Picture from the Photographer Kalynn Youngblood, in her series Staged Portraiture and Documenting daily Black Life.

I’ve never seen this name— granted, I’m not actively hunting books either. But heads up.

You don't need to research anything.

There, I fixed it.

You don't have to do thesis-level research to be a proper witch. To be a witch, you literally do just have to self-identify as a witch (even if only in private) and practice something that you acknowledge as witchcraft.

HOWEVER.

Research really does help.

It doesn't have to be a LOT or super in-depth, but having some kind of practical information alongside whatever magical exploration you're doing can be incredibly useful. Whether it's knowing what plants exist in your local biome or understanding the history of the practice you've chosen or learning about the cultural framework of your favorite mythology cycle, I do recommend at least A Bit Of Light Reading.

I place fire in the east, earth in the south, water in the west, and air in the north.

It doesn't matter what path you take to find these elemental heartlands, because they are fairy roads.

Elemental Earth is not in any direction. You can't access it by traveling physically east. Yet it is true that it can be accessed if you search for it in any one direction for long enough. The key is finding how to get there for yourself.

The fairy road to Elemental Earth does not lead to a destination that is south of anyone. Or west, or north, or east of anyone.

It is a road that may begin no matter where you are standing, and no matter which direction you travel in, you may arrive at Elemental Earth.

The trick of it is that you are the one who has got to traverse it, and learn to open it up, and to call things up and down it. You are the cartographer exploring the roads. They are not *unique* to you, you do not make them up, they are not dependent on your whims: but it will be true nonetheless that if you are unable to discover Elemental Earth by traveling West, then you may arrive at your desired destination by traveling East.

If a group or tradition have already explored and documented these roads, do as they advise: if you are on your own, follow your heart.

The pacific ocean is to the west of me. That made a lot of sense. The sun rises in the east. I went from there. I was nice to every old woman I met and I saved ants nests from stones and rescued fish from reeds, and then one day no matter where I was standing a road started at my feet, and no matter where Elemental Earth was I found it by going South.

Now I'm so good at finding Elemental Earth to the south that I think if I tried to find it by going North, I'd learn a lot of new lessons and the spirits and powers and lessons would change. So it's not whims, it's not dependent on you, they are outside of you:

But they're fairy roads. So they can go in any direction and lead to the same destination.

What makes the most sense for you (have you got a huge lake or an ocean right in one direction? etc)

What you're vibing with

More or less what's convenient

Pretty much whatever

And then:

Call the elements in whatever direction you put them in

The sea is to the east of me. Therefore, East is water.

The weather blows in from the west. Therefore, West is wind.

The temperature rises as I travel south. Therefore, South is fire.

The mountains of my home state are to my north. Therefore, North is earth.

Across the internet, I see a lot of people who seem to be asking for permission to do what they want. While I see some validity in getting wisdom from others, I worry that the people asking these questions might miss out on the experience they could get from going ahead and making a good faith attempt.

"Can I do this spell even if I don't have rosemary?" I don't know. Try it!

"Can I use fruit juice as an offering to my goddess?" I don't know. Ask her!

"Can I include a pocket watch in my magic?" I don't know. See if it works!

We ended up abandoning personal and regional canons in favour for a pseudo-canon. To quote Penelope Scott:

"But we've been fucking mean

We're elitist

We're as flawed as any Church

And this faux rad west coast dogma

This isn't so much an "I'm just checking this off before I publish" proof, as it is an "I've spent too many hours staring at this on a screen to edit it properly there" proof, but I've genuinely put thousands of hours of work into this and it's so surreal to hold it in my hands!

I've recently been considering adding a bunch of extra content to it, so it was surprising to see how chonky she already is (almost 500 pages, without front/back-matter, 3cm/1 ¼" thick)

So yeah, this'll be coming at some point this year 🥰

ive been relistening to some of the SHWEPisodes on proclus and i think proclus could have saved abrahamic theology (which like. okay obviously they are different. but like. theyre really not different. the amount of cross-influence in abrahamic theology is crazy. and also mutual influence from the same greek philosophers, which leads to cross-influence via cribbing interpretations of nominally secular philosophy. anyway).

so okay, religion has basically two threads, nirguna (without attributes) and saguna (with attributes). yknow, god as transcendent, indescribable, beyond comprehension, totally detached, etc, vs god as earthly, specific, with attributes and symbols and statues. just the former is boring and sort of without content, leads to deism, just the latter isn't even god, its just like... a powerful guy who might exist. not god, really. so you need both

but how do you have both? theyre contradictory. well, christianity tried to solve this with jesus and it sucks. so. not like that. BUT a mere 400 years later proclus figured it out. and a little bit of it spread around the greco-abrahamic tradition, because his elements of theology was shared around by people who thought it was by aristotle. but mostly, he didnt influence that much, which is too bad

okay so here's proclus' idea. first of all, there's the one. it's the ultimate nirguna. totally transcendent. cause of all being. etc. we cant talk about the one. we cant even talk about what the one ISNT. BUT below the one, there's the henads. the henads are not the one but theyre sort of. related to him. theyre the closest thing to the one than anything else is. and the henads "are" the greek gods. but actually, they just correspond to the greek gods.

from each henad there is a chain to lower and lower levels, with the earth at the bottom. and a statue of athena doesn't look like athena-the-henad. but it resembles her MORE than other earthly things do. and in fact everything is in the chain of one of the henads. so like, if you know a guy, and he has some of hermes' traits, and maybe a facial feature associated with hermes, thats because he's in the henad of hermes. some things, or traits of things, have a better "resonance" with the henads than other things. and because everything is connected via the henads you can do magic, by yknow, influencing things higher up in the chain, which then send their influence back down to other things in the chain (i guess it's less a chain and more a tree).

sometimes ancestor work looks like cooking yourself a healthy meal

sometimes ancestor work looks like taking out the trash and washing the dishes

It's been on my mind a bit but I really think in Witchcraft, a lot of it is finding power. A LOT of it.

You know I talk about my system a lot, building relationships with ally spirits ("correspondences"), evoking and petitioning spirits, laying a compass, carefully storing and distributing energy between spells.

And this is all kind of like farming; you can learn how to cultivate the magical ecosystem around you to carefully seed, grow, harvest, and store power, and to make friends with the gods and spirits within and around this system who help you (or decline to hinder you, which is also very good).

This farming is good because it serves the same function as regular farming, i.e., it's hard work but it provides reliable and predictable resources available throughout the year.

But that's not finding power, that's farming it.

Several months ago I did one of the most powerful workings I had done in a while, which transformed my life. There was no evoking correspondences or compass laying or invocations or spirit offerings.

I found a free-flowing source of incredible power (an eclipse, and I found it by looking up), called it into myself, and asked that it do something specific.

No candles, incense, bells, talismans, or whatever: the actual technique I performed was extremely basic energy work.

The results were humbling, and continue to humble me, and I believe it is probably beyond what I would have been able to accomplish working only through 'farming'.

After all, I am a competent adult. I could build a fish farm. I could learn to keep it regulated and sustained to provide fish all year round.

But it doesn't matter how good of a farmer I am, I'll never be able to compete with the open ocean.

A lot of this stuff about Witchcraft techniques - if it seems like a lot, that's because it is a lot; it seems like hard work because farming is hard work, and it seems like you must plan ahead so much because farmers must plan seasons ahead.

But that's not all of Witchcraft, and homesteading your magic isn't just farming - it's wild foraging, too.

So if all this Traditional stuff seems a bit stuffy and laborious and lacking in spontaneity, perhaps it's good to ask if you're ever leaving the boundaries of your homestead and venturing out into the woods.

New in the Spiral House!

As-If: Punk Magic and the Art of Self-Invention

Up the Magic Punx!

Er... 

Up The Punk Magic?

Ya, that makes more sense.

Another thoughtful zine from the folks at Fiddler's Green Peculiar Parish covers the transformative power of the "As-If" technique in "As-If: Punk Magic and the Art of Self-Invention." This essay by Clint Marsh, originally featured in Fiddler's Green Peculiar Parish Magazine, explores how this powerful approach can help you overcome creative blocks and manifest your dreams.

Through the spirit of DIY in creating its own culture from music to print and other forms of art, chart your path and cast the spell of As-If" until it shows you the way!

16 pages, cardstock cover and with the Fiddler's Green signature copper embossed cover.