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Discussion
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When I first got into this whole thing I remember reading a spellcrafting book at a bookstore. I cried because there was so much I didn’t understand and didn’t have access to.
I feel like I’ve slipped easier into witchcraft by now, but there’s still a lot I feel insecure about. My altar is just a wooden dresser with my stuff in its drawers and on the desk – and the occasional decoration. I consider myself a plant and tea witch, but all that really amounts to is growing my own plants, making tea potions and having a Venus flytrap for a familiar. Nothing fancy.
I sometimes feel insecure that I don’t perform spells as often as some of you on this sub, or that there’s still a lot I don’t get and may never get, and that I still don’t have access to a lot of stuff. I feel like an idiot sometimes.
Are any of you like this? Do you not perform spells as often or something? I need to know if I’m still a valid witch. Because sometimes I just feel like a suck-up with a few books.
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Feeling slightly insecure about how good of a witch I am.
updated 1 year, 2 months ago
2 Members
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Replies
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You are just fine where you are now 🙂 I am old cranky witch. To cranky and tired to make another altar. My spells nowadays are cooking something that nourishes me without poisoning myself in the process.
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Tis a “way of being” as much as a set of practices. And the beauty of thing is, no one judges you for how often you perform rituals or observe the seasons. The craft is wild and wonderful. It chooses you as much as you choose to embrace the old ways. You are a child of the universe. You will ALWAYS be a good enough witch just as you are! ❤️
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I’ve been practicing for about 4 years now and my craft looks pretty much exactly like yours. I don’t even have an altar. Just my oracle card deck, my few little crystals, and my four tarot card stickers from a friend arranged on the shelf over my desk. My practice is just tea and taking care of my jade plant. I don’t remember the last time I casted a spell. I have two sigils drawn in Sharpie on mini post-it notes hanging on opposite walls of my dorm. I don’t own a single witchy book. My Book Of Shadows has been collecting dust since I moved here in September.
Witchcraft is more than an aesthetic. It’s a lifestyle, and it’s built off of working with what you have. Do you think the salem witches had a holographic chrome athame? No!!! They had a kitchen knife if they were lucky.
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Honey.
First thing I’m OLD and I’ve probably been practicing as long as you’ve been alive…
Here’s the thing. Witchcraft (unless you are part of a specific tradition) looks any way you want it to. Does your altar have meaning to you? Then that’s great and it’s perfect exactly as it is. It can and probably will change as you do and that’s good and important too but not until and unless YOU want it to.
Don’t let Instagram and Tiktok and whatever fool you. Witchcraft is NOT an aesthetic. It’s not about stuff. If you were able to spend your money anywhere I’d recommend it be on books but good books OK? Some are MUCH MUCH better than others. Feel free to send a DM if you want some recs.
Go out in Nature if you can- to the beach, to the woods, under the Moon. That’s Witchcraft.
Take lots of notes. Keep a Book of Shadows or a dream journal. Or both. That stuff is a valuable record to look back on. This doesn’t have to be fancy. I used a plain ruled notebook because I’m left handed. I put it in a slightly fancier cover now but for years and years I didn’t. What makes it special is you use it just for this purpose.
Spells? It’s a skill like anything else. It can be learnt and taught but spellcraft does NOT make a Witch. Actually if you’re new I’d recommend NOT doing that until you understand the ideas behind it anyway.
Best of wishes for your journey.
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I get why you feel like this, especially today with witch tok and Instagram witchfluencers all peddling a high production value practice as a business model, but this is a personal life path and as such you shouldn’t be comparing yourself to anyone else. It’s your journey, and everyone’s journey looks different. We all start out different places and want to end up different places. There’s no “should” beyond you should live as authentically as possible. Of course there’s lots you don’t know, there’s lots all of us don’t know (and frankly a lot of the witchfluencers are just making shit up anyway) you should always be learning and growing. You’re right where you’re supposed to be on your journey and if you’re dissatisfied it just means it’s time to take a new step, and you get to decide what that step is. I also don’t do a lot of spell work or manifestation and the like. It’s just not really a big part of my practice and that’s okay too.
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How I got started was follow the full moon and new moon monthly schedule, so I have at least two days a month to practice. I think spirituality is life and it’s a daily thing but it helps to ritualise so you get better at it. Green thumbs is often a green witch thing, I have green thumbs too. Watering your plants, drinking tea or playing with your flytrap is a kind of communion with the supernatural, it’s about deepening it into something magical with meaning and not tedious empty living.
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Lots of good answers here so far but I want to chime in to let you know you’re not alone! I began to recognize myself as a witch a few years ago and I started by simply believing that my power is real. I began to trust my intuition and use it as a tool. I take the power of intention seriously and see it as the first ripple that heralds a tidal wave.
I have an altar – found and gifted objects that hold memory and nature’s spirit. I observe lunar and seasonal holidays, have a love for living and growing things, and am learning how to understand the spirits of the world around me. Sometimes this looks more mystical, sometimes it looks like watering my cilantro, playing with my cats, lighting incense.
I don’t perform ritual spells, because the spells I see in books don’t feel natural to my being. I hope to continue cultivating my own rituals which may include spells at some point.
Don’t let others shame your practice or make you feel less than. I don’t think witchcraft is like other things in this world – you’re not trying to get an A+ or a raise for perfect performance. It’s about tapping into your own power and connecting with the world around you in a way that feels right to you.
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Hi friend, you are valid! Guess who gets to decide it? You!
I am new to witchcraft and it just felt right, ergo I decided I am a witch. Sometimes I do spells, sometimes I just think about them and that’s good enough. I like toying with the different types of witch I can be- tea, art, book, etc. I have an altar that I set up on my craft table and only change it when I feel inspired to. But 8m following my own rhythms and that’s enough. I like to collect witchy things but not necessarily do stuff with them, either. So your drawer sounds perfect! Also, a Venus fly trip?! How cool!
One book that I love is about moons and magic by Stacey demarco. I forget the title but you can google her name, anyway she breaks things down it a super easy and nice to follow way. I didn’t find it too overwhelming for a beginner, and her spells are fairly do-able and adjustable.
Happy crafting!
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Oh yeah. I’ve started down the path about a year ago and sometimes feel I’m in over my head.
I really feel clueless and that makes me feel like a bad witch.
Also I’m finding it hard to shake off 46 years of Catholic upbringing. I’m no longer connected to that faith, yet find myself slipping when praying. Just because I had been doing it all my life and do it without thinking.
I just try to stay positive. We all have to begin somewhere. It’s alright to make mistakes because that’s how we learn.
I wish you the best of luck.
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My fav post on here was one explaining the different types of witches. Some of us are super into it and light candles and dance naked on the full moon or whatever. Some just have a deep connection to nature. And some of us identify with the historical narrative of powerful women who are marginalized. I am the third: I don’t cast spells or believe in magic or anything really. But I am full of rage as a woman in this world and if I could I would burn all that is evil to the ground 🔥 🔥 🔥
Also I like black cats and would totally dance naked in the full moon given the opportunity 😂
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I feel this! A couple years ago, I jumped in with both feet, bought a bunch of books, crystals, tarot cards, downloaded apps. Updated my altar with the seasons. I was in a time of my life when that’s what I needed.
Then life became chaotic. I met my fiance, my sister moved in with me, covid happened, I adopted two puppies, then later I bought a house with my fiance. Now, even though we’ve lived in our house for over a year and my fiancé is very supportive, most of my books, crystals, and altar supplies are still in boxes. I haven’t even done a cleansing ritual for our home or made a spell bottle for it. I still use my tarot deck when I have a question or for a special occasion like a birthday reading and I made a small altar in the bedroom but that’s about it.
My therapist believes I have mild depression (I quit most of my hobbies like painting and cooking around the same time). And we’re working through the question of “what have I moved on from as a person and what do I still enjoy and should get back to.” I still consider myself a witch and live by the same principles – respect for nature and other people, believing in my power and the power of the universe. But I think my practice has changed. At the time I first began to practice I was figuring out who I was. I’d recently left Christianity and an 8 year abusive marriage. I fell in love with the craft and wanted to learn all I could. But I’m in a stable place now and my practice has matured past gobbling up all I can. I think it looks different from person to person and individually it looks different in different phases of our lives.
I do need to cleanse my house though 😬
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Holding you gently.
I’ve been a witch my entire life. I was raised pagan. I can’t read runes, i don’t have a book of shadows, no jars of herbs, no crystal collection, no altars. I haven’t done spells in about 2 years now, with just the occasional tarot reading.
I have a $20 tarot deck off amazon and that’s it. Guess what? I’m still a very good witch. I’m an art witch, i put my intentions into my work and that’s all i need.
Magic is in the mundane. You grow plants? Great! You’re doing magic every day by providing those plants with good intentions and care. You make tea potions? Even better!
I promise you with all my heart you don’t need anything fancy. You don’t need wands or 1000 types of herbs or expensive rocks. If you want and can access those things that’s great. But if not, it doesn’t make you any less.
What you don’t understand, you can learn, or at least know that you don’t have to do or understand everything to be a witch.
What matters is not what you have but what you do with what you have. Just remember, do no harm, take no shit, and do what comes naturally. All the rest is just bells and whistles.
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Couple of comments here, all of which I’ve made before on this sub:
“Rules? Ain’t no rules in a knife fight!” — *Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid*
About half a century ago, I was visiting my grandparents, who had a subscription to both *Popular Science* and *Popular Mechanics,* which I had never seen before. In one of them was an article I’ve remembered for half a century. Sylvania, the lighting company, was working on an early prototype for a sensing switch that would turn on the lights in a room when someone walked in, and turn them off when they left. (While it’s still not routine to find tech like this in the wild, back then it was absolutely *Star Trek-*level stuff.) The Sylvania project manager made this comment that has always stuck with me: “The goal of any engineering effort is simple: keep the service, eliminate the tool.” In that sense, what matters is not the tool, but whatever the user ultimately wants to accomplish.
To me, magical tools and practices are just that–tools, with all the human-interaction implications: some practitioners swear by tarot, while others are fonder of wandwork. Same thing as any craft: some carpenters will tell you that a metal-handled hammer is superior, and other will say that anyone who uses anything other than a wooden-handled hammer is a degenerate not fit to identify as a craftsperson at all. Humans still have a hard time differentiating between *this is not for me* and *this is bad and no one should do it.*
It seems to me that grading one’s practice is a lot like grading poetry, or sex: the phenomenon is so all-encompassing that assigning a letter grade is pointless, if not actively insulting. Whether there’s a right way or wrong way to practice the Craft is well above my lustergrade, although there are a few commonly-accepted guidelines: do no harm, but take no shit. We come in peace, but we mean business (in Janelle Monae’s memorable formulation). Honor those who came before and improve the world for those who will follow. Touch the earth while you reach for the stars.
I think it’s marvelous that you’re practicing, and that you’re taking the time to figure out exactly how your practice should look. As each of us is unique, so, too, should be our spiritual practice. I hope you’re eager to see what you come up with!
