If you’ve been practicing magick for a while, you can’t help but notice that things have changed. Some changes have been amazingly for the better and some not so much. In this time of public openness, social media sharing, and online community, its easy to see that many practitioners primary experience is in talking about Witchcraft and sharing ideas and thoughts, though not always practicing it and putting those ideas into use.
It can be hard to carve out the time, particularly with so many intense social changes going on with and around us. Finding the space, time and honestly energy, is a concern, and when you do, then it can be hard to pick something to do. But the wisdom of the Craft comes in the doing of it, and here are some ideas of things I think are important to at least experience, things that were a common bond at one point for most Witches I know and could be again. If you’ve studied with me in the Temple of Witchcraft, you’ll probably noticed some of them as a part of your studies.
These assume a basic knowledge and experience in meditation and magick, including common sense and magickal safety. If something is not appropriate for you and your circumstances, then don’t try it. Hopefully many of you have done many of them but others will spark ideas for you.
· Make your own spell ink from berries. It’s messy and it’s fun!
· Grow a plant from seed and then use it in magick.
· Really watch an insect or arachnid at work. Watch a spider spinning a web, or the coming and going of an ant hill, beehive, or wasp nest. Observe a caterpillar or beetle eating a plant.
· Make your own incense. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Our “apple pie spices” in the kitchen make a good Jupiter-Prosperity incense.
· Write your own ritual using only your own words. You can borrow concepts and images, but make it your own.
· Dig up the root of a magickal plant to use as a talisman or spiritual vessel. A simple and safe one to start with, abundant in many places, is Mugwort. It can be made into a dream talisman and kept under your pillow.
· Meditate under a tree. Maybe the tree will talk with you or otherwise commune.
· Gaze at the full Moon reflected in water – ocean, lake, swimming pool, or even a bowl of water.
· Talk to an angelic being. They might not be what you are expecting them to be.
· Gather smooth stones from a shoreline. Use them in magick. While I love a variety of minerals, some of the best magick has just been with smooth ocean or river stones.
· Read a Witchcraft book by someone whom you disagree with a lot. As you read it, keep asking yourself what exactly you are feeling and why does it matter.
· Find an animal bone in the forest and commune with its spirit. Ask it how it died.
· Find a magick sigil in the graffiti of a city. Use it.
· Talk to a Faery. Like the angels, they might not be what you are expecting either. Be very respectful and it’s often good manners to bring a human gathered or made gift as an offering – ground grain, baked goods, milk, butter, or honey. Don’t pick random flowers as an offering unless you grew the flowers yourself.
· Communicate with the spirit of a building.
· Check out a ghost haunting. While most are not truly hauntings, be prepared if it is and reflect on what you will need to be properly prepared to help the situation BEFORE you go.
· Talk to that face in the trees, even if it doesn’t talk back.
· Hang out with a mountain spirit. When you can get them to chat, they are quite helpful and healing.
· Draw a physical ritual circle. Draw it in chalk, in the sand, an outline in salt or a boundary of stones. Ideally mark off a traditional nine foot diameter circle with a 4.5 foot cord for the radius. Do a ritual in it.
· Buy a nice gift for your home spirit. Tell it your appreciate it.
· Lead someone in a guided meditation. There is nothing quite like the responsibility of guiding someone else, and how the process develops over time from you simply using words to cue another to sharing a joint journey together as you perform the meditation while speaking it.
· Perform a pilgrimage to a sacred place, close to home or far away.
· Really thank the water spirits for being water and keeping you alive. Reflect on the source of your local water and how it gets to you.
· Perform a ritual skyclad.
· Dowse for a ley line and walk the ley line, taking notice of how it makes you feel.
· Truly make a magickal wish by blowing the seeds of a dandelion, thistle or milkweed.
· Try Sex Magick- alone, partnered, or group.
· Do a ritual outdoors. If you’ve only done ritual inside in a temple, go outside. Keep it simple, but do it.
· Follow your inner guidance and make a magickal gift for someone special in your life.
· Make an herbal tea as a magickal potion and drink it in ritual.
· Food Magick. Infuse a meal you cook with magickal energy, taking into account the natural corresponding virtues of the ingredients.
· Cast a spell for justice when you see a wrong doing in your community. Remember justice is not the same as revenge, but seeking to address the imbalance and establish balance.
· Sew a poppet by hand, stuffing herbs into it. If you think that poppet magick is just for cursing, think again. They are also quite effective for healing.
· Weed your garden while thinking about your enemies. Make it into a bit of magick.
· At midnight, raise a glass and honor your beloved ancestors with a toast.
· Perform a “reading” on an old object in a museum, like a form of psychometry, but you might not be able to touch it.
· Get a reading from another Witch. Give a reading to another Witch.
· Create a mandala of stones with intention. Place a symbol of the focus of your intention in the center.
· Attend someone else’s ritual as a guest, to see how other people do things. Reciprocate and invite your host to one of your rituals.
· Speak up for someone or something that can’t speak up.
· Make your own wand from a stick. Peel the park. Sand it. Polish it. Let the oils of your skin mix with the wood.
· Write a spell that rhymes and cast it. Love it or hate it, rhyme and poetry has become a big part of the Craft.
· Join a coven. Leave a coven. Most of us need to have some form of group or community experience at least once. Covens, formal and informal, are wonderful grounds to learn about yourself and how you work with other people.
· Create a shrine for a deity or spirit and tend that shrine for a time with candles, incense and offerings. You are a caretaker of it.
· Evoke your magickal self as you walk somewhere you will be relatively undisturbed. Try it both in the wild, on a trail, and in a city. Perceive all the forces around you.
· Hang out with a frog, toad, lizard or snake for a bit.
· Perform a divination that requires you to throw something – runes, stones, bones. It’s a different feel than pulling cards.
· Find a mentor. Be a mentor. Continue the chain of passing knowledge and tradition.
· Harvest herbs under Moonlight for their magick. Harvest herbs under Sunlight for their medicine.
· When you have reached the end of one phase of life and entering into a new one, perform a death-rebirth ritual to embrace the change.
· Tune into the stars in the night sky. Pick a constellation and make sure you can identify it. While the myths are important, also really draw down the light and feel the energy of that star group. How does it feel to you?
· Make a flower essence (not an essential oil). Essences are dilute solutions of flowers soaked in water. You can use it all up at once, or learn how to preserve and bottle it.
· Do magick in a graveyard.
· If ever granted the opportunity, be fully present and witness the crossing of life into a death, be it with a human, pet, or wild animal.
· Question your sanity. I don’t know any good Witch who hasn’t had experiences that led them to question their sanity.