How to re-start your witchcraft path

Resources, tips & my words of wisdom 💚

Happy Saturday, magickal reader ✨️

As we approach the midpoint of the calendar year (1st July is exactly halfway through 2024!), I’ve been looking back over my path so far and how it is I have come to be sitting in this exact armchair. I’ve been thinking about all the journeys we take:

• journeys through the course of a single year

• journeys to other realms

• journeys on our witchcraft paths

• and the journeys through our whole lives

Our whole life is made up of a series of journeys that continually lead us away from and then back to ourselves. These routes form a map of overlaid footsteps, scuffed heels and barefooted skips across the parchment of life. For me, perhaps the biggest journey I’ve undertaken is the path in search of my magickal self. It is a path where I have learned to nourish my soul, to listen to my needs, to be gentle with the most sensitive parts of me, and to learn from others with pure intentions in their heart.

Most of the time.

I wrote about this journey to my magickal self as part of The Wheel, but - as I have found - it is a journey that is constantly ongoing in the face of life’s challenges. Our journeys can often feel thwarted in strange and unexpected ways, even when we have a clear objective in mind. My own witchcraft journey has felt like a stop-start process over the years. Witchcraft is such a huge lifeline for my mental health and my spiritual wellbeing; when I am practising it in a flow state, I am the happiest I have ever been. And yet, it can sometimes seem like I am losing the thread that is guiding me through, and I find myself distracted and my altar dusty and crusted over with old candle wax.

But why?

My favourite childhood film was The Princess & the Goblin and I often think of the golden thread leading Princess Irene through her life.

There are, of course, many reasons why we lose sight of our objectives and fall off our tracks - busy schedules, prioritising the needs of our loved ones, and big milestone events being some of these reasons. But I believe that we are thrown off our magickal journey’s course mainly because:

1. We live in a society that does not support or make time for our personal growth unless it can be monetised.

2. We live in a society that does not prioritise rest and healing.

3. We live in a society that tells us to be “thick skinned” and to ignore our intuition.

Basically, I’m not a fan of the twenty-first-century status quo 😅

Over the past five years, I have taken small steps to keep myself on my magickal path. This has involved surrounding myself with an incredible group of Pagan friends, placing witchcraft items and charms around my home to keep my path always in my mind, saying daily mantras about my life’s purpose, practising mindfulness in nature to make me aware of the cycles going on around me, and always marking the Sabbats on the Wheel of the Year with an appropriate ritual.

These are small steps that I hope you can begin to take too.

Through my Pagan practice, I have got myself to a place where I am largely content with the quiet and peaceful life I have created, and the green herb garden that I tend and tinker with in my corner of the countryside.

However, it is thanks to my larger, more intensive grounding in the minutiae and symbolism of witchcraft that I am able to do all these things. And this is something I want to share with you.

Sharing the peace and passing on the knowledge

I’ve been a practising witch for over 20 years now (wow, that’s a shocking number haha!) and have gained a lot of knowledge in that time. I wanted to share with you some of the resources that have deepened my journey and given me greater insight, but have also made it a happy and fun road!

I have put these resources below 👇

But I also wanted to share my tips for getting started - either from scratch or for when you have been off your witchcraft path for some time. I would advise you to:

1. Make yourself a small altar in your home or garden

2. Create a Grimoire or Book of Shadows to document your learnings (mine, very unglamorously, is in a ring binder!)

3. Spend as much time immersed in nature as is humanly possible and learn plant, tree and animal identification using wildlife field guides

4. Read, read, read, read, read (about witchcraft, folk charms, worshipping the land, moon phases - whichever side of the craft speaks to you)

5. Surround yourself with people (online or in person), resources and activities that mean witchcraft can become a part of your everyday life, even if you are mainly practising alone

Enjoy the resources below! And I hope they help you find your way on the journey to your magickal self.