The Art of Broom Making
Do You Want to Do Some Witchcraft?
In March of 2020, I was in the woods of Tennessee, sleeping in a cabin with a wood stove, an outhouse, and the surrounding scent of trees and burning trash. The first two months of the year had been crammed with work, and I’d taken a weeklong writing residency at Sundress Press’s writing coop in Knoxville.
I was revising a novel and cracking under the strain of my job and needed to walk in the woods again. Lockdown was two weeks away, and I was the only one not paying attention. I was collecting abandoned shotgun shells from the side of the water reservoir and listening to the crunch of frost crusted leaves.
The broom handle is simply a stick. But it’s, like, a really GOOD stick. I don’t remember where I picked it up, it wasn’t long enough for a walking stick. But, I packed it in my suitcase. I wrapped it in my sweaters and dirty socks so that nothing happened to it in flight. It was that good’a stick.
I forgot about it in the fray and then existentialism of lockdown. It was symbolic of maskless walks, warm coffee, and discovery in a way that was still unavailable. It wasn’t until my birthday flowers had dried that I did something with it.
I spent a lot of time making things, messes mostly, but ouija boards, bone jewelry, runes carved in disks of wood, blood talismans in bottle caps. Meanwhile, I was cleaning basically nothing. My apartment was cramped and every surface covered in my attempts of making joy out of isolation. Making a broom to sweep away the smell of my hamster cage and clear out the dead energy felt important. It felt like something I could do to control multiple years of loneliness.
My mother had sent me the roses and I had hung them against the wall upside down, stick straight and aged. I gentle broke them apart from one another, these honorifics of turning 31, and I tied them with leather cord around the Knoxville stick. I hung it on my wall, pulling it down to wave in front of doorways to sweep out disease and sweep in good fortune. Rose petals would fall, littering my floor with tokens of beauty, and I hoped that every one that stuck in my shoes would bless my steps.
I made this broom with tactical hope. Broom lore is extensive in witchcraft, but purification is the primary goal. Some people burn them, but I’m more an adoration practitioner. I’ve added keys to the handle, bones, anything that feels important, and it lives above my door now. Sweeping out what I don’t want or need.
I am not a great authentic crafter of brooms, but if you pass through the doorway, consider yourself blessed.
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