Hedge-riding technique, as with their general hedge witchcraft practice, is personal and individual to the hedge witch and there are no set rules. Most hedge witches are self-taught through study. Some witches will attend shamanic practitioner courses as I did with Shamanism Ireland, which I attended along with a pagan friend to broaden and strengthen my general knowledge of journeying, which I had already been doing for years my own way. Our tutor had explored, and had personally experienced, field work and shamanic practices in countries around the world and had also studied in Scandinavia. On the website it says he is influenced by the Druid traditions of ancient Ireland and dedicated to preserving worldwide shamanic traditions particularly those from the pre-Celtic and Celtic era. I felt this was a good fit for me, even though this course did not include any sort of witchcraft practice and was generally shamanic. But we take away from such courses only what is relevant to us personally.
And hedge riding is shamanic though some witches will dispute it, generally those who do not truly hedge ride and perhaps only make deep connections with nature and call it hedge riding or crossing the hedge. Eric de Vries’s book Hedge-Rider: Witches and the Underworld is a well-respected text and along with many others he agrees that hedge riding is shamanic and presents his evidence for this thinking. His book though is now a little dated and has a lack of references, and the information, occasionally, can be challenged. There is plenty of other evidence to be found though within witchcraft trials, within art, and within myth, about witches flying at night and interacting with Otherworldy or Underworldly beings.
Modern-day hedge witchcraft and riding has evolved, especially over the last two decades, and is individual to each hedge witch who learn their techniques by reading, attending workshops or courses, and some by trial and error. In the end, a true hedge-riding hedge witch will travel in mind and spirit over the hedge, over the boundary between this world and the Otherworld for magical purposes, to explore the mystical, and to gain knowledge. This is their main practice. Secondary to this, they may well follow a nature pathway, or any other sort of pathway for their magical craft practices on this side of the hedge – this side of the boundary. There are many thousands of hedge witches and from my own experience and communications over the decades, a nature path as secondary to hedge riding is the main choice for most hedge witches, which is why there is so much controversy and disagreement concerning what is indeed hedge witchcraft.
Witches most often these days bring together their two practices to meet in the middle. On this side of the hedge, they might connect with nature (deep connection is helpful for when hedge riding), they may practice natural magic or divination or may follow a different pathway altogether such as faerie, or kitchen witchcraft, or they may be eclectic, or Wiccan influenced. When hedge riding, they cross the hedge to seek, to make connections, to explore and for knowledge and advice, to learn, to bring something back to this earthly world and to their earthly pathway. I personally cross for healing, for magical help, for answers to questions I might have, and for healing. There is a wealth of magical information in the land of nature, and of wildness – the Otherworld. On this side of the hedge I connect with nature, practice folk magic, and divination, mainly the runes (the Elder Futhark). All my past practical experiences and travelling experience to the Otherworld came together to form my current individual hedge-riding practice and I continue learning all the time. Your own experience might be entirely different. But what we all aim for as a hedge witch is to ride the hedge, to travel between worlds, and to do this in a way that fits our own beliefs and practices.
I have crossed the hedge while sitting in a cave in a hazel wood in a secret, hard-to-find place within the magical Burren, Ireland with nothing but the sounds of nature. I recommend trying this if you have a private place where you are less likely to be disturbed. Other times, especially if time is limited and I am at home, I will put music on with a steady rhythm, or drumming (music), something that will help drown out my rather loud tinnitus, and help me achieve that altered state of consciousness that much quicker. However, these are not the only ways. You might not use any aids or different ones. Again, I must stress that hedge witches are solitary and individual and no two hedge witches practice the same just as no two witches of any solitary pathway. They will all differ in some way.
What I would advise is to be patient, prepare your space if indoors, close your eyes and enter a chosen portal (a cave, tree, grove, rock face, gateway), travel in a tunnel or along a pathway if possible. By the time you have entered a deep meditation and have travelled for several minutes to the other end of your tunnel or pathway and emerge, you will hopefully have entered an altered state of consciousness and now have no control over what or who you see. If you do have control rather like a visualization or a lucid dream, then you have not succeeded and need to try again, perhaps at another time, but you should still gain something from the experience.
A hedge witch has a foot in both worlds. Your mind and spirit travel over the hedge, you physical body stays on this side of it. This is where some people become confused and do not comprehend this as they have never actually hedge ridden. Communicating with the spirits or connecting with nature is not the same as hedge riding. Some witches do not understand that even when within a riding and in an altered state of consciousness you do retain knowledge of where your earthly body is – in this world. You hold that awareness. You retain the knowledge of why you have crossed over to the Otherworld and your purpose for doing so, and to which world your physical body belongs and how to return to it. Only when you cross the hedge do you truly discover the wonders of the mystical Otherworld and how hedge riding can add to your magical knowledge and help you to live well in the earthly world.
In general, the hedge witch straddles the boundary, crossing over sometimes to the Otherworld and all other times staying on this side of the hedge, which is where we live most of lives and ground ourselves, interact and form relationships with others – family, friends, colleagues – and earn a living. However, in addition, and while on this earthly side, it is good to make time to keep those connections to the Otherworld, to be aware of the other (hidden) realms beyond ours, and to form deep connections within nature and within our general craft practices when we can, and most importantly, to hedge ride, to cross over the boundary from time to time. This is what makes us a hedge witch.
