My love for witchcraft has been with me all along, I guess. Magick interests me. Magick with a k that is, for I want to distinguish it from ordinary magic like e.g. showing off card tricks. Magick interests me, because it has yet to disappoint me.
Meaning : I believe that magick does work from my own experiences. Practicing witchcraft makes me feel at home mentally, physically and spiritually, and it is as my world becomes a better place with magick in it every day.
The magick itself is unpretentious. It is what you believe it is, it will work, if it was meant to work. It will not work, if it was not meant to work. That is my approach to witchcraft. And it all comes down to whatever intention I put behind my magickal workings.
I believe that magick exists, whereas I don´t believe in coincidences of any kind. Chance to me has nothing to do with luck or the lack of it. Chance happens while you are pre-occupied with life, and there is always the what-if question in rear view.
But we never get to check out for real what this what-if could have been. We´re not meant to know everything all the time, and thank the Universe for that. Therefore, I live in accordance with the rhythms of nature and the phases of the Moon, as much as the mundane world of today will allow me to.
What I love about witchcraft is that is has room for the ups and downs in life. I take my mundane issues with me into witchcraft to be able to seek an alternative balance to gain renewed strength from, but I never plan my life from witchcraft. To me it is guidance and a refuge, not a wishing well.
It is also an enriching and comfortable way of life. It gives me happiness, inner peace, well-being and kindness to my inner child. I´m not winning in the lottery, however, because to ask for that kind of money is not necessary at all in order to have a good life.
It is also very self-indulgent and unrealistic, and that is not my kind of style. Self-care is another matter, and there I´m not compromising myself. I know that I have to take good care of myself due to so awesome mundane issues as osteoarthritis, bipolar disorder and anxiety.
Witchcraft has a healing effect on me, and that is reflected in my surroundings, by cause of me feeling good about myself after having worked with magick. It calms me down, it soothes my anxiety, and it makes me happy and content.
What I also love about witchcraft is that it in its essence has few demands and rather many possible solutions. The demands in my view are to be serious but never to forget the funny and intriguing parts of it. And the number of solutions depends on what you ask for and how you use the advice.
At the moment, I have a period where writing has captured my heart as well as my mind. So there is no witchcraft around me, while I´m writing ? Of course there is. I have my charm for my blog´s success and a lit candle at my writing desk. I sit and drink some relaxing chai tea and listen to the pouring rain outside.
I plan to celebrate the Autumn Equinox and the Sabbat of Mabon on September 23 2019. Here I give my thanks for all that I have been able to harvest from my efforts this year, and I celebrate the equilibrium of nature as an inspiration to gain a better balance in my life.
The best part working with witchcraft as an eclectic, cottage witch is that you get to choose from a broad variety of sources. There is no written agenda, except for my ritual worksheets and notes, and there is freedom to choose from what you already have instead of buying yourself poor.
The eclectic witch is this fall busy studying aromatherapy, meditation and ideas to create a magickal atmosphere in my daily life. Research is my king of studying. The cottage witch is busy planning for my biggest Sabbat of the Wheel of the Year, Samhain on October 31 2019. Rituals are my kind of practicing.
I enjoy the almost indescribable feeling of wholeness, when I have worked with witchcraft. It is a sacred moment filled with inner peace and positiveness. It puts all the mundane issues in proportion, so that I get a free space, so to speak, where there is balance and “silence” in my life.
With silence I mean the quiet feeling of content and happiness over simple everyday things. I prefer, as you know by now, dear reader, to live a simple and easy-going life without too many mundane surprises to handle in a world conquered by stress and hastiness.
So to speak of a love to witchcraft is to speak about being at a better place with it than without it. It is no cure of whatsoever ailment you may suffer from, but it soothes, it refreshes, and it brings forth that volatile feeling of being happy in the present moment.
And that to me is worth mentioning, since the opposite, stress, anxiety and unrest, unfortunately has become everyday issues in the world as a whole today. I can´t strong enough recommend to learn to listen to your body, your mind and your soul.
Ask yourself what you truly want in life and then go for the little successes. The big ones are going to show up, if they are meant to do that. If not, something else is probably going to happen. One thing you can be sure of, however, is that you only get this one chance to live your life at its fullest.
Therefore it is important to keep living in the present moment without looking either too long back or too long forward. Plans are only worth something, as long as you have a reasonable relationship with the fact that you are actually living in the present moment all the time.
There needs to be some free space in every plan. Nobody can plan themselves out of everything all the time. But today it is necessary to plan, to keep checking up on the picky details of everything ??? Yes, to some degree. The rest is for you to decide, not everybody else around you.
I say that with the knowledge that I´m in a position that allows me not to plan as much as when I was earning my own living. But it is also a hard and severe position, because you have been found unable to work on any conditions. It means living the rest of your life on a budget. It means a lot. It means business.
But I´ve also learned the hard way that not every plan will save your bum in times of trouble. Sometimes, it is necessary to skip the plan A and go to plan whatsoever, because life doesn´t care for any plans. “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans”, as John Lennon once said.
Witchcraft is there for me to let go and relax. It is her I find my inner freedom and inspiration to live well spiritually with disorders and physical pain as the antagonists of my life story. It is my refuge from the world, when everything goes star crazy or I have had a couple of tough days.
When I have a good day, I turn to witchcraft out of love for the beauty of following the cycles of nature. When I have a bad day, I turn to witchcraft in search of spiritual healing with a feeling of awe. And as often I can, I turn to witchcraft due to my previous experiences with it.
To me it is easy to love witchcraft, it is as if it has always been there, a sort of safe haven to retreat to when the world once again seems arguing with itself without reason. Here it is allowed to be a free-thinker, and I love to meet kindred spirits from all over the world.
It tells me to be alert and attentive to pagan and alternative communities. There are – thank you Universe – interesting and inspiring people out there. So I also love witchcraft, when I´m writing with people, there is always room for a Blessed Be or a So Mote It Be.
So it is that today I write about my love to witchcraft instead of practicing anything but lighting my candle for this blog. I had many rituals last month, and I´m still trying to regain a little bit more energy. Things take time, at times.
Writing about why I love witchcraft is also a kind of magickal working to me. Then I´m able to mix two of my passions and to do it as a stream of consciousness where I physically have been doing the chores alone while writing in between. My husband has come down with the flu. So I made him a calming cup of tea.
Suitably enough, the weather has accompanied me with the sound of several strong cloudbursts throughout the day. For the first time this fall I´m wearing socks, longing for that Indian summer that hopefully will show up anytime soon, please, thank you, weather gods and goddesses.
It was as if the bad weather inspired me today. When I walked the old little wise dog in a less severe shower this afternoon, I had trouble concentrating enough behind the keyboard, but after that it has been like the words just came from out of nowhere and allowed me to focus on the direction of my thoughts.
To produce something worth reading, preferably more than once, is one thing. To make it magickal is a totally different story. It needs to be shown with the same passion as I feel it. And I need to practice both my writing and my work with witchcraft.
What I love about life would probably have been a better synopsis question for today´s post. Because I´m writing about my life, a story yet to be told but shimmering through here and there. A life filled with love, laughter, life changing experiences and writing about witchcraft.
But also a very troubled life from time to time. As everybody else in the world today. Just another voice among billions, it may well be so, but at least it´s mine and I´m proud to name myself both a witch and a writer without blushing at all.
So what I truly love about witchcraft is that it always is at hand, close up and in the present moment. Magick is not to buy for money, the same goes for love, friendship and common implied rules about treating others like you treat yourself. To be able to give before receiving.
Thus challenged for today, I´ll summarize what is to be expected in my next blog post about witchcraft on Friday September 13 2019 (Magickal Intentions). I´ll try to explain and show how to create magickal intentions from idea to written material.
An example : I need some positive energy to regain my strength from practicing many rituals last month. So I will write something like :
-“Dear Universe and Goddess of the Crones, Hecate, please aid me in regaining strength. By hard work and meditation I´ll build up my strength. By the Air that I breathe, the Fire that burns in my heart, the Water that runs in my blood, and the Earth that I walk upon, as I will it, So Mote It Be.”-
First I´ll light a candle in my sacred space. Then I´ll burn my note and light incense/use aromatherapy to clear the space for new workings. The whole process took less than 15 minutes to plan, arrange and simply enjoy.
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