I’m okay with that—I’m learning to be. I have to be. I don’t always honor the divine in those who surround me; sometimes I do a rather horrible job of it. I must then own up to it and make it right as much as I can. I alone carry the weight of my decisions and their consequences.
If there’s no one judging our behavior for ultimate reward or punishment, no one outside ourselves to tell us what is right, you might wonder why Wiccans bother to do good at all. The answer is Wiccans believe that what you put out into this world is what will come back to you. This is often referred to as the “Rule of Three.” It is most easily explained as a belief that what you send out into the world returns to you threefold. While some people may think of this as karma, it is slightly different. I believe it’s meant to remind us that if we bring as much light as we can to the world, we will be more likely to receive light. Joy begets joy. If someone lives a life full of anger and negative energy, that person will most likely not be able to see past it to find the happiness that’s abundant in the world. Worse, negative energy attracts negative energy, so it simply multiplies endlessly. “Misery loves company,” anyone? We each define our own experience, and if we spend our experience looking to create magic and joy, we will find it many times over. If we hang on to resentment and disappointment, that’s all we will ever hold.
I’m a witch. I answer to no one but myself. It is up to me to create an existence that fulfills me, that makes me happy. I fully understand the power of words and intention, and I have promised to do no harm. I am bound by my actions and deeds. That’s truly what being Wiccan, being a witch, is about for me: honoring the power around me and within me, living in harmony with the world I am part of and striving to make it a better place.
For a lot of people, the definite lack of palmistry, magic wands, and incantations at the center of Wicca is a bit disappointing. Yet all of those things can be part of a given witch’s practice; if you came to visit me, you would see a broom hanging on my wall, white sage in a metal bowl by my door, and a deck of tarot cards in a hand-carved wooden box at the head of my bed. Those things just aren’t the heart of what being Wiccan is all about. In many ways, they are but trinkets and toys in comparison to the real work.
The real work is about taking responsibility. It’s about putting in the effort to understand yourself and what you have to bring to the world. It’s about honoring the divine in every living thing—not just the cute ones, not just the nice ones, but all living things. It’s about finding a way to view those around you as part of the entirety of your experience, learning to empathize, and, yes, sometimes learning to back away slowly.
Wicca is not about spells to fix your problems but about being willing to face those problems head-on with the intention of overcoming them. It’s not about changing the course of the wind so much as finding the strength to stand in it. It’s not about seeking some greater power outside yourself for what you need but about finding that power within you.
It may sound hokey, but when you act with the intention to bring joy and light into the world and you trust the power you hold within yourself, you can create a spell more powerful than any love potion.
A Restless Spirit on an Endless Flight
Discovering My Identity as a Witch
I find when I practice magic—when I focus my intention for a greater good or outcome—more often than not, my purposes are family-focused. I am incredibly family- and home-centric. My definitions of what is home and who is family may at times be somewhat untraditional, but it is within those confines that I feel I have the most power to create good. In witchy terms, that makes me most similar to a cottage witch: someone who finds her greatest intentions enacted within her home, for her family. A cottage witch considers his or her home to be the most sacred space. Cottage witches are caretakers and homemakers, and they employ these skills to strengthen and impart their personal divine abilities.
As you can imagine, there are all kinds of witches. The cottage witch is most similar to the kitchen witch, for obvious reasons. Whereas the cottage witch incorporates sacred rituals throughout the home, the kitchen witch’s focus is specifically on (you guessed it!) the kitchen. Meals are opportunities to create with intent, to infuse meaning into every dish, every gathering. Ingredients are specifically chosen, meals carefully planned. Sigils (symbols that invoke certain kinds of power) are stirred into soups, traced out with a spoon in pancake batter. Kitchen witches find their greatest peace and comfort in the rituals of preparing food and channel their intentions in that way. Often, kitchen witches are also healers, drawing upon the natural properties of plants and herbs to help ameliorate physical and psychological ailments.
There are also practitioners called green witches. Green witches share some similarities to kitchen witches, as they, too, are often seen as healers. Green witches are what I imagine a lot of people associate with Wicca; they feel most closely connected with nature and organic elements. While all witches align themselves with the natural world, its seasons and rhythms, the green witch feels most connected to the greater universal power as it’s found outdoors. Green witches often find their acts of intention tied to trees, herbs, plants, flowers, and stones. They may find grounding and inspiration in Druidic tree adulation, the Gallic sacred groves, and the practices of traditional Italian witches. (The Italian witch is historically known for “folk botany” and was often a community’s healer as well.)
Sea, or water, witches are innately similar to green witches, only they find their connection to the divine power in nature through water rather than the earth. Their sacred spaces will often be lakes, rivers, or the sea, and their intentional acts or spells will more often than not have a liquid element. Due to their close association with water, they will also be especially cognizant of the tides and hold high honor for the moon. The tools they use are more likely to be found objects, such as shells for bowls, sea glass, driftwood, and sand. Sea witches have often borne the brunt of evil-witch lore—from sirens to underwater beasts, the sea witch overall gets a pretty bad rap. In reality, the sea witch is one who is often hyperaware of balance, conscious of the ever-changing motion of life. She stands on land, with her heart in the sea.
Another witch who understands duality and the precarious nature of balance is the hedge witch, so named for the hedges that once separated properties. Hedge witches feel most spiritually connected to matters of the mind and spiritual planes. Just as a hedge would stand between two properties, hedge witches stand between two worlds. They are interested in the connection between the mind and body, the physical world and the soul, and the delineation between this world and the next. Hedge witches are often closely associated with shamans; they sometimes employ similar techniques, such as drumming and meditation, to induce transformed states of awareness and to better explore alternate planes of existence. They are seen, more often than not, as possessors of great wisdom, people who are able to see the totality of existence and therefore lend guidance.
They aren’t the only ones looking at the totality of things, however. Probably the most common type of witch is the eclectic witch, one who takes bits from all kinds of other practices to form his or her own path. Eclectic witches pull from various customs, traditions, and myths to establish their own unique set of rituals. Some practitioners warn against this method, which they see as simply an unwillingness to learn enough about any one path, but all in all, it’s simply a way for a witch to evolve her practice as she personally evolves through time. Eclecticism is