorous format. She is the author of three historical novels based on her past lives: The Heart of the Fire, White as Bone, Red as Blood: The Fox Sorceress, and White as Bone, Red as Blood: The Storm God. She lives in Marin County, California.

Book preview

Introduction:

Broth from the Cauldron

Everything that happens to you is your teacher. The secret is to learn to sit at the feet of your own life and be taught by it.

—Polly Berends

After my grandmother died, my mother found a small notebook in which Arbie had written down all my cute sayings when I was a child first learning how to talk. The first sentence it recorded was: I want to be a Witch someday. Not Tuesday.

Being a twenty-eight-year-old Witch whose coven meetings were held on Tuesdays, I burst into laughter. I read through the little notebook and saw—to my amazement—that every other sentence was about Witches. How does a child between the ages of one and three, growing up with no television, develop such a fascination? How does a Republican girl raised in an agnostic, scientific household become a Witch?

My mother had the answer.

You see, she said after I finished perusing the notebook, "you were always like this. Witches, magic, what the birds were saying out in the garden. This is all you ever wanted to talk about. We never encouraged you in the slightest."

I patted her arm comfortingly. It’s true, Mom. You never encouraged me.

The only explanation is reincarnation! she asserted. You were always like this, from the very first.

I nodded sympathetically. It’s not your fault.

Do people choose a path, or does it choose them?

Wicca, or Witchcraft, comes from the root willow. The willow tree is flexible, bending with the wind and not breaking; magic, too, is flexible, responding to and moving with the flow of energy. While in math, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, in the world of matter—and spirit—this is not so. Witchcraft is known as the twisted path, not because it is perverse, but because—like lightning moving through the sky, or a river carving out its course—energy follows the path of least resistance.

Hence the structure of this book, which is not the classic chronological memoir. Sometimes the truest way to tell a story is the twisted path, the journey through the labyrinth, the path that doubles back on itself, full of odd turns, improbable coincidences, and strange miracles. The key is the thread of meaning that we carry as we journey to the center and return again.

I have been a Wiccan priestess teaching shamanic classes since 1976. I have been teaching year-long apprenticeship programs—which I call Hogwarts for Grown-ups—since 1992.

Initially, people often enter Wicca, Witchcraft, seeking control. Not usually the control of others, but wanting to control their own lives.

Magic has sometimes been called the art of coincidence control.

But somewhere along the line, most of those who come hankering for power find their concept of power has widened and deepened to a flow far vaster than anything their egos could possibly generate or fathom.

They exchange the illusion of mastery for mystery.

Or as I often joke in my apprenticeship program: They came for the magic. They stayed for the food. They discover that magic is the art of changing consciousness at will. Or, sometimes, accepting the changes which have been forced upon you, and forging them into something powerful.

Some of the most sacred and remarkable revelations of my life have occurred while I was engaged in ritual. Most of them have occurred when I was engaged in living my ordinary, amazing life.

Since Shakespeare wrote the lines, Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble, in his play Macbeth, our culture has shied away from the image of Witches cackling over a seething cauldron as an icon of unspeakable evil and horror.

But a cauldron is only a big soup pot, something every family in old Europe cherished since the beginning of the Bronze Age. Often it was their most valuable possession. Because of it, whatever they gathered or raised could be thrown together with a little water, and a nourishing soup or stew would emerge.

The cauldron has been a symbol for magic because it is an earthy metaphor for transformation—throw a bunch of disparate elements together and they somehow become more than the sum of their parts.

When used for medicine, the cauldron could combine herbs into a potent, healing tea or salve.

So the cauldron became known as a magical implement, the cauldron of changes. But its powers are for good, not harm. The Cauldron of Cerridwen holds the inspiration from which all artists and poets must drink to be inspired; it also carries the promise of transformation that transcends death: the mystery of rebirth.

Stories simmer in our minds, often for years. They can be nourishing and delicious as soup; they can be as potent as medicine. The Witch is one who stands outside of the culture, in a little house in the woods, with her herbs, her observations, her stories, and her wisdom. She brews soups and spells, potions and cures. These are some of the teaching and healing stories that have emerged from my journey. They are serious and silly, simple and profound, and they are all true. So scoot your seats a little closer, hold out your bowls. I’ve been brewing this hotchpotch for forty years and it’s ready now.

Have a little broth from the cauldron.

Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkeys . . .

Ihated those damn monkeys. When I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, it seemed like every other house had them. Usually carved out of wood, sometimes ceramic. One with its hands pressed tight over its ears. One shielding its eyes. One whose palms obliterated its mouth.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, adults would say sanctimoniously. My family was agnostic, and most people we knew in Southern California—aerospace engineers, lawyers, doctors, and other well-educated professionals—did not attend church. There were no crucifixes in their homes. Just the monkeys. It appeared that the three monkeys were their gods, the see no evil . . . homily their one commandment. I couldn’t have explained why those monkeys, and that saying, made me so enraged. But whenever I found myself in a room alone with them, I would stick my tongue out defiantly. I would see everything, hear everything, and speak the truth, no matter what anyone else thought.

The word denial must have existed in the dictionary, but I never heard it spoken. Denial was the river in which we bathed, swam—and sometimes drowned. Good people pretended everything was all right, even when it wasn’t. No one was alcoholic, husbands never beat their wives, children were not molested, homosexuality had disappeared with the ancient Greeks. Negroes were happy with their lot. Why else would they be constantly singing? A good woman did not want to work outside the home, being designed only to raise children and treat her husband as if he were a demigod. If children crouched under their school desks, they would be safe from an atomic blast. Margarine was better than butter. Everyone was happy. So happy! Happy all the time! But when I went to my friends’ houses and saw their mothers hysterically slapping their faces or staring vacantly out the window at the blue California sky, swilling martinis while the baby wailed unattended behind the closed nursery door, I had my doubts. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that everything was a lie. And the reason people couldn’t see or admit that it was a lie was because—somehow—those monkeys were controlling their minds. What was the source of their malignant power? Were they more than stone and clay? Were they related to the evil flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz? How could they be defeated?

When I was a much younger child of four, my grandparents’ purchase of a black-and-white television set launched me into years of recurrent nightmares. From the beginning, the television set in their living room frightened me. Even when it was turned off, I would make as wide a berth around it as possible. That picture box showed a terrible world, a world that looked much like ours did, but a world in which the color had been drained out: a world of drab grays. My recurrent dream was that an enormous spider, like a Godzilla-sized daddy longlegs, was stepping with its long, delicate legs through the city and countryside, sucking the color out of everything the way I had seen spiders suck the juices out of a fly. I would wake up screaming. What if this dreadful spider came to Glendale and Manhattan Beach? How could we live without color?

But as an older child, I understood that black and white was a trick of a certain type of film, not a color-thirsty spider. I did not yet understand that my nightmare had been a metaphor, that the human color-suckers—racists, McCarthyites—were in full force in the 1950s, and that their evil creeds would need defeating again and again. I made a conscious decision to resist monkey mind-control. I decided the monkeys only had as much power as people gave them. And I refused to shut my eyes or my ears, though the thought of my father’s belt sometimes caused me to shut my mouth.

Things seem more simple and straightforward in black and white, without all that distracting color. And it’s a lot easier to ignore evil than it is to fight it. Though the monkeys’ power was imaginary, a child trying to make sense of a nonsensical world, the power I gained by resisting their command to shut down was not.

Miss Muffet, Revisited

When I was a child living in La Crescenta, California, I became friends with the tarantula living under the duplex my parents and I shared with my grandmother. The tarantula was about the size of my father’s hand, and I was a small three-year-old. I encountered her on the wraparound porch, basking in the sun.

So along came the spider, and I sat down beside her. I’m not sure if I recognized her as a spider. She was quite a bit bigger than any spider I had seen, and covered with long black hair. I was too young to count to eight, so identifying her by counting the number of legs was out. She was simply an intriguing animal I had never seen before. I regarded her curiously, and she looked up at me. I was fascinated to see that she had more than two eyes, and that her eyes were shining like the onyx necklace my grandmother sometimes wore. In my mind, that meant this creature and my grandmother were somehow related. I scooted closer and reached out a hand to pet this creature. She edged away. I moved closer and reached out again and she scuttled under the house.

When I saw her again a few days later, we repeated the process. I reached out, she edged away; I persisted, she retreated.

So the third time I sat beside her, but did not reach out. I was disappointed not to feel her fur, but I knew I was often clumsy and decided she was afraid I would fall on her and crush her.

We began a morning ritual that consisted of sitting together in the sun. Other than the click of her feet on the porch, she made no sounds. But I believed that we could think to each other without words and that we understood each other.

Usually my friend disappeared before my mother was done with her morning coffee. But one morning, my mother walked out onto the porch and started to scream. My friend vanished. Immediately I felt my mother’s terror in my body. I ran to her.

Why were you close to that spider, don’t you know it’s dangerous, don’t you know it could bite you and make you very sick!

Oh, she wouldn’t do that. She’s my friend.

You can’t be friends with a spider! They can bite!

I was perplexed. Clearly there was something to be afraid of, but I knew it couldn’t be my friend. People were friends with dogs and cats, and those animals had much bigger teeth than my friend, whose teeth must be small, since I had never seen them. Why, people had teeth, and could bite if they wanted to. Anything could bite. But why would they bite their friends?

I know I’m not supposed to touch her, she told me so. But she would never bite me. We’re friends.

My mother pulled me into the house, repeating, You can’t be friends with a spider!

The next time I got up early to sit with my spider friend, I asked why my mother had seemed so afraid of her. She moved her legs slightly in a gesture that seemed like a shrug. I thought to her about the other creatures I knew who seemed far more dangerous. My other grandmother, who lived in Glendale, had a huge striped tomcat she called Pinkerton. He glared at me so meanly, and was so huge, that I believed he was a tiger. He was friends with my grandmother, but he was not friends with me. I believed he would kill me and eat me if he got a chance. Then there was Mr. Mac, the old gardener who lived in the cottage on our property. He seemed nice when he talked to grown-ups, and at first he had been very nice to me, letting me help plant bulbs and help make his famous apple pies. But now, when we were alone in his cottage, he was often mean and did things that hurt and frightened me. Once I had bitten him because he was choking me with that part of his body that started out like a big worm but became stiff like a finger. He had cut my index finger with a knife, then held the knife to my throat and said he would kill me, or my mother, if I ever told.

But I could tell my spider friend about that without talking, so it wasn’t really telling. I thought to her all the things about Mr. Mac, and she looked up at me quite compassionately with her sparkling black eyes. She never gave me advice, but after I finished telling her about the bad things, I would notice how she was enjoying the sunlight on her fur and I would feel how nice it felt on my skin. I would see her looking at the garden, listening to the birdsong, and the bad things would fade away as I saw the sun sparkling off a glittering web woven by one of my friend’s cousins, and heard birds pouring their sweet songs of gratitude into the air. Everything is beautiful, everything is beautiful, everything is beautiful, they sang. Plenty of worms, chirped the robins. Plenty of seeds, warbled the finches.

Sadly, I had decided there was something wrong with the adults. They didn’t know what was dangerous and what wasn’t. I felt lonely at times, but my friend was patient and understanding. My friend and I listened carefully for any creak in the floorboards, and she would scuttle under the house before the screen door creaked open and an adult saw us. Our secret friendship thrived until my family moved away.

My appreciation for spiders never dwindled. I never kill them, being careful to capture even black widows and set them outside unharmed. I know who my friends are. Never let anyone tell you not to be friends with someone who is different. Anyone who listens to everything you have to say and makes you feel better about yourself is your friend.

My son had a similar experience with a vulture when he was five. I had gone inside the Cultural Center for a few minutes, leaving him to play in the gated playground. When I returned, Zach was very excited. He told me a vulture had come and perched next to him on the top bar of the play structure.

I reached out to pet him, but he moved away, so I didn’t try again.

Then what? I asked.

We just sat together. You know, they’re really not ugly when you look at them up close.

In West Africa, the vulture is sacred to Oshun, the Goddess of love and beauty. Vultures have no feathers on their heads because they eat rotting carrion. Recognizing this, the people of West Africa said the vultures were servants of Oshun, because they gave away their own beauty to cleanse the world of death and keep it beautiful. The vulture was not ugly to them, because they knew how to look at it up close. Children are more magical than adults because they experience the world directly, without the prejudices and preconceptions of their culture sullying their vision. Jesus said, Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. To be a shaman, one must return to the fresh gaze of the child to unlock the heaven realms here on earth. Then you find friends and allies in interesting places.

Rich Now

"I’m so glad we’re rich now!" I proclaimed.

Oh, honey . . . we’re not rich, my mother said.

Yes we are! I said with a three-year-old’s certainty. We have rug on the floor instead of dirt! We eat meat every day! My parents and grandmother laughed nervously as I ran into the bathroom, twisted the tap, and shouted, Hot water whenever we want it! We’re rich!

By American standards, we were far from rich. We lived in half of a small duplex, my mother’s mother, Tindy, lived in the other side. My parents were young and broke. My father’s father had bailed me out of the hospital when I was born and kept threatening to foreclose and take possession of me when I was old enough.

But I remembered a time when we had lived in a small cottage with a dirt floor. I remembered that we were often hungry. I remembered having to walk a long way to pull cold water out of a hole in the ground with a bucket. I didn’t know how we had gotten from there to the swell place we were in now, but clearly our fortunes had changed. We were rich!

She’s very . . . creative, my parents would warn as they introduced me to other adults. We had no television, and I could not read, so they were at a loss as to how to explain my crazy ideas.

I, too, had no concept of reincarnation. I didn’t remember dying, so I thought all my memories were continuous.

A year later, when my mother was pregnant with my sister, I asked, When are we going to the lake to pick the plants to help the baby get born?

Pick the plants? I’m going to a hospital!

I didn’t remember the names of the plants, but I knew they were important for when babies came, and I was sure, if we just went back to the lake, that I could find them.

But apparently, once you were rich, you didn’t need plants.

On a camping trip, when I was nine, my father showed me how to brace a piece of wood against a log with my foot and chop it with an axe.

C’mon, Girl Scout, make some kindling for this fire.

I put my foot up and began chopping. But then a terrible memory surged into my brain of a time when I had been chopping wood in the snow and the axe slipped and bit into my foot, severing a toe.

I don’t want to do it! I cut a toe off doing this once!

I collapsed weeping onto the bench of the picnic table. My father stripped my shoes and socks off.

You cut a toe off? Which toe? They don’t grow back, you know.

I sobbed harder, seeing my intact feet. Clearly I was lying. But it seemed so real! Why did I remember it so vividly if it was a lie?

At ten, I read that people in India believed in reincarnation, the belief that souls return in life after life. In India, it appeared, it was not uncommon to remember one’s toe being cut off in a past incarnation.

I sat stunned in my living room. Was I supposed to be in India? Was I in the wrong place?

But I knew I had chosen my parents. I knew I had chosen this place. But why had I chosen it? Why would I choose to be the only person with memories?

Another wisp of memory floated through: Don’t tell the priest where we’ve been . . .

We were Witches. It was dangerous. We could be burned . . .

That’s why my parents never admitted to remembering anything. They thought I was too young to know, that I might tell the wrong person, that we could get in trouble.

When I was thirteen, there would be a ceremony. I would be an adult, and they would tell me everything. But now I was just a kid who couldn’t be trusted.

I smiled, giddy, thinking of the day when everyone would hug me and say, Of course we remember! And now you’re old enough to know all the secrets.

This fantasy sustained me for the next three years. Then thirteen came and went. No initiation. No disclosures. I became very depressed. I tried to stop the past memories, the future visions. But the force of my rising sexuality made them stronger, not weaker. So I did the only thing I could do.

I shut up about it.

Ten years later I was in Los Angeles, going to graduate school at UCLA, working for the school’s feminist newspaper, which was called Together. My editor walked in the room and announced, There’s a Witch on trial for fortune-telling.

My hand shot up. I’ll take that story!

The Witch in question was Z Budapest, who had been busted by an undercover policewoman and was being prosecuted under an obscure law from the 1800s which stated that only ministers were allowed to predict the future (presumably so they could warn their congregations that they would burn in hell). The fact that there was a full inch of yellow pages in the LA area devoted to psychic readers, none of whom were being prosecuted, made Z suspicious that her arrest had something to do with her recent petition to California’s state government to have Witchcraft classified as a legal religion. Her argument in the trial hinged on her claim that since she was a minister of a legitimate religion, she was therefore exempt from prosecution according to the law. In her defense, Alison Harlow, a computer programmer and Witch priestess from Palo Alto whom Z Budapest had never met, came to testify