"Round about, round about, maggoty-pie
My father loves good ale and so do I"

I could have started the outline of my path by describing my cosmology or concept of deity, but these things are subject to change. The other animal spirits I work with may come and go too. Magpie is a constant though. I truly feel that my entire path is built upon my relationship with Magpie, and many of my core practices and even many of my mundane pursuits, can be traced back to Magpie's influence.

This will be discussed more in another post, but for me it is more than just identifying with a 'special animal', and I prefer not to call Magpie my 'Totem animal' either. Animal and plant spirits form the pantheon of my path. I look to them in the same way other pagans might look to named gods. Like I say though, this will be discussed another time.

If White Horse relates to my physical body, and Cat my personality, then Magpie surely represents my spirit. He is the essence of who I am and what I'm all about, including many facets I'm yet to uncover. It makes sense then that my spirituality would have Magpie at the very core.

My first encounter with Magpie was at 17 years of age when my mum and I moved out of the big house I grew up in, into a tiny little 2 bedroom flat. It certainly felt like the end of a cycle for me and it was remarkably the first time I'd ever seen a magpie. Our cat was clicking at two magpies through the living room window and they were making their warning call back at her. I'd heard the sound before but had never noticed the creatures making it. They were so close that I could see the blue, green and purple in their feathers and I was taken aback by their beauty. It really felt like a special moment.

It wasn't until a few years later however, that I learnt that some witches identify with spirit animals. I read that your spirit animal isn't necessarily your favourite animal (terrible advice that led me to completely ignore Horse; a significant member of my spirit family until just last year), but that you'll know the animal when you encounter it. Without having to think about it, I instantly felt sure my spirit animal was Magpie and that this is why the experience with the magpies had felt so special; it was Magpie making first contact!

Since then I have had many special encounters with Magpie. My favourite story is the time when I had a dream about a magpie in which the black and white was reversed so he had a black tummy and white back. In the morning I found a single magpie feather lying on the front step as I left the flat! I also frequently have flying dreams and I often transform into a magpie (although this is likely because I take magpie form sometimes in Rotokia too).

If you look up Magpie as a spirit animal you generally get lists of correspondences including such themes as..

-communication
-balance between day and night/light and dark
-magical arts
-hoarding
-the use of ritual in daily life
-monogamy
-inner worlds

These are good descriptions of Magpie's 'medicine', for want of a better word. For example, magpies can learn to mimic humans, making him a perfect ally for someone with a passion for learning a second language like me. I work night shifts so am in a constant flux between diurnal and nocturnal, giving me a deep connection to and appreciation of both day and night. I follow daily (non-spiritual) rituals that I've outlined on PF in the past, and the inner worlds, especially my personal world Rotokia, are a key feature of my spirituality.

After around 15 years of partnership with Magpie however, I know him better than from just a few keywords. Perhaps most notably, there is much more to Magpie's 'balance between light and dark' aspect. He teaches us the paradox that is life and death. Last year I posted about an interest I had in the Celtic figure of the Ankou and the deep draw I felt to work with him. This process was Magpie's work. I had been running from death, not least of all because of the struggle to come to terms with the death of our kitten, who I'd happened to name 'Magpie' (and I struggled with the fear that she'd died for the sake of a lesson from spirit and this caused some unpleasant turmoil for a while). It was a while before I could accept that working with spirits of death didn't mean everyone around me would die.

This idea of life and death makes the wheel of the year an important aspect of my spirituality; something I had considered dropping from my practice, or at least removing the Anglo-saxon festivals from. After much consideration, I feel that the model of the Wheel of the Year is a great tool for modern day pagans looking for a way to connect with the seasons, and in my case, to the journey from birth to death and back again!

There is a large old cemetery near to my home that is full of towering old trees, and while by day you only catch the occasional magpie, by night they gather from all around to roost in the safety of the locked cemetery. That's not the only connection between Magpie and the cemetery though. Magpies also famously display 'death rituals' for their dead, so it seems logical then, that I could connect with Magpie in the place where my own species mourns its dead.

The cemetery is close enough that I can have my morning cuppa there, which is something I've started doing frequently on my days off as well as in the evenings before work. If ever there was a place where you can truly see the paradox of life and death, it is in a cemetery. As a place to lay our dead to rest, it is protected and cared for. Wildlife has been able to flourish there and it is vibrant with life. There is by far more life in the cemetery than in the rows of houses that surround it. It is home to foxes, squirrels, mice and voles, rabbits, hedgehogs, woodpeckers and a whole host of songbirds. It's also decent foraging ground for collecting wild woodland herbs -not from the graves of course! It has very much become my special place to sit and commune with deity and nature spirits because of its proximity to my home, and also because of the connection it has with Magpie and his lessons.

Despite this emphasis on death, my path isn't 'dark' and I'm not particularly into gothic things. My path is a celebration of the life, growth and renewal that results from death. It is about how death often results in life becoming stronger, more resistant, digging in deeper. Even on an individual level, I think our lives experience little 'deaths' in the form of loss from time to time, but most of us are eventually able to stand back up and carry on, stronger than before.

That is magpie's spirituality!