How to Start your Witchcraft Journey as a Modern Witch
Hello and welcome! This post is going to be a VERY basic guide to getting started as a witch. Over time, I'll dive deeper into specifics, but I figured in order to follow my blog you need to understand the basics of starting a witchcraft practice, and I want us to be on some sort of similar page.
First of all, keep it basic. There are a lot of different elements to witchcraft, but in its truest form, it's about developing your personal power, empowering others, setting intention, and understanding the natural rhythms of the earth and universe and working with those rhythms to developing your practice.
Your practice is what makes sense to you. If something resonates, do it! If something doesn't resonate, or doesn't feel right, then don't do it. It's that simple. Even this post is only meant to serve as a guide. There are so rules to real witchcraft.
"If you think you're a witch then you are a witch" -Taren S
5 Simple tips to Starting Witchcraft:
#1 Set Up an Altar:
An altar is a great way to start your journey into witchcraft. You can use anything as an altar: A nightstand, a fireplace mantle, a random shelf, whatever is accessible to you. An altar is a space you can use to focus and build your energy, and cultivate your power. Start with keeping it simple, use an altar cloth, a table cloth, or even scarf to set the space. Have some incense handy, and find some ways to make it your own. I like to collect flowers from a public space on my meditative walks and put them in a vase as an offering to my higher self, to the divine. If you're inclined to make it pretty, add some altar trinkets, and things you've collected that you'd like to add to your altar. It's your space, make it personal and yours. I would also definitely add some candles, and begin lighting them nightly, and meditate with them. You can do that by gazing into the flame, or closing your eyes, and just sitting with its energy. Set an intention and pick a color that correlates with that intention.
#2 Have a Grimoire, Book of Shadows, or Journal:
Id say this is probably the most essential tool to starting your witchcraft practice. A Book of Shadows, a BoS, Grimoire, or even just a journal is a great resource to start connecting with yourself, and having a dedicated book to you and your journey. I used to put the moon cycle on my journal entries. If you don't know what to write, I strongly recommend using it as a daily journal; the more you learn about yourself, the more connected you will be to your practice. Then, you can start writing little tidbits of things you've learned along the way into your Book of Shadows, like spells, maybe information on chakras, deities, tarot spreads and the like. Once you start researching things about the Craft, or things that interest you, put them in your BoS! You can write them or find cute little printouts online. Just start.
#3 Consider Learning Divination:
This is also a very beginners tip to witchcraft, but learning divination is a great way to start connecting with your highest self. Aside from tarot and oracle cards, other divination tools could be using a pendulum, learning how to scry, read runes, or even reading bones are some of the many other tools used for divination.. More information on this soon.
#4 Start working with the Moon Cycles:
As both yoga and witchcraft are earth-based practices, learning how to work with the moon cycle is a great start. We as humans are 70% water, and if the moon affects the tides of the ocean, it's no wonder that the moon affects us and our tendencies. Sometimes just simply blaming something on the moon or a mercury retrograde can help me keep a little bit of sanity and not take things so personally. I will have a whole post on the moon cycles soon.
#5 Find a Community:
My favorite way of connecting with witchcraft is having a coven to practice with. Whether it's online or in person, there is something amazing about group energy and working with other witches and other spiritual practitioners, and using that group energy for rituals, spells and manifesting. I used meetup to find my coven, by simply searching "Witches" on meetup.com. Other keywords include pagan, moon circle, meditation groups, etc. Even if it's not the exact fit, connecting with other magickal folk is really powerful, and hopefully my blog has already demonstrated that there is a lot of crossover between other realms and pantheons. As long as you're surrounded by people with good intention, you can embrace a very positive and fulfilling energy exchange and create magick. There are a ton of online communities too! My coven, the Witches Cottage, is under the umbrella "House of Witchcraft", and they have an online coven called "13 Moons" Check them out here!
So to sum everything up, set up an altar, grab some sort of book of shadows or journal so you can start connecting with yourself, consider learning divination, learn the moon cycles and find a community! Start here, start connecting with your tools, and do it daily (or as often as possible). Start here for a full moon cycle, and we'll start building upon this practice in a month or so. Start simple, and you'll grow from there. It's taken me a year and a day for this practice to start feeling comfortable and natural to me, so be gentle with yourself.
Just start, and the magick will unfold. Namaste.
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