Tips, Tricks and Information from one Witch's Home

ALDER – Alder represents the elements Earth, Water and fire. Magical Strengths: Weather magic, controlling the elements, protecting the dead OAK...

Ritual baths are wonderful. They can be incredibly relaxing and powerful at the same time. This practice is fun to create as well! You add a little of this and a little of that and before you know it, you’ve created a spell right there in your bathtub. All you have to do is step in and enjoy the magic.

Beltane is one of four Fire Festivals. The word 'Beltane' originates from the Celtic God 'Bel', meaning 'the bright one' and the Gaelic word 'teine' meaning fire. Together they make 'Bright Fire', or 'Goodly Fire'

...sacred space for meditation, ritual, journaling, shamanic journeying to meet my guides, divination, reading, listening to music or yoga, as well as most of my spell work. It's become an important space for me to find balance when life tries to throw me off course and a firm anchor from which I can nourish my growth, which can sometimes get side-lined. By allocating an area in your home as a sacred space, you create for yourself a place for quiet reflection, like a center point that is separate from all of the business of your normal day.

If you're a practitioner of a modern magical tradition, chances are good that you're in the habit of using herbs. If you’ve never had the chance to incorporate plants into you practice or are new to this idea, I’m excited to share the way I use them in mine! Here's a list of 15 herbs that everyone should have on hand for magical purposes. Think of it as a basic witch's arsenal of helpful herbs. Keep a few of these in your magical supply cabinet, just in case the need arises.

One of the best ways we can generate love is to give it away. As practicing witches, we don’t just create rituals to make ourselves feel good, we also use our magical tools to face the stark and overwhelming realities that confront us, acknowledge our feelings, and transmute them into the energy we need to make change. Is there an organization in your community that needs some volunteers? A local park that needs some cleaning up? A neighbor that needs help shoveling snow? Sign up. Using our abilities to help others and ignite positive change in the world is real live magic in action.

As a practicing Witch and Sensitive, I find energy takes pride of place in my mystical toolbox, along with tarot cards, alphabetized essential oils, and a massive collection of Herb jars. Going back to our middle school science class for a moment, energy is everywhere—from the device you’re looking at right now to the floor beneath you. It’s also that indescribable feeling you get when you walk into your home and are greeted with a heavy, weird vibe that renders you incapable of relaxing and getting comfortable on the sofa.

Mabon is a harvest festival, the second of three, that encourages pagans to “reap what they sow,” both literally and figuratively. It is the time when night and day stand equal in duration; thus is it a time to express gratitude, complete projects and honor a moment of balance. Mabon has also been recognized as a Pagan Thanksgiving

Regularly cleansing your aura and your personal energy is an essential act. Whether or not you know it, you come into contact with various people and environment, all of which have their own energy vibrations. Not all of these frequencies are high and positive; because your energy field is constantly taking in and putting out vibrations, some of the vibrations (including your own thoughts, as well as external influences) are low and will bring you down if left unchecked. While our energy body is constantly readjusting itself to bring our energy back into harmony, the negative energies can linger and build up over time. A weekly salt water bath is an easy and very relaxing way to cleanse your aura of negative energy.

Globally, Serpents are represented as potent guardians of temples and other sacred spaces. This connection may be grounded in the observation that when threatened, some snakes (such as rattlesnake and cobras) frequently hold and defend their ground, first resorting to threatening display and then fighting, rather than retreat. Thus, they are natural guardians of treasures or sacred sites which cannot easily be moved out of harm's way.

Connecting to the powers of the Four Elements is a foundational practice for many Witches and Pagans. Earth, Air, Fire, and Water move through us and inspire us. As ideas, they help us to make sense of and to describe a complex world. Even the simplest of altars usually have some representation of the Elements.