9 Practical Tips for New Witches

wodenschild:

tarigrove:

1.  Write down a list
of your current passions, interests, goals, and beliefs.  Knowing
this information can help you to develop your witchcraft and to make it more
personal.  It’s important to feel a deep
connection to your own style of craft, so it is incredibly helpful to
incorporate the things that you love in life.
While it’s a good idea to think of and list serious things, it’s 100%
okay if your list mostly contains entries like ‘shiny things, stuff that smells
good, My Chemical Romance’; you should definitely add entries like that,
because that right there still tells you that you’ll probably enjoy using reflective
objects, aromatherapy, and music in your witchcraft.  The entries on your list can help you to
creatively think of ways to make your magick yours, while still helping you to identify any pre-existing styles
and paths of witchcraft that incorporate elements of your list.

2.  Keep a regular
journal, along with any magick journals that you might have.  Keep track of your health, your dreams, your
moods, your habits, your life in general.
When you are first starting out, it can be difficult to automatically
see how magick affects you.  By keeping a
mundane, regular journal, you’re better able to reference past events against
your magick journals, to see if any changes or unusual entries (negative or positive) occurred at the same time
as something witchcraft-related.

3.  Sign up for as many
guided nature walks and talks as you can.  It’s
always a good idea to know the nature around you, especially if you’re a witch. Guided walks and talks can give you
first-hand experience when it comes to identifying plants, animals, and other
things that you can find in your area.
If it is allowed, remember to bring along a camera and / or a notebook
so that you can record and reference your new knowledge afterwards.

4.  Take an interest in
cooking.  This is an especially good tip
for any witches that are looking to hide their witchcraft.  Learning to cook is a life skill, and doesn’t
tend to draw unwanted attention.  The
food, herbs, and spices that you use all have their own magickal
correspondences and associations, so it really comes down to figuring out some
ingredients that match your magick’s intent, and then finding an actual recipe that
calls for those ingredients.  

5.  Start your own
garden, no matter how small.
Seeds can be affordable purchased at most stores with gardening centers,
and you can grow some herbs in a leftover tin can.  Really, you don’t need a lot of space or cash
to be able to start some sort of garden, whether indoors or outdoors.  Just make sure that wherever you are
planting, you have permission to plant there!

6.  Develop your DIY skills.  Crafting, sewing,
upcycling – spend some time learning about the ‘Do It Yourself’ culture.  Aside from being an excellent way to learn
how to create your own tools and witchy stuff, a lot of the skills that you
will learn can be incorporated into your spells.  So can any supplies that you have on hand for
regular arts and crafts, for that matter.
And when you get right down to it, nobody has to know that your handmade
lavender lip-balm is actually an enchanted item and a dual healing / beauty
spell.  Making anything by hand helps to
give it power, and can be another great way to practice witchcraft
under-the-radar; unless you literally announce that your felt-and-an-old-sock
plushie is actually a poppet, how can anybody know?

7.  Find places to
source your witchy ingredients and supplies.
Look up and scout out any local:

o  
Book stores

o  
Box stores (like Walmart, Target)

o  
Craft stores

o  
Dollar stores

o  
Farm stands

o   Farmer’s markets

o  
Flea markets

o  
Garden stores / Nurseries

o  
Libraries

o  
Hiking trails

o  
Metaphysical / New Age stores

o  
Rockhounding locations

o  
Tea / herb stores

o  
Thrift stores

o  
Rock / crystal / mineral shops

8.  Build a non-fiction
library.  Cookbooks, how-to books, field
guides, books that teach you skills.
History books, scientific magazines and journals, textbooks on any
topic.  Read about first-hand accounts,
theories and practices, facts and trivia.
Read educational books meant for kids, and encyclopedias meant for
months of study.  Don’t be afraid to
check your material against a different source, either.  Finding multiple sources citing a piece of
knowledge is a good habit to develop, especially
if your knowledge deals with the safety or danger of anything.  Whether it was posted online or published in
a book, make sure that the author’s information is accurate!

9.  Collect and upcycle
bottles, jars, tins, and other storage.  It’s a running joke
here on Tumbler: ‘witches love jars’.
But wow is it an accurate
joke.  There have been a couple of times
that I’ve come home with new loose supplies like shells or acorns, only to
stand there and realize that literally all of my other storage is taken and
that unless I want to stick them in a plastic bag, I have to temporarily store
them by taking the last few Piroutte cookies out of the tin and giving it a
quick cleaning (and now you know the exact moment that I thought of posting about this tip! lol).  Practicing witchcraft can
be a really quick way to turn into a self-powered miniature recycling plant; it’s
a lot cheaper to clean that jelly jar than it is to go buy an actual Mason jar,
and it’s usually better for the environment as well ^_^

Not all of these are for everyone, but I like a lot of them.