The activist witches saving our planet

(enjoy your Earth Element Blessing ritual)

It is difficult to find a witch who is not head-over-heels in love with the natural world. Hands up if your garden or balcony is filled with bird feeders, bug hotels and native plants for pollinators 🙋🏻‍♀️

Me too.

But in our modern-day world, why are these small acts of kindness towards nature seen as something radical?

Since the dawn of time, humans have been stewards of the land. We have helped to disperse seeds and have cleared space for trees to find more light (if you haven’t already, read Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer on the subject - it is one of my top 5 favourite books of all time). However, in the face of climate and biodiversity disasters, and with governments turning their backs on previously ingrained laws on wildlife conservation, it can sometimes seem like only a handful of environmentalists and Pagan folk are left with this title. 

In my own circle of friends, I know Druids organising tree-planting initiatives, witches buying plots of land to rewild and use for coven meets, and Pagans working for the UK Wildlife Trusts to restore degraded land to quality habitat for butterflies and endangered bird species.

Pagans definitely do seem to be over-represented in the professional conservation community.

My own witchcraft journey started by growing herbs on top of my guinea pig hutch at an early age. Twelve years later, I began working for a British wildlife charity. Something I noticed pretty early on was the reverence my colleagues had for the natural world. On a birdwatching trek across the reserve, we gawped, open-mouthed and squealed incoherently when a butterfly fluttered regally on top of an ox-eye daisy. They didn’t have a “nature stops climate change so we need to save it” kind of attitude; it was a “nature is incredible so we need to save it” point of view.

It would not surprise me if half the people I worked with saw something divine in those petals and feathers.