To Walk a Pagan Path: Practical Spirituality for Every Day (16 page)

exercise described earlier. I have found it easier to develop a familiar relationship with the male rat than with the female,

but that could be a personal quirk of mine.

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No medieval witch ever had a guinea pig as a familiar

because the species was not even introduced to Europe until

the 16th century, but this is another relatively calm rodent

to consider if you want a small mammal. Like the rat, the

guinea pig is an intelligent creature. Its worst traits, in my

opinion, are how easily it is startled and the amount of noise

it makes; the latter only being a problem if you live in an

apartment or prefer a quiet environment. Guinea pigs are

much more vocal than other rodents, communicating with

each other (and you) by whistling, chirping, squealing and

purring. They are happier if kept in pairs or small groups.

Domesticated guinea pigs come in different breeds with both

long and short coats. Unless you actually want a familiar

that requires constant brushing, I recommend the short coat

breeds.

When socialized correctly, a guinea pig enjoys being

picked up and held, so it can become just as suitable a famil-

iar as a dog, cat or rat.

Just as there are fancy rats, there are also fancy mice, and

these domesticated animals share no more in common with

their ancestor, the common house mouse (
Mus musculus
).

than the domestic rat shares with the Norwegian brown rat.

Compared to a domestic rat, the mouse tends to be more

skittish and, in my opinion, less intelligent. They are also relatively short lived, rarely enjoying a life span of more than

two years. The advantage of mice is their small size, which

can be a significant consideration for people with extremely

limited personal space. Males tend to have a strong odor and

do not usually co-exist well with other males, but their per-

sonalities can be more entertaining.

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It is understandable that a creature as tiny as a mouse is

innately terrified of being handled by an enormous human.

Taming the mouse can be more difficult than with other

rodents. It is not impossible but, even so, a rat will prove to be much more tractable as a familiar.

Rabbits are not rodents, they are lagomorphs, but peo-

ple often lump them in the same category, and they can cer-

tainly be as potentially destructive as wild rodents. Rabbits

that have been introduced into Australia and New Zealand,

where they have few natural predators other than our own

species, have become serious pests. But few people have the

aversion to rabbits that so many of us exhibit towards rats

and mice. Perhaps this is due in part to fictional characters

like Peter Rabbit, the White Rabbit of Lewis Carroll’s Won-

derland or the animated Bugs Bunny. In the popular imagina-

tion, rabbits are cute.

I do not know anyone personally who includes a rabbit

actively in spiritual or magical work, but I suspect these ani-

mals could make very good familiars for the right people. In

the 1980’s and 1990’s more families began keeping rabbits

indoors, where they can be trained to use a litter box. The

rabbit’s need to chew should be taken into consideration,

and I do not think it is a good idea to leave one of these ani-

mals unsupervised for long periods of time. Rabbits can also

deliver nasty, potentially dangerous kicks with their hind legs.

Your choice of a familiar is not restricted to mammals.

Devin Hunter, host of the internet radio’s Modern Witch,

lives in San Francisco and has a feathered familiar by the

name of Sophia. She is a ring-necked dove. As a familiar,

Sophia has proven to be a source of spiritual strength for

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Devin. He says that “in times of great stress I will simply

hold her, meditate, trance, or chant and connect to my form

of divinity. Sophia is…a Greek word for Wisdom, and it is

said that Sophia (Wisdom) came to earth in the form of a

dove. As such, I connect with the higher self and its wisdom

while working with my dove in meditative forms.”

Here we see an avian familiar, a dove, being used in med-

itation in a similar way as any tame and well behaved mam-

mal might be. Devin is a male witch, and Sophia also helps

him with his magical workings. He tells me, “I have used her

to send messages to…loved ones; messages of love, hope,

peace and freedom. I generally will hold her and, while in cir-

cle, talk to her, enchanting her with each whisper or stroke,

and then will let her fly around in circle a bit. I place her back in her cage when the work has been done.”

Sophia supplies Devin with feathers for his spells. He uses

the softer and smaller feathers that come from her chest for

spells involving peace or enlightenment. The wing feathers

also prove useful for him, as with the following spell that I

found particularly interesting:

“I will use her wing feathers in spells to help with creativ-

ity, especially in terms of the written arts,” Devin explained.

(You can see why this caught my interest.) “As a Pagan writ-

er and journalist this comes in handy often! A great spell for

writer’s block is to take a wing feather, dip it in ink, and then write
writer’s block
backwards on a piece of parchment, then put the parchment in your Book of Shadows or on your altar!

Works every time!”

Devin does not believe an animal, whether a bird or some

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like one, and he has very definite ideas of how to go about

this. “You have to spend time bonding with your familiar,” he

says. “Singing to it, chanting songs of power to it—or with

it—and giving it its own name of power go a long way.”

Any species of bird can be tamed as a familiar spirit,

although what they have to offer in this context will vary

considerably depending on the kind of bird you are working

with. There is a world of difference between a macaw and a

canary, not only in size but also in personality. What all birds require, though, is a commitment to their daily care. If the

bird is to be a familiar, as Devin points out, it will also require additional time for bonding.

Our avian familiars will usually be caged house birds.

A truly tame bird may not need to remain in its cage con-

stantly—Sophia has her outings where she can stretch her

wings—but for the most part they live in little homes that we

keep in our much larger homes. In a later chapter I will dis-

cuss keeping chickens as a means of participating more fully

in the food cycle. If you decide to pursue this, your chickens

could become familiars, assuming you spend a lot of your

time outdoors with them. Usually, though, a bird kept as a

familiar is a bird that lives indoors.

This chapter would be incomplete without mention-

ing reptiles and amphibians as familiars. Next to the cat, the

most stereotypical familiar spirit might be the witch’s toad.

Herptiles (a collective word for both reptiles and amphibians)

are often believed to be stupid, but it is perhaps more accu-

rate to say that they have a very
alien
intelligence. As such, they can be fascinating familiars, opening our spirits to a very different world.

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And that is all I am going to say about them.

Why? Because, quite honestly, most people have no busi-

ness keeping herptiles in confinement. As I said, they have a

very alien intelligence. Their minds and bodies are both so

different from our own. With a dog, a cat or a rabbit or, to a

lesser extent, even a bird, you can tell just by looking at the animal if it is distressed. Not so with herptiles. There is nothing at all intuitive about their care. Far too many reptiles and amphibians die in agony while in the care of well meaning

but uneducated humans.

If you must have a herptile as your familiar, I suggest the

corn snake. These inoffensive creatures are easier to care for

than most other cold-blooded creatures. But whatever reptile

or amphibian you choose, learn everything you can about

its needs before you purchase the animal. And don’t trust

the “expert advice” of a pet shop employee. Do some real

research on your own. Prior to the 1970’s, pet shops across

America routinely sold pet turtles—red eared sliders—along

with cute plastic bowls to house them, and boxes of what

was allegedly turtle food. What the shop employees failed

to tell their customers was that the pets were newly hatched

baby turtles which (if they lived) would grow to be up to a

foot in length. The little turtle bowls were woefully inade-

quate, but this rarely mattered because the baby turtles had

no idea that the brown junk sprinkled into their bowls was

supposed to be “food”, and almost all of them died misera-

bly before the size of their housing actually became an issue.

If at all possible, talk to somebody who breeds whatever

reptile or amphibian you are interested in. Most herptiles will not readily reproduce if maintained under less than optimal

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conditions, so you can usually safely assume that a breed-

er understands the basic needs of the species in question.

And do not think you can cut corners. If the breeder says

the herptile requires a temperature range of 73–80 degrees,

“room temperature” is not an acceptable alternative.

Almost any land dwelling or amphibious species can be a

familiar, and each has its own wisdom to offer us; each brings

its own lessons to share. When we connect with familiars—

with animal companions—we connect more deeply with the

great web of life.

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From the abundance of traditions like Plow Monday, was-

sailing fruit trees and John Barleycorn, from rituals like the

Anglo-Saxon Æcerbot charm to ensure the fertility of a field,

or the women-only fertility rites of the Greek Thesmophoria,

it is apparent that the primary question originally addressed

by Pagan religions is the same question that has been asked

by every heterotrophic organism since the dawn of life.

What’s for dinner?

This question is typically answered today with a trip to the

supermarket or a local restaurant. We humans are less imme-

diately involved with the source of our sustenance, and for

the most part this is a good thing. Modern people living in

any developed nation are not going to starve if there is a local drought or if a field of corn is ruined by insects or a fungus.

For our Pagan ancestors, however, the question of what’s for

dinner was an ever-present concern. Whatever your cultural or

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leaf and fruit

biological heritage may be, most of your ancestors were direct-

ly involved with food acquisition; farming, hunting or fishing.

They were directly dependent on the earth’s bounty in a way

that we can only imagine today. It was this continual depen-

dence on the earth that gave rise to the earliest expressions of Pagan spirituality.

Everyone with an elementary understanding of Roman

religion knows that Mars is a “war god”. What is often over-

looked is that Mars was originally a protector of the fields,

a warrior who drove away the insect and fungal infestations

that could ruin local crops. The oldest festival to Venus, the

Roman goddess of love and beauty, was the Vinalia Rustica

when vegetable growth and fertility were celebrated. Like-

wise, the Norse god Thor is known as a god of thunder and

storms (his Anglo-Saxon name, Thunor, is the Old English

word for thunder), but it is less well known that he is also a

god of fertility. The Greek god Dionysus is a god of wine, but

he has an equally important role as the god who ensures the

fertility and abundance of the grape harvest. The Gallo-Ro-

man Epona, notable as a horse goddess, is also a goddess of

fertility. A close examination of Pagan gods and goddesses