Autumn. The evenings have grown dark, frost creeps in during the night, and the world is dark, wet, and cold. Yet the darkening, ragged, pale leaves covering the ground beneath the trees do not speak to us of death and impermanence, but of the sleep ahead—the long, deep sleep of winter.

Unenkulkija has always been a child of autumn. Those darkening nights, the silence, and the dark nature of the night, where the only sound is the roar of the dead rapids, have filled my life for so many years. Yet not once have they made me sad—at most, they have left me with a feeling of melancholy and longing.

Summer has been left behind. The light, the warmth, the life, the powerful song of birds, and the small, beautiful flowers among the grass have disappeared. In their place have come misty mornings, rainy weather, broken leaves upon the ground, darkness, and silence. It is time for us to prepare for winter. It is time to prepare for the darkness.

For my circle, for our pack, the beginning of winter—regardless of when the snow arrives—begins at Samhain, on 31 October, the witches’ New Year. Every year on that date, we celebrate the end of summer and the beginning of winter. We eat the traditional foods prepared by my beloved Karhuntassu, and, as we do every year, when the sun sets on Samhain evening, we light a candle and allow it to burn through the night. We extinguish it when the sun rises again.

The tradition of nature witchcraft begun by our circle, Tulipisara, continues throughout the dark season until Yule. On the morning after Yule, we allow the candle to burn to its end for the final time, as the darkness begins to pass once more.

For many people, winter is only a cold season filled with snowploughs, snowfall, and delayed buses and trains. But for us, here in nature, in the middle of the forest and far from buses and trains, the darkness of winter is all-encompassing.

It is not twilight. It is not an orange glow in the sky or the distant lights of cars. It is utter darkness: cold, frightening, powerful, and unyielding. When I stand in my yard during winter, I see no light at all. Not the smallest glimmer, not the orange glow of a city, nothing. I hear rustling and footsteps as a moose, a fox, or perhaps even a bear roused from its winter sleep walks nearby. Beyond the silence, the only sound is the wild, unrestrained roar of the rapids a hundred metres away.

This penetrating darkness, this sound, and this cold are winter to me. I am fortunate to live here in the midst of this frightening and powerful darkness, and I love it. I love every second and every minute of the dark season, fearing and living, until the time of light returns.

This is my autumn. This is my winter. This is my nature and my pack. This is everything my autumn whispers, and I answer its whisper.

As the bright Sunday sun shines through the pale red curtains, I sit down to write about a thought that came to me recently, though in truth it has always been one of my guiding principles:

Do not deny yourself.

Most of us stupid animals, called human beings as part of some vast cosmic joke, are not what we truly are. We are only what others-our families, friends, spouses, employers, or society-want us to be.

We hold back our words. We try to get along and behave sensibly. We try to do the right thing, even when what we truly want is to douse that workplace asshole or idiotic neighbour in petrol, set them on fire, and laugh our arses off.

Most of us miserable creatures are nothing more than sheep.

Then there are wolves among us.

Wolves do not allow others to dictate their actions or opinions. Wolves do what they want. We wolves are hated and respected. Some of us are feared for no reason, while others are feared for very good reason indeed.

Whatever we are and however we behave, we feel a need to emphasise either our good qualities or our bad ones for the sake of other people — partly because of what we want them to think of us, and partly because of what we imagine they already think.

As a rule, we truly are miserable creatures: a wretched excuse for existence upon this beloved and beautiful planet, which we destroy simply to satisfy our own arrogance.

In one way or another, I constantly meet witches, witch-like people, and people who desperately want to become witches, all loudly declaring their various rules and golden principles: that one must always do what is right, or that everything you do will return to you threefold.

Bullshit.

When you see a wolf leap upon a sheep, it is not ruled by the Rede or by any other equally pointless set of rules.

It is what it is.

It is a wolf, born a wolf and destined to die a wolf.

Far too many of these so-called human beings deny themselves. They try to become what they believe they ought to be, or what others want or expect them to be.

They are not what they truly are.

I am not one of those people.

What, then, am I?

I am a genuinely kind, friendly, and extremely helpful asshole who would have no difficulty burning down your house or your car. I am a thoughtful and empathetic psychopath who takes sadistic satisfaction in the suffering of those who have wronged me or the people I love.

I am a law-abiding, honourable, thoroughly unpleasant old bastard who will launch himself at you like a deranged madman, without giving a damn about the law, should the situation demand it.

I am myself.

I do not pretend to be anything other than what I am.

I am a complicated, difficult, and wonderful human being. Some people care for me, and some people hate me. I gladly help others, and there are others whom I would just as gladly make suffer.

I weep for the grief and fates of some people, while for others I become the cause of grief and fate.

I am not a hypocrite.

I am myself.

And because of these things, I am also a good witch.

Because I recognise myself—my darker side and my brighter side, my good and harmful strengths, my kindness and my sheer bloody-minded nastiness—I am deeply at one with the world that listens to me, speaks to me, and walks closely beside me.

I have no need to lie to others about what I am or what I am not, and through that honesty I earn the respect of nature and the Gods.

Even when the world tries to frighten me into retreating into my shell, all I need is a larger war axe with which to break that shell apart.

Then I am myself again.

I am Unenkulkija.

There are many reasons why I sometimes remain awake through the night. At times, it may be the full moon, keeping every member of the household more or less awake and restless. At other times, I simply want to spend my weekend and my night in peace, closing myself within the surrounding darkness and reflecting on the world and those who live in it.

Tonight is one of those nights when Unenkulkija stays awake through the darkest hours, thinking.

In this deepest part of the night, I thought I would write about a subject I encounter constantly: the ethics of witchcraft.

It concerns the many different ideas about what witchcraft should be, what a witch should be, and, most often, how a witch should behave both morally and ethically. Witchcraft contains an almost endless number of different paths, and I am not going to argue about which of them are good and which are bad. I will speak only of what I have found to work, and what I know does not.

The matter is this:

A witch cannot be good.

When I write that a witch cannot be good, I am speaking of the universe and the way it is structured. Many who practise witchcraft swear by the Rede or other similar codes and teachings, according to which everything you do or cast returns to you many times over.

I can tell you that this is not true. It does not work that way.

Nature does not follow binding moral rules. Neither do spirits, Gods, or animals. It has never worked that way. By binding themselves to a compulsive moral law that demands they always act rightly, no witch will ever reach the full extent of their potential or abilities.

Why?

Let us think and speak about it for a moment.

What is witchcraft?

It is the use of your own power and ability to guide the tiny grains of sand within the waves of the universe, turning them slightly toward the direction you desire. It is the blowing of small, falling snowflakes toward the place you wish them to go.

Beneath all these symbolic phrases lies a simple fact: whatever you believe witchcraft to be, you must understand that witchcraft is, and always will be, the skill and desire to alter your surroundings and the events within them on a level that does not require physical interaction or control.

The world is neither good nor evil. Your surroundings are neither good nor evil. Animals are neither good nor evil, and neither is anything happening around you.

By binding yourself to acting only for good, you will ever know only one side of the coin. You will be capable of touching only one side of the tree.

Interpreting and understanding all this confused, night-struck rambling will probably be difficult for many people, and it does not help that this is not one of the easiest matters to explain. Let us therefore use more metaphors to untangle it inside our heads.

For a witch to use the full range of their abilities and sense their surroundings completely, they must recognise and accept both the good and the evil within themselves.

Looking only toward the light will never be enough. How could you even know what light truly is if you have never looked into the darkness?

I am not saying that everyone who practises witchcraft must use it to cause harm, or that they should deliberately commit evil deeds. That would simply be stupid.

The point is that no one should create an obstacle within themselves against using witchcraft for harm any more than for good. A witch must accept that they are capable of doing evil just as they are capable of doing good, and that nothing will return to them beyond the consequences they themselves create.

By binding yourself to rules and sayings claiming that everything returns threefold, you lie to yourself and move responsibility away from your own hands.

Many witchcraft religions are praised for their moral code or rule of “threefold return,” but in the end, everyone who relies upon it is only deceiving themselves.

You should not avoid a harmful spell because you fear it may return to you. You should avoid it—or choose to perform it—while accepting the knowledge that you are the person casting it.

If the purpose of your spell is to harm someone, then you are responsible for that harm, and you must carry the responsibility for your actions.

Spells generally work with almost complete certainty, whether they are called “good” or “evil,” when you are also prepared to perform the same act physically.

If you want to hurt someone through a spell, you must be prepared to do yourself whatever you want the spell to do. If you cast a spell intended to break the arm of someone you hate, then you must be prepared to break that arm with your own hands.

Only when you admit both sides of yourself, and admit what you are capable of, will your spells work fully.

A witch will never be whole unless they recognise both the darkness and the light within themselves: the ability to commit deliberate harm as well as deliberate good, and the willingness to do either.

I know what I am capable of, both as a witch and as a human being.

When I cast a curse—sometimes one so severe that it may harm someone permanently, even leaving them disabled—I do it after consideration. I do it knowing that I may ruin the rest of their life for a long time, destroy their hopes, and hurt the people close to them.

But I also do it knowing that I would be prepared to carry out the same act physically, standing there in person.

And because of this, my spells work almost every time.

Even the unpleasant ones.

Normally, today I would be writing an article about the current sabbat, Ostara, the celebration of spring. But as the flame of a large pillar candle flickers quietly beside me, I find myself speaking of another subject, one that weighs heavily upon my heart even now.

At this very moment, on this Wednesday of Ostara in 2012, the oldest seer in my family is dying, drawing her final breaths in this life.

She is my grandmother—a fortune-teller, healer, and seer who has been part of my life since I was a small boy. I cannot say that I ever truly came to know her well. Despite her many ailments and the difficulties brought by illness, she lived to a great age. Although her body grew old, her walking weakened and finally ceased altogether, and her hands eventually stopped working, her mind remained crystal clear until the final year.

Only after illness confined her to a hospital bed did she begin to withdraw into a world of her own, a place made from a mixture of reality and dreams.

At this moment, several dozen kilometres away from me, my beloved grandmother is drawing her final breaths. Her kidneys stopped working yesterday after a long fever took away her consciousness.

The only comfort I can find is knowing that her passing will be painless, and that she will finally be able to leave—a release my grandmother wished for many times during the years she spent imprisoned within her failing body.

My grandmother was one of those traditional Finnish seer-women who could once be found from time to time within village communities. She read fortunes from cards, received and saw premonitions, and healed with her hands.

Although I was never formally taught by her, I had a few small opportunities to speak with my grandmother about matters of faith. I remember especially well something she said to me when I was much younger, at my sister’s wedding:

Every person carries their own god within their heart.

At the time, I did not yet understand what she meant. With time and whatever wisdom I have gained, I understand it far better now.

For this reason, I dedicate this day, this Ostara, the beginning of spring, and this article to my grandmother—to the oldest seer and doer in my family.

I know that, as a person and as a mother, she was not always the easiest presence in the lives of her children or those who knew her. But to me, she has been, and will always remain, my own beloved grandmother.

As a witch, she is also my connection to the roots that others tried so hard to cut away from me when I was young.

May your crossing be gentle, my grandmother.

Although we never truly spoke about premonitions, visions, or healing, the knowledge that we have walked similar paths gives me courage to continue walking mine.

A blessed Ostara to you, my beloved Grandmother Aino.

And a blessed Ostara to all the other wanderers of nature who celebrate it.

It is a little after four on this beautiful November afternoon – or perhaps I should already call it evening, because the sun has set.

Each day, we walk with quiet steps toward the darkest time of the year, and each day grows shorter than the one before it, until Yule, the time of light, comes once again.

Just after the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, I went outside with my daughter to light our traditional Samhain fire, marking a light within this autumn darkness. It is a custom we have followed for years: during the darkest part of the year, from Samhain until Yule, we keep a fire burning to protect us and to show us, always, where our home is.

Amid the chaotic confusion of electric light, sound, and noise in the modern world, we forget that our roots lie in nature and in the twilight that wraps us each autumn in its peaceful and beautiful cloak.

When we finally return to our roots for a moment, entering the dimness of the autumn forest, we lose our sense of time and place, and we do exactly as we should. We forget all the disorder of the modern world, with its Facebooks and Twitters, and melt into the forest we have entered.

Everyone has their roots and their home somewhere.

For us wanderers of nature, it is often a particular place or element within nature.

For me, it is the forest.

I find my home in the dim and dark forest, and I am not afraid there. I may sit for hours in the middle of nowhere, listening as the forest tells me its story, leaving behind everything the human world expects of me—almost demanding that I remain constantly connected to the internet, my phone, and the news.

That is not me.

I am the solitary watcher of moonlight, sitting on a pier beside the lake, listening to nature and whispering with the forest in the darkness.

As November, the month of spirits, passes once again, I sink into my thoughts and reflect upon my life. In this life, I have not needed to store food for winter, dry meat, or seal the gaps in my cabin against the cold. Yet as winter approaches, the need to do these things still rises in my mind.

Today, I came across the finest compliment I have received from a stranger in a long time.

While wandering through Google, I found a discussion on the demi.fi forum where someone had written:

“Do not insult Unenkulkija. He knows what he is talking about, and he truly is a good person.”

It was touching to find such words from a completely unknown wanderer, discovered entirely by accident, and they warmed my heart.

Thank you for your words, Mewwies. That small sentence left me in a good mood for the rest of the day.

I do not know whether I would describe myself as such a good person, but it is pleasant to discover that someone genuinely thinks so. I have always been accustomed to being the one who stands alone against the entire world, and sometimes that makes me feel lonely in a way that is difficult to explain.

Outside, it is already completely dark, and the time is nearly half past four in the evening.

It is time to light a few candles in here as well and listen to the world for a little while longer.