I’m Alex (they/them & she/her) agnostic secular witch, animist, 46 year old small business owner, vegan, punk, anarchist, feminist, zinester. https://linktr.ee/alexwrekk NO TERFs. No Nazis (I can't believe that's a thing that needs to be said)
I’m Alex Wrekk (they/she) I am an agnostic secular witch and have built my personal witchcraft practice over 15+ years. I am the owner of Portland Button Works and the Spiral House Shop I am an organizer for CritWitchCon, librarian at the Archive of Witchcraft, Magic, and Occult Zines (AWMOZ), I’m 45 year old punk,vegan, anarchist, feminist, and zinester (itt means I make zines). I identify as white, bisexual, and a relatively cis woman. I love DIY projects, building altars, making charms, collecting jars, filling my pockets with acorns, zines, travel, befriending crows with peanuts, my Jackie Cat, Ian B, my house and home and things I grow in my garden while living in my 120+ year old house in Portland, Oregon.
I have built my own practice and I do not discuss particulars about it very often. I call it DIY Witchery because it is built on my personal DIY punk ethics and methodologies. It takes a hands on and trial and error approach to witchcraft. ie: fuck around and find out magic.
I don’t cast spells so much a build them and then release them. From the outside it probably looks like cottage witchery set loose in a punk house of a philosophy student drop out. In reality, I probably draw a lot on folk magic, traditional witchcraft, and a twist of chaos magic for the fun of it.
I got tired of this being so long so I’m putting a “cut” here.
My witchcraft, as my politics, is intersectional and I work to decolonize my practice.
I do not give away spells or take spell requests, but I’m happy to help brainstorm ideas for spells.
Please note:
I am agnostic
I am a secular witch
I am a “soft” animist
I am not religious
I am not Wiccan
I am not pagan
I do not work with deities as deities but occasionally as archetypes
I do not work with spirits in a way that is relatable to others
I don’t work with auras or chakras
I do not work in the astral
I do not work with runes or ogham
What I post here: reblogs of things I think similarly minded witches might find useful but not necessarily things that are included in my practice, my answers to asks, witch humor, pictures of my garden, talk about the crows that I’m friends with by way of giving them peanuts and telling them secrets, and the occasional personal things or reblog-style correspondence with other tumblr witches.
To get an idea of the flavor of this blog check out these “greatest hits” posts.
New to witchcraft and might have some questions? Check out my “Witchling” tag for resources, tips, and book recommendations to get started. Check there before asking questions because it might have what you need. I get asked frequently about how to start practicing witchcraft and that is a good place to start. Here’s another post with tips about starting a witchcraft practice.
Please check out my DIY Witchery Resource page for more information.
Still got some questions? Ask them here!
When asking questions please keep in mind:
I do not give spells away but I will help you brainstorm ideas for spells.
I am assuming you are asking me for an answer that pertains to my style of agnostic secular witchcraft.
I will get to answering question when I find time to do so
Please do not send messages through the tumblr messaging system unless we have spoken before. Do not send me message for things that should be asks. I will not respond to them.
Other Stuff
My primary blog is @alexwrekk (I’m alexwrekk pretty much everywhere on the internet)
I have an upthewitchypunx instagram and twitter
Gemini/Cancer cusp, rising Sagittarius, Leo moon
linktree
My day job is making custom button at Portland Button Works and running the The Spiral House Shop. We have a thoughtfully curated catalog of things related to witchcraft and magic, lots of books, zines, tarot decks, pinback back buttons, and more. I also have an Etsy shop here.
I wrote two zines about my exploration of secular witchcraft, Brainscan #33 & #34. You can find them on my Etsy here and in the PBW Witch Shop here.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
I love my friends, but if you send me an audio message instead of text, I will not listen to it right away. I will have to schedule a time to do it.
If you want me to respond quickly, do not send an audio message. I'm often listening to podcasts or music or doing something else and have to literally stop everything I'm doing to listen to it and that's just not going to happen when I already have a process going.
The Critical Thinking Witch Collective organizing team has been hard at work behind the cauldrons, and we are thrilled to announce that vendor & community partner applications for CRITWITCHCON2026 are open! https://tinyurl.com/ctwcvendorapplication
In 2026 our overarching theme for CritWitchCon is "Fallow and Feral: Active Paths of Rest." We're talking at length this year about the importance of rest in trying times, ways to incorporate fallowness into the cycles of our practices, disconnecting productivity from worth, and straying off the path to find meaning in the messy, unstructured places outside of the lines.
If you’ve never attended CritWitchCon, here’s what to expect:
3 days of live (& occasionally recorded) virtual content presented from a wide variety of perspectives, centering around secular, nontheistic, agnostic, atheist, skeptical, analytical, and science-minded witchcraft.
Tickets are on sale now!, so save the dates:
September 4-6, 2026 ✨
Vendor & community partner applications are OPEN! We welcome witchy & witch-adjacent small businesses, podcasts, services, & organizations for a collaborative relationship before, during, & after Con. https://tinyurl.com/ctwcvendorapplication ✨
Vendor, Community Partner, and Sponsor Benefits
Full access attendee ticket to the Con!
Advertising during the Con (during breaks, as slides and information) and during upcoming Brews
For 10 months (from Con to Con)...
--> Featured on the CTWC website
--> Inclusion in CTWC Social Media
An optional channel in the Con Discord Server (like a table in an Exhibit Hall) to interact with attendees during the Con. Links, images, special, videos, etc. can be shared in this channel.
Vending is really find at CritWtichCon! You get to attend AND you get a little Discord channel all to you self to set up shop, talk to people, and show you wares!
I don't mean to start a commotion, witches, but EARLY BIRD TICKETS for CRITWITCHCON2026 end this week!
https://criticalthinkingwitches.com/events/
Get your tickets now! We'll have our final Con agenda posted by August 1st, but we are thrilled to welcome such speakers as Diana Rajchel, Ysha the Activist Witch, Benjamin Stimpson, and so many more!
Early Bird Live Event - $40 ✨ Stream live with us and our community members in Zoom and Discord! Includes access to the recorded videos post-Con!
Early Bird Recording Only - $25 ✨ Access to the recorded videos and our community in the Discord!
Scholarships are available! Apply here: https://tinyurl.com/ctwc2026scholarship
In 2026 our overarching theme for CritWitchCon is "Fallow and Feral: Active Paths of Rest." We're talking at length this year about the importance of rest in trying times, ways to incorporate fallowness into the cycles of our practices, disconnecting productivity from worth, and straying off the path to find meaning in the messy, unstructured places outside of the lines.
If you’ve never attended CritWitchCon, here’s what to expect:
3 days of live (& occasionally recorded) virtual content presented from a wide variety of perspectives, centering around secular, nontheistic, agnostic, atheist, skeptical, analytical, and science-minded witchcraft.
Early bird tickets are on sale NOW, so save the dates and get those wands ready:
https://criticalthinkingwitches.com/events/
September 4-6, 2026 ✨
Learn more about us at https://criticalthinkingwitches.com/ ✨
IT IS TIME, witches! Early bird tickets for CRITWITCHCON2026 are now available!
https://criticalthinkingwitches.com/events/
Early Bird Pricing ends 7/26, so get your tickets now!
Early Bird Live Event - $40 ✨ Stream live with us and our community members in Zoom and Discord! Includes access to the recorded videos post-Con!
Early Bird Recording Only - $25 ✨ Access to the recorded videos and our community in the Discord!
Scholarships are available! Apply here: https://tinyurl.com/ctwc2026scholarship
In 2026 our overarching theme for CritWitchCon is "Fallow and Feral: Active Paths of Rest." We're talking at length this year about the importance of rest in trying times, ways to incorporate fallowness into the cycles of our practices, disconnecting productivity from worth, and straying off the path to find meaning in the messy, unstructured places outside of the lines.
If you’ve never attended CritWitchCon, here’s what to expect:
3 days of live (& occasionally recorded) virtual content presented from a wide variety of perspectives, centering around secular, nontheistic, agnostic, atheist, skeptical, analytical, and science-minded witchcraft.
Early bird tickets are on sale NOW, so save the dates and get those wands ready:
https://criticalthinkingwitches.com/events/
September 4-6, 2026 ✨
Learn more about us at https://criticalthinkingwitches.com/ ✨
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
stop letting miserable people on the internet convince you that you must have a concrete, well-constructed opinion on everything that has ever existed.
hi jack, i hope you’re doing as well as you can given the circumstances. i was wondering, if you could edit any book in history (either fixing the end product or just getting your hands on an early copy) what would it be?
oh, the bible. specifically the original king james translation, because a lot of misappropriation and misapplication of christian theology began with british subjugation and cultural dominance. subsequent translations have been derived from this one origin point, each getting more and more convoluted over time. so i would go back in time and rewrite the king james according to the aramaic and hebrew texts that comprised the first versions of the scriptural compilation.
You know we also make custom pinback buttons, right? You can get one or 10,000 but the design process in the same.
At @portlandbuttonworks we get asked this a lot: What’s the difference between the outer shaded part of our designer template and the inner face line?
Thanks for asking! Here is a visual example using one of our actual buttons to show how the template works.
The template ring on your screen is just a guide to help you lay out your artwork. It gets removed before we print, which is why your final preview might look slightly different.
Here is what those zones mean for your finished button:
The Center White Circle (Safe Zone): Keep all important text and faces here. Anything outside this area will curve around the edge and be tucked into the back of the item.
The Shaded Dark Gray Ring (The Bleed): As the text says, THIS BLEED AREA WRAPS TO BACK. Anything placed here will be printed on the curved side edge of the button rather than the flat face. You can see the difference on the left button above where the text wraps around the side, compared to the right button where it stays neatly on the face.
Background Colors: Make sure your background color or image fills the entire circle right out to the edge so you don't end up with white gaps. (We often drop the background color in for you to make sure there are no gaps!)
The Outer Cut Circle: This is the absolute edge of the physical artwork, which is what we line our circle die cutter up with to make sure your design is centered perfectly on the face of the finished buttons.
Got questions about setting up your artwork? Drop them in the comments or check out the (?) help in our web designer!
IT IS TIME, witches! Early bird tickets for CRITWITCHCON2026 are now available!
https://criticalthinkingwitches.com/events/
Early Bird Pricing ends 7/26, so get your tickets now!
Early Bird Live Event - $40 ✨ Stream live with us and our community members in Zoom and Discord! Includes access to the recorded videos post-Con!
Early Bird Recording Only - $25 ✨ Access to the recorded videos and our community in the Discord!
Scholarships are available! Apply here: https://tinyurl.com/ctwc2026scholarship
In 2026 our overarching theme for CritWitchCon is "Fallow and Feral: Active Paths of Rest." We're talking at length this year about the importance of rest in trying times, ways to incorporate fallowness into the cycles of our practices, disconnecting productivity from worth, and straying off the path to find meaning in the messy, unstructured places outside of the lines.
If you’ve never attended CritWitchCon, here’s what to expect:
3 days of live (& occasionally recorded) virtual content presented from a wide variety of perspectives, centering around secular, nontheistic, agnostic, atheist, skeptical, analytical, and science-minded witchcraft.
Early bird tickets are on sale NOW, so save the dates and get those wands ready:
https://criticalthinkingwitches.com/events/
September 4-6, 2026 ✨
Learn more about us at https://criticalthinkingwitches.com/ ✨
The Critical Thinking Witch Collective organizing team has been hard at work behind the cauldrons, and we are thrilled to announce that vendor & community partner applications for CRITWITCHCON2026 are open! https://tinyurl.com/ctwcvendorapplication
In 2026 our overarching theme for CritWitchCon is "Fallow and Feral: Active Paths of Rest." We're talking at length this year about the importance of rest in trying times, ways to incorporate fallowness into the cycles of our practices, disconnecting productivity from worth, and straying off the path to find meaning in the messy, unstructured places outside of the lines.
If you’ve never attended CritWitchCon, here’s what to expect:
3 days of live (& occasionally recorded) virtual content presented from a wide variety of perspectives, centering around secular, nontheistic, agnostic, atheist, skeptical, analytical, and science-minded witchcraft.
Tickets are on sale now!, so save the dates:
September 4-6, 2026 ✨
Vendor & community partner applications are OPEN! We welcome witchy & witch-adjacent small businesses, podcasts, services, & organizations for a collaborative relationship before, during, & after Con. https://tinyurl.com/ctwcvendorapplication ✨
Vendor, Community Partner, and Sponsor Benefits
Full access attendee ticket to the Con!
Advertising during the Con (during breaks, as slides and information) and during upcoming Brews
For 10 months (from Con to Con)...
--> Featured on the CTWC website
--> Inclusion in CTWC Social Media
An optional channel in the Con Discord Server (like a table in an Exhibit Hall) to interact with attendees during the Con. Links, images, special, videos, etc. can be shared in this channel.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
I'm used to the late winter garden itch, but not so familiar with the summer version for my winter garden. I've got seeds burning a hole in my pocket, to mix metaphors.
I'm trying to wait until after wizard camp to get the seeds started. I'm not looking forward to pulling plants to build new beds, but I know it will be worth it.
I apologize if this comes off as rude at all (I genuinely don't mean it that way; I'm just trying to organize my thoughts), but for me, the more I learn about magic from experienced practitioners like yourself, the less invested I am in pursuing it.
To put it in phrasing I've heard used elsewhere on Tumblr, if sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from chores, then I'm not sure that's a burden I'm willing to take on. I struggle enough trying to find the motivation to do my mundane chores; having an extra set of spiritual ones on top of that workload just doesn't sound... well, for lack of better phrasing, "worth it" to me.
Granted, I also think a big part of my feelings on this topic come from my current circumstances. Without getting too far into it, I've become kinda spiritually stagnant as of late, and whatever energies are around me right now don't particularly care for that. (I don't really look (or ask) for signs anymore, but the few I have seen all indicate a need for change/growth in my practice.)
But from my perspective, stepping away from witchcraft feels like finally finding solid ground again after years of trudging through a flooded swamp. Getting any more invested in a magical practice just feels... wrong.
Is it such a bad thing to want to "refuse the call," as it were, and choose to disengage with practicing magic altogether rather than pursue it?
Not rude at all.
The most important part first: no, it's not bad to refuse the call to magic. That's not bad at all. This old post may be of use to you. If witchcraft is something that you can sow into your life like an annual wildflower, and it's not currently/no longer serving you, then why stick with it? What would be the point of that?
(Of this, another post may be helpful for you: growth in witchcraft as shedding of snake-skin.)
"Sufficiently advanced witchcraft is chores" is a bite of a sound bite to be sure, and so I have made this longer post for you stepping it out.
Besides that long post, my other answer to your question is:
I don't think that investing in a magical path is supposed to increase your net difficulty/labor.
This was something that really got me early on. I'd hear practitioners saying how much work and struggle it all is. To which I'd say, sure - but then you have MAGICAL POWERS. You do all this so you can have magical powers which presumably you can use to make your life better.
So can't you then just use your magical powers to untangle, de-escalate, resolve, soothe, improve, and elevate your life in other ways, thus ultimately making your life much better than it was before you got into magic?
Magic is not a zero sum game, for me. I'm not in this for veneration or worship or earth spirituality. I'm in it because I want the utility. I'm here because I want the joy of deep connection with my friends when I'm tranced out and giving readings that zap their socks off. I'm here because I want to see what's behind people's eyes. I want to see how the conversation can go and know the exact words to make it go that way. I want victory, I want success. I want catastrophe and grace, not measured and mixed by a higher power and bestowed upon me but meted by me and sent outwards, downwards, forwards.
I can have all of this. But I myself can only have it one way.
I can only have it if I treat my practice as something so mundane and common that it's likened unto chores, that I put altar tending on my chore chart next to cleaning the bathroom, Saturdays are laundry and warding and wealth. Laundry is an endless chore only if you want endless clean clothes; warding is an endless chore only if you want endless protection.
It's no choice for me any more. I half run on magic now. And so I have to turn the spigot on and water myself first, or else I can never get the mundane chores finished anyway. I am not unique in this, although this is not the path of every Witch.
So if you are saying: this doesn't seem right for me right now, or maybe never again, and stepping away brings relief - then there is no argument from me, I would encourage you to find your solid ground.
But if you are saying, I see all these practitioners who seem to like the chore label, and isn't that overwhelming? isn't it a drag - then, no: for me it is energizing, liberating, fulfilling, actualizing.
And if your life is a big swamp, and you choose to sort it out with magic (there are other ways), then at first it may feel very laborious with very little reward, like the first year of building a new garden. But the returns begin to come, as long as you tend the garden. That's the trade, if you're in it for the harvest.
Your friendly reminder that if you've traded parts of your Self to the otherworld in exchange for power you have to let your spirits dwell within your flesh from time to time, you feel that way because you are a dehydrated toad and you need to get moist in the river of power from whence you were born, hope this helps
I'm sure this was added in good faith but in light of the recent "what is witchcraft" posts and my own recent rant on asking people not to mistake witchcraft for paganism, I'd like to make it clear that this post has nothing to do with paganism and is not a shitpost.
Mark your calendars & warm up those batting arms, witches! It's almost time for a FREE Witches' Brew! ✨⚾️🎲
Saturday August 8th, 2026
10am PST / 1pm EST / 6pm BST / 3am AEST (August 9th) ⚾️🎲
Get your FREE tickets & register here! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1993776723852?aff=oddtdtcreator ⚾️🎲
Our seasonal Witches' Brews are FREE online witchy mini conferences that include potion making (our magical beverage segment), guest presentations, sometimes a hands-on project, and time to socialize & connect with other attendees, Brew guests & hosts, & the CTWC community.
Our Brews are a wonderful way to dip your toe into the CritWitch community, and a great preview of what you can expect from our annual 3-day virtual event CRITWITCHCON.
This month's Witches' Brew is an exploration of sports & games through a magical lens! We'll discover the inherent witchiness of baseball, play with sports mascots as servitors, brew up some refreshing potions, have team time with our community, & more! ⚾️🎲
Witches' Brews are recorded (minus community chat) and available to our paid Patreon subscribers later in the season, so you can revisit our presentations.
Learn more about us at www.criticalthinkingwitches.com
Welcome to the Critical Thinking Witch Collective! Formed in 2021, we came together to make a space for critical thinking witches; witches who research, who apply scientific reasoning, who learn from history, and who question assumptions and biases.
Our name has changed, but our mission remains the same: to bring together a community of critical thinking witches and seekers who respect reason, logic, and science as we also acknowledge the genuine beauty and meaning in the mysterious. And we plan to have fun while we do it.
Connect, learn, and get involved with this community of like-minded witches and seekers from around the world. Join the Collective!
Technology is wild if you think of it sometimes. I was working in my garden this morning and my neighbor was walking her dog but was on a video call with a friend in Poland. I had met the person in Poland at the Polish festival last year so there I was in my pajamas tending my garden and chatting with someone in Poland via a neighbor's phone.
Then I cut down some of our giant mugwort hedge because it is blocking out my veg garden as some of them are 10 feet tall, also going to flower and might keep my neighbors from hating me when mugwort pops up everywhere. Then I promptly washed off my arms because one time I got high from pruning mugwort and not washing off. oops.
It was very hot yesterday (100F/38C) and I got some work done in the morning and then spent most of the day in our air conditioned bedroom with the cats and read more of a book about baseball and magic. I hope to finish off the book today and start on a new one. CritWitch Jul and I are doing some body doubling tomorrow to work on the sportball CritWitch Brew. I do intend to prove that baseball is the most magical sport.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
