Why Training Matters in Witchcraft

Intuition Is Not Enough

There is a phrase that circulates often in modern witchcraft spaces: “Just follow your intuition.”

It is usually said with good intentions. It is meant to reassure, to empower, and to remove fear or self doubt from the equation. And intuition does matter. It is often where the path begins. But when intuition is treated as the whole of the work rather than the place where the work starts, something essential is missing.

Intuition by itself is perception. It tells you that something is happening. It does not automatically tell you what that something is, how it functions, or what it requires of you over time.

In every other discipline that we take seriously, we understand this without much argument. A musician may have a remarkable ear, but they still study theory, technique, and form. A gifted actor still trains breath, timing, and language. A talented artist still learns anatomy, composition, and how materials behave under stress. Skill develops because talent is given structure, repetition, and accountability.

Witchcraft is no different.

It is a practice that works with power, symbolism, altered states, and perception. Those things carry weight. They shape how a practitioner understands themselves and the world around them. Feeling can guide someone toward the work, but feeling alone does not teach how to interpret experiences, how to contain what is opened, or how to live responsibly with the results.

This is where training enters the picture, and it is important to be clear about what that means. Training does not automatically imply a coven, a formal initiation, or a single mentor. Many witches develop their practice independently, and self directed training can be real and effective work. But self training still requires discipline. It requires study, repetition, reflection, and a willingness to question one’s own conclusions. It asks for commitment to learning, rather than reliance on whatever happens to arise in the moment.

Without that commitment, it becomes very easy to mistake emotional intensity for insight, imagination for contact, or desire for meaning for meaning itself. That confusion is common, and it is understandable. It is also preventable.

Training gives intuition context. It gives experience a framework. It allows perception to deepen into understanding, rather than remaining a series of powerful but unexamined moments.

Feeling Is Where Most Witches Begin

Most witches come to the Craft through feeling first. A sense of recognition. A pull toward symbols, seasons, ritual, or the unseen. Something resonates before it can be explained, and that resonance matters. It is often the doorway.

That initial sensitivity is not a flaw. It is the reason many people find their way to witchcraft at all.

But feeling, on its own, is only the beginning of perception. It alerts you that something is present. It does not automatically tell you what that presence is, where it comes from, or how it behaves once engaged.

Without training, experiences tend to blur together. Everything feels significant. Everything feels charged. Over time, that lack of distinction can make it difficult to tell whether an experience is symbolic, psychological, energetic, spiritual, or some combination of all of the above. The work becomes intense, but not necessarily clear.

This is where many practitioners get stuck.

They have experiences, sometimes very powerful ones, but no reliable way to interpret them. They feel movement, emotion, or presence, but they do not yet have the tools to understand what kind of movement they are sensing, or what to do with it once it arises.

Training slows this process down in a useful way. It teaches you to observe rather than immediately conclude. It encourages you to revisit experiences instead of building identity around them. It creates space between perception and meaning, which is where discernment develops.

Over time, that space becomes invaluable.

It allows a practitioner to notice patterns rather than isolated moments. It helps separate imagination from trance, emotional release from energetic shift, symbolism from contact. None of these distinctions diminish the experience. They deepen it.

Feeling does not disappear with training. It refines. It becomes quieter, steadier, and more trustworthy. Instead of pulling you in every direction at once, it begins to point with greater precision.

This is how perception matures into practice.

What Training Actually Provides

Training in witchcraft does not arrive all at once. It accumulates slowly, often quietly, through repetition, study, reflection, and lived experience. Its effects are not always dramatic, but they are stabilizing. Over time, training changes how a practitioner relates to their own perceptions and to the work itself.

One of the first things training offers is language.

When experiences can be named, they can be examined. Vocabulary does not reduce mystery. It gives the practitioner a way to think clearly about what is happening without immediately turning it into myth, identity, or belief. Naming creates a small but crucial distance, and within that distance, understanding can begin to form.

Training also provides containment.

Containment is one of the most overlooked aspects of magical practice. Grounding, boundary setting, and energetic hygiene are not embellishments or optional habits. They are foundational skills that allow the work to remain sustainable over time.

Containment allows a practitioner to open and close deliberately. It teaches how to enter altered states without becoming lost inside them, and how to return fully present afterward. This is about stability. Stability is what allows power to be engaged repeatedly without eroding the practitioner’s sense of self or balance in daily life.

Another gift of training is discernment.

Discernment develops when a practitioner learns to pause before drawing conclusions. It encourages revisiting experiences rather than immediately assigning meaning to them. Over time, this practice sharpens perception.

Discernment helps a witch recognize:

  • when something is symbolic rather than literal
  • when an experience arises from the psyche rather than from external contact
  • when emotion is moving through the body versus when energy is shifting
  • when imagination is active versus when trance is deepening

These distinctions are not rigid categories. They are points of orientation. They allow the practitioner to work with what arises rather than being carried by it.

Training also deepens ethical awareness.

Ethics in witchcraft are not abstract rules imposed from outside the practice. They arise through relationship. Relationship to oneself, to others, to spirits, to land, and to the unseen. Training encourages reflection on impact and responsibility, to notice how actions ripple outward rather than stopping at intention.

Ethical training asks difficult questions. It asks not only what can be done, but what should be done, and why. It also asks at what point action itself becomes the wrong choice. Learning when to leave something untouched requires clarity.

Perhaps most importantly, training builds reliability.

A trained practitioner learns how they respond under pressure, fatigue, emotional stress, and uncertainty. They learn what their strengths are and where their blind spots tend to appear. This self knowledge is not glamorous, but it is invaluable.

Reliability is what allows intuition to be trusted. It becomes steadier and more consistent. It can be tested against experience. It can be returned to. It can be questioned without collapsing.

This is how practice matures.

The Myth of the Natural Witch

There is a persistent idea in modern witchcraft that some people are simply born knowing how to do the work. The natural witch is often described as intuitive, sensitive, gifted, and immediately capable. Experiences come easily. Perception feels effortless. The work feels familiar rather than learned.

Sensitivity does exist. Some people perceive more readily, remember faster, or slip into altered states with little effort. That is real, and it should not be dismissed. But sensitivity is not the same thing as mastery.

Untrained sensitivity tends to magnify everything at once. Emotional states, imagination, memory, desire, and genuine perception arrive together, layered on top of one another. Without structure, it becomes difficult to tell which thread is being pulled at any given moment. The work feels intense, meaningful, and deeply personal, but it often lacks clarity.

Over time, this can lead to exhaustion or confusion rather than growth. Experiences accumulate without integration. Power is felt, but not always understood. Insight appears, but it is not consistently grounded. The practitioner may move from one moment of intensity to the next without developing a stable relationship to the work itself.

Training does not diminish natural sensitivity. It gives it somewhere to settle.

With training, sensitivity becomes directional rather than overwhelming. Perception develops edges. Experiences can be revisited, tested, and understood within a larger context rather than treated as isolated revelations. What once arrived all at once begins to sort itself into patterns.

The idea of the natural witch often carries an unspoken pressure to remain untrained, as though study or discipline would somehow contaminate authenticity. But no other craft expects raw talent to remain untouched in order to stay real. Art, music, and performance all recognize that skill matures through engagement, not avoidance.

Witchcraft is no different.

Sensitivity is an opening. Training is what allows that opening to remain intact over time.

Why This Matters Now

Witchcraft is more visible now than it has been in a very long time. Books, social media, online communities, and aesthetic representations have made the Craft accessible to people who might never have encountered it otherwise. That accessibility has value. It has allowed people to reconnect with practices that were once hidden, suppressed, or quietly transmitted.

Visibility also changes how a practice is approached.

When witchcraft is framed primarily as identity, aesthetic, or emotional expression, the slower work of training can fade into the background. Feeling becomes central. Experience becomes currency. Intensity is mistaken for depth. The pressure to have something happen, to feel something meaningful, can quietly replace the patience required to learn how the work actually functions.

This environment does not encourage discernment. It rewards immediacy.

Without training, practitioners are often left to navigate powerful experiences alone, without context or support. They may interpret everything symbolically, literally, or personally, without having the tools to sort one layer from another. Over time, this can lead to confusion, burnout, or a loss of trust in one’s own perception.

Training offers a counterweight to that pace.

It creates room for slowness, reflection, and repetition. It encourages practitioners to sit with experiences rather than immediately narrating them. It reminds us that not every moment requires interpretation, and not every experience needs to be shared or acted upon.

In a time when certainty is often rewarded and doubt is treated as weakness, training restores the value of questioning. It normalizes not knowing. It allows practitioners to hold complexity without rushing toward conclusion.

This matters because witchcraft is not only personal. It is relational. It shapes how people engage with power, responsibility, and meaning. When those engagements are unexamined, the consequences do not stay contained within the individual.

Training does not make the Craft less accessible. It makes it more sustainable.

Closing

Training in witchcraft is not about authority, hierarchy, or proving legitimacy. It is about relationship. Relationship to perception, to power, to consequence, and to time.

Intuition opens the door. Sensitivity allows entry. What determines whether someone can remain in the work over years rather than moments is how that opening is tended.

Training teaches patience with uncertainty. It teaches how to listen without rushing to interpret, how to hold experience without immediately acting on it, and how to recognize when clarity has arrived and when it has not. It asks for attention rather than certainty, and for responsibility rather than performance.

This kind of practice is quieter than many people expect. It does not always announce itself. It does not promise constant intensity or easy answers. What it offers instead is depth, stability, and the ability to return to the work again and again without losing oneself along the way.

Witchcraft has always required care. Care in how it is practiced, care in how power is held, and care in how meaning is made. Training is one expression of that care.

It is not a rejection of intuition.
It is a commitment to honoring it well.

Twelve Years Beneath the Thorn: A Reflection on the Founding of the Wild Blackthorn Tradition

By Ravensworth (Lady Nyt)

On the night of November 3rd, 2013, beneath a new moon in Scorpio, the first spark of the Wild Blackthorn Tradition was lit. The Samhain fires had barely cooled, the veil still thin, and we, Lord Onyx and I, stood in sacred space to weave together two lineages, two living rivers of Craft.

From the Jolean Tradition, guided by my first priestess, Lady Teara, came the Celtic-eclectic current rooted in 1734 and the Earth Mother’s Child Church of Wicca. From the Draconian Tradition, under the mentorship of Lady Lionrhod and Lord Ash, came the fierce, wyrd wisdom of Welsh-Celtic and Wysardan paths. These streams joined that night, mingling into something wild, protective, and sovereign. The child born of that union was the Wild Blackthorn.

The Words That Began It All

During that first rite we spoke of vision and creation, of love and freedom, of forging a new social order grounded in the divine feminine’s compassion and the divine masculine’s courage. We invoked the Morrígan, the Phantom Queen, to stand as our patroness, and called upon the Blackthorn tree, symbol of strength, purification, justice, and fate.

“The Blackthorn gives us the authority to banish. It brings with it destiny, fidelity, guidance, independence, influence, and magic… The strong hand of fate and of outside influences that must be obeyed.”

Those words, spoken twelve years ago under that dark Scorpio sky, still echo through every circle we cast.

The Years of Growth and the Turning of the Wheel

Twelve years.
A full cycle of the zodiac, a dozen moons of years, the wholeness before rebirth.

From that single circle have grown many: groves and covens, circles and classrooms, each carrying the essence of that original vow. We’ve walked through seasons of light and shadow, laughter and loss. We have watched seekers become dedicates, and dedicates become initiates. We’ve seen our priesthood rise and our Wysards refine their arts.

The Wild Blackthorn has flourished in Orlando, Tampa, Asheville, Danbury, and in the desert winds of Nevada and Arizona. Our circles have stretched across states and through screens, into new friendships and distant hearths.

Every seeker who has stood in our circles has carried away a spark, and those sparks have kindled new fires in places we have yet to see.

Lessons from the Thorn

The Blackthorn is a teacher of paradox. Its blossoms are soft, its thorns sharp. It protects and it prunes.
Our Tradition has known both blessings and trials, seasons where circles broke, where paths diverged, where trust was tested. Yet from every wound, new shoots have sprung.

The lesson of the Thorn is resilience.
It grows in wild places. It thrives in poor soil. It flowers even after frost.
So too have we.

Every turning of the wheel has deepened our magic and matured our understanding of what it means to be a living tradition. We have learned to teach with patience, to speak with integrity, and to lead with open hands rather than closed fists. We have learned that lineage is not a chain; it is a root system.

The Living Grove

What began as a single vow beneath a new moon has become a living grove of witches, priests, and wysards, united by shared intention and bound by shared experience.

Each year our tradition grows more distinct, more self-aware, and more connected to the mystery that first called us. Our rituals have evolved, our theology refined, our cosmology expanded into a rich synthesis of myth, magic, and metaphysics.

We have built not a community. Specifically, one that values both depth and discovery, reverence and rebellion.

And though faces have changed, the spirit of Blackthorn endures: fierce in protection, wild in freedom, rooted in justice and wisdom.

Looking Toward the Thirteenth Year

The number twelve marks completion, the closing of a cycle. The thirteenth year now approaches, the number of transformation, of witches, of crossing thresholds.

May the year ahead open new paths, forge new friendships, and strengthen old bonds. May our tradition continue to grow as a light in the deep places and a flame at the world’s edge.

We honor the founders, the elders, and every student and seeker who has shared in this journey.
We honor the Morrígan, our guide and patroness, who watches with sharp eyes from the branches of the Blackthorn.

Twelve years beneath the Thorn, and still we rise.
So mote it be!

Beneath the Blackthorn Moon

Great Queen of the Raven’s Wing,
Morrígan of the whispering dark,
You who have watched our steps these twelve long years,
through bloom and thorn, through circle and storm,
We call you once more beneath the new moon’s gaze.

Remember the vows made in your shadow,
when first we set our blades to the briar
and carved our names into the living wood.

We have walked through joy and fracture,
through the flowering of friendship
and the pruning of loss.
Each wound has bled its lesson;
each scar has become a sigil of power.

Bless again the hands that cast the circle,
the hearts that teach, the voices that sing.
Bless the seekers who wander our way,
and the elders whose roots hold us steady.

May the thirteenth turning open new paths.
May they be paths in truth.
May they be paths in wisdom.

Beneath your black wings and the Blackthorn’s crown,
may we continue to grow wild and true,
our faith a flame that endures the frost.

So mote it be.

Witchfire for the Full Moon at Samhain

The year turns and the dark leans in. Samhain asks for clean work and honest power. This is a good time to speak plainly about Witchfire.

By Witchfire I mean the inner current a witch raises and directs. It is not a literal flame. It is will, breath, and spirit gathered into one stream and put to work. When it rises, practice feels steady and exact. When it slips, everything thins out. The body knows the difference. Some feel warmth in the chest or hands, others a fine tingling along the spine, and others a cool bright pressure behind the eyes. Breath slows. Attention sharpens. The aim and the body line up.

Raising Witchfire is simple. Sit or stand with your spine easy and your jaw loose. Breathe in to a quiet count of four and out to a quiet count of six, three cycles. Speak one sentence about the result you are after. Say it once and mean it. Wake a little rhythm in the body: rub your palms, tap your heel, drum the table. Then go still and notice the moment when your attention comes into one piece. That shift is the first rise of Witchfire.

Holding and shaping it is also simple. Give the current a home and a job. A candle can be a hearth. A cauldron of sand, an iron key, a length of cord, a mirror, or the circle itself can hold it just as well. Keep the aim to one clear line. Bring the power up with breath or chant, then release it into the vessel or act that fits the work. When you are done, close clean. Thank what you called, release what should go, and seal the space. Ground with food and warm water, and rest your senses.

Here are three ways to bring Witchfire into practice at Samhain. Choose the one that suits your house and your tools.

Iron and Salt. Set a small dish of salt on the altar and place an iron key or nail in your palm. Breathe the way I described above and speak your single sentence into the iron. Stand the iron in the salt and let your hands grow warm or bright with focus. On a long, steady exhale, pour the current into iron and salt and say, quietly, that it is held and working. When you are ready to end, cover the iron with a bit more salt and say that it is seen and sealed. This is a dry, steady way to work in a small space.

The Witchfire Candle. If flame speaks to you, set one candle in a safe holder or in sand. Settle your breath, name your aim once, and trace a small circle above the wick as you whisper that this light will answer yours. Light the candle and, on the next few exhales, press the inner heat into the flame. Hold your hands near it and feel the link take. When the working rests, snuff the light and tell it to rest while the work continues.

Cord and Breath. Take a length of red or black cord in both hands. Breathe to four and six and speak your aim. With each inhale, feel the current rise from chest to hands. With each exhale, feed that current into the cord. After several breaths you will feel the cord wake in your grip. Tie a simple overhand knot to anchor what you have set. Wear the cord for a time, or lay it across the altar. When it has done its job, untie the knot, breathe once, and tell it the work is done and grounded.

If you lead a group at Samhain, consider a short call and answer to raise Witchfire together. Keep it spare. A leader calls “Fire of will,” the circle answers “Rise and be ready,” repeated a handful of times until the current stands up in the room. Move it into the shared vessel or act without hurry. Close well.

Samhain can stir memory and strong feeling. Work within your limits. If you become lightheaded, slow down, sit, and breathe. Eat something warm afterward. Sleep on the results before making large decisions. Write what you felt and what you saw, especially the first clear image or phrase that rose when the power came up. Over time your body will learn its own signs and your hands will know which vessel suits which task.

Samhain invites honest work. Witchfire is the power that makes that work real. Raise it with breath. Give it a clear job. House it in something that suits your hand and your house. Close well and eat. That is enough.

Blessed be.

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Blood and Story: A Witch’s Reflection on Violence and Myth

The Flashpoint

The shot that killed Charlie Kirk echoed far beyond the campus where it was fired. Within minutes, the story became more than the death of one man: it became a battlefield of narratives. Some rushed to make him a martyr for free speech. Others responded with suspicion, disbelief, or even callous dismissal. In the age of instant myth, violence never remains a single act; it multiplies into symbols, slogans, and sharpened lines between us.

Kirk’s assassination is not alone. In Colorado, children once again fled classrooms under fire, another mass shooting shattering the illusion of safety in American schools. Days earlier, a Ukrainian girl was stabbed to death in what police described as a hate crime. Three different acts of violence, three different stories rising up around them. One became a call to martyrdom, one a weary echo of America’s ongoing nightmare, one a gathering of grief and candles. Together, they reveal not just the brutality of the acts themselves, but the sickness in how we metabolize them.

The Machinery of Story

Each death has been pulled into a story almost immediately:

  • Charlie Kirk’s assassination was politicized instantly, with voices casting him as a martyr for free speech, even before investigators released their findings.
  • The Colorado school shooting slid into numb resignation: another one, the endless refrain of classrooms turned into killing fields. Its consequence is not outrage but fatalism.
  • The Ukrainian girl’s stabbing sparked community mourning, vigils, fundraising, remembrance, and grief gathered around her family rather than mythic posturing.

Three acts of violence, three responses: martyrdom, resignation, mourning. None of them restore the lives lost. But they reveal how fractured we are in our ways of absorbing death, how story shapes consequence more than the act itself.

History and Evidence

Violence has always had a political edge in America. The peak of left-wing extremist violence came in the 1960s and 70s, when groups like the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army turned to bombings, assassinations, and robberies as a language of revolution. That history is real.

But research from the University of Maryland’s START database and the National Institute of Justice shows that in the decades since, the balance shifted. Far-right extremist violence now outpaces all other forms of domestic extremism, more frequent, more lethal. START’s comparative study of left-, right-, and Islamist extremism concluded the same: while the far-left is not absent, the far-right has dominated politically motivated killings in the United States in recent decades.

Examples abound:

  • The El Paso Walmart massacre (2019) – 23 people killed in an explicitly white-supremacist, anti-immigrant attack.
  • The Jacksonville Dollar General shooting (2023) – racially motivated, with the shooter leaving behind a racist manifesto.
  • The Minnesota legislators’ shootings (2025) – Democratic Speaker Melissa Hortman killed, others wounded, with a hit list of ~70 Democratic officials and abortion-rights advocates.
  • Even the Trump rally shooting (2024), often cast as a “radical leftist” attack, was carried out by a registered Republican described by his classmates as conservative, with Trump signs at home.

Violence is not owned by one side. To claim it is “nine times out of ten” leftist is to abandon clarity for caricature.

Fallout and Escalation

The consequences of Kirk’s assassination are unfolding quickly, not only in grief but in rhetoric and reaction.

  • Militant Rhetoric Ramps Up
    Fox News host Jesse Watters declared, “They are at war with us… we’re gonna avenge Charlie’s death in the way Charlie would want it.” Other right-wing commentators have echoed similar tones, framing the assassination as a call to arms rather than a tragedy to be grieved. The language of vengeance and war has entered the political bloodstream.
  • Threats Against HBCUs
    In the immediate aftermath, multiple Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) received bomb threats and went into lockdown. FBI officials have said many were non-credible, but the disruption was real: canceled classes, heightened security, fear in places already vulnerable. Even when hoaxes, such threats seed lasting anxiety and normalize the expectation of danger.
  • Authoritarian Impulse
    Some voices are already suggesting that this moment requires extraordinary measures: equating dissent with violence, calling for the obliteration of the Democratic Party “as a method of consolidation of power.” These whispers of authoritarianism, clothed in the language of security, reveal the deeper danger: that tragedy can be turned into a pretext for suppression.
  • White-on-White Reality
    From what the administration has released so far, this assassination appears to be white-on-white crime. Yet the rhetoric paints it as a racialized or left-right war. This distortion fuels polarization while erasing the truth: that violence crosses racial and political lines, and cannot be neatly owned by one side.

This is how violence breeds: not only in the act itself, but in the escalation that follows, in the words that shape how society responds.

Witchcraft and the Deeper Lens

The witch does not look only at the act, but at the cauldron into which it falls. What has been poured in, anger, grief, fear, politics, begins to brew, and what bubbles up shapes the collective future. If we pour in distortion, we will breathe poison. If we pour in clarity, there is still the possibility of medicine.

Violence is shadow. But the greater shadow is the myth that follows it: martyrdom wielded as weapon, resignation that numbs us to change, fear used to consolidate power. Witchcraft teaches that story is spell, and spells shape reality. The question is whether we allow ourselves to be bound by the spells of propaganda, or whether we weave a counter-spell of truth.

Witch’s Charge

We live in a time when every act of violence is seized and reshaped, turned into myth before the blood has dried. Some deaths are weaponized, some are numbed into statistics, some are held in mourning. But in every case, the danger is the same: that we lose clarity.

The witch cannot afford that. Our work is to stand at the crossroads where myth and fact collide, and to speak with precision. To refuse one-sided stories, even when they flatter our leanings. To look at the cauldron and name what is really there.

The charge is this:

  • Do not let violence become another’s weapon in your hands.
  • Do not numb yourself into silence.
  • Do not weave myths that erase complexity.

Instead, guard the vessel. Pour truth into it. Stir with compassion, boundary, and fire. And when the world clamors for easy answers, be the one who holds the line of clarity.

The Seven Sisters of Havenwood and the Age of the Hoarders

Understanding what has really polarized America

I came across a dark little fiction not long ago, a YouTube tale set in a place that never was, called Havenwood. In the story there were seven sisters who tended the land with ritual care. They did not age. They healed cows and mended breech births. They could coax abundance from soil and bones and breath. In return, the town prospered. No famine. No plague. No ruin beyond repair.

Except there was a price.

No one in Havenwood could become what they might have been. No one left. No one risked. No one changed. Possibility itself was tithed to the sisters. The town received comfort and plenty, and gave up the future. It was a bargain for stasis. It was prosperity that did not grow. It was a clock that did not tick.

The story named its fear plainly. Immortality for one can become stagnation for the many. The beneficiaries were not vampires with fangs. They were caretakers, soft voiced and steady handed, who guarded a field where nothing ever truly died and, therefore, nothing ever truly lived.

The tale is fiction. Yet it rang like a struck bell.

From campfire to lab bench

Once the image of Havenwood had lodged under my skin, I found myself looking out at our world with new eyes. The question rose of its own accord. Are there people, right now, who are pursuing immortality in earnest?

The answer is yes. There are companies with vaults of money and brilliant scientists working to tame the chemistry of age. There are labs seeking to erase cellular scars and rewind the body’s clocks. Unity Biotechnology has chased the quiet cull of senescent cells. Calico has funded immense basic research on the biology of aging. Altos Labs and Retro Biosciences have poured lifetimes and fortunes into reprogramming the epigenetic code. The Buck Institute and the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing have tilled the deep soil of discovery that makes such ventures thinkable at all.

Not one of them has conquered death. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. That is not the point. The point is the posture. The point is the direction of the gaze. In boardrooms and clean rooms, in headlines and hope, a philosophy is taking shape. It does not meet mortality as an inevitability to be dignified. It treats death as a defect in the machine.

This is where Havenwood’s fiction becomes a mirror. Because what it reflects is not only a scientific project. It is a spiritual one.

The two ways through the world

There are, as I see it, two ways to be alive.

One way is the mortal way. This way hears a clock. It knows that life is precious because it ends. It plants trees whose shade we will not see. It builds schools for children we will never meet. It saves a river and a language and a song because the river and the language and the song are not ours to keep. It accepts that grief is the tax we pay for love. It turns outward. It gives.

The other way is the hoarder’s way. This way pretends not to hear the clock. It acts as if there will always be more. More time. More power. More territory. More attention. It builds moats and vaults and cages and calls them safety. It freezes what it owns so that nothing can take its place. It denies that grief has a rightful home, then lives inside grief’s shadow without a name for it. It turns inward. It keeps.

The first way is tied to existential truth. Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard’s faith rests on the leap because the abyss is real. Albert Camus finds rebellion and tenderness because meaning cannot be guaranteed by any god or king. Martin Heidegger speaks of being toward death as a clarifying lens. The mortal way is not morbid. It is honest. It is adult.

The second way is a kind of modern alchemy. The old adepts brewed elixirs and sought philosopher’s stones. The new adepts culture cells and edit genes. The symbols have changed. The appetite has not. I have called this posture technological transcendentalism. It dreams of lifting the self out of history, out of decay, out of the commons, out of obligation, out of the cycle that binds us to one another. It does not want to be human. It wants to be an exception.

The gardener and the hoarder

If you want an image for the first way, picture a gardener. The gardener saves seeds. The gardener prunes not to diminish, but to bring the rose to bloom. The gardener tends what came before and prepares what will come after. The gardener lives with seasons in the body. To be mortal is to learn the grammar of winter and spring. To be mortal is to compost what we cannot keep and feed the roots.

If you want an image for the second way, picture a hoarder. The hoarder blocks the door with boxes. The hoarder stacks up newspaper towers until the rooms cannot be used. The hoarder keeps because the hoarder fears, and the keeping grows the fear. To hoard is to deny the season. To hoard is to choose airless rooms over changing weather. Hoarding does not preserve life. It mummifies it.

There is a cruder metaphor I once heard, and I have never forgotten it. Immortality would be like wearing the same pair of underwear forever. At first you laugh. Then you flinch. You can feel it, how a thing that is fine for a day or a month would become unbearable if it never changed.

Call it silly. I call it honest.

For me, this is Existential Humanism versus Technological Transcendentalism. I know those sound like heavy, academic words, and most people who don’t wade through philosophy books may not know exactly what they mean. But here’s the truth: you don’t need to. You’ve felt it. You’ve lived it. One way says that because our lives are finite, we must create, give, and plant for others. The other says that because we fear endings, we must hoard, control, and try to escape the cycle altogether. These are the two ways within the world, and they are colliding in our time with a ferocity we can no longer ignore.

The burden of forever

Literature teaches this lesson in parable after parable. Anne Rice gave us vampires who are beautiful and broken by endlessness. The myth of Tithonus gives us a man granted immortality without youth, who withers without release. The Wandering Jew must walk the earth without a homecoming. Even the ancient figure of Midas carries the same warning. What you turn to gold cannot feed you. What you make untouchable cannot embrace you back.

The seven sisters of Havenwood are in this lineage. Their tenderness and their terror are the same thing. They guard a field where nothing changes. They serve a town that never grows. They are the illusion of safety made flesh.

And here is the heavier truth. You do not have to be immortal to live inside the hoarder’s spell. You only have to align your life with denial. You only have to refuse the season. You only have to mistake control for care.

America, now

This polarity exists everywhere. It is older than our maps. Yet I do not think it has ever been brighter, harsher, or more urgent than it is in the United States at this moment.

On one side I see gardeners. They put food in community fridges. They teach children to read even when the books are banned. They plant memorials for the lost and plant saplings for those not yet born. They build co-ops, clinics, classrooms, and choirs. They are mortal and do not hide from that fact. I have seen their hands dirty and their eyes bright.

On the other side I see hoarders. Some of them are billionaires who speak of living longer than kings and act as if they already do. Some of them are oligarchs who dream of a state captured so completely that no election can uproot them. Some of them are politicians who promise winning as a permanent climate. Some of them are followers who will never know private islands or bespoke medicine, yet hoard grievance and ammunition and myth the way their leaders hoard money and attention.

Not every supporter of a strongman believes in immortality with the lips, but the soul can believe what the slogans deny. The pattern is enough. The posture is enough. You can see it in the way everything becomes a possession. Truth. History. Bodies. Books. Territory. The future itself. The hoarder’s creed is simple. If I cannot own it, then no one should have it. If I cannot keep it, then I will break it.

This is not a debate about left and right. This is a divergence of spirit. Mortals and mock immortals. Gardeners and hoarders. Those who accept the season and those who salt the earth.

Havenwood returns

Return to the sisters. The townspeople prospered in a narrow way. The cow stood. The child breathed. The roof did not leak. But no one left for the next valley. No one apprenticed in a craft that did not already exist. No one wrote a book that had not already been told.

This is the hoarder’s trick. It sells safety and calls it freedom. It sells sameness and calls it peace. It sells dependency and calls it community. It flatters your fear of change until you cannot tell the difference between care and captivity.

In that light, the laboratories of immortality and the rallies of strongmen look like two branches of the same tree. They promise a life without endings. They promise a country without winter. What they deliver is a freezer.

And if you want to see that freezer, look around. Once, we were visionary. Once, we reached for the moon. Once, we sent scholars and scientists into the unknown and brought back marvels. Now, those same scholars flee to other shores. Our scientists seek asylum in the safety of other countries that will support them and their work. Our brightest minds are drained, and the industries we once led are leaving us behind. We will progress, yes, but we will not lead. Not like we once did. Our dynamism is traded for the stale comfort of sameness. Our imagination has been bartered for slogans of safety and security. And when the promise wavers, we send our own military into our own streets to “protect” us, as if cages could ever keep us free.

What the gardener knows

Mortality is not our enemy. Mortality is our teacher. It tells us what matters by telling us it will not be here forever. It turns us into people who pass the flame rather than people who try to cage the sun.

This is why the great works of our species were not born from endlessness. The pyramids stand because men with limited breath lifted stone after stone in service to a vision bigger than any one life. Cathedrals were built by hands that would never see the spire finished and yet carved beauty into the lintels. Poems survive because a mortal hand set ink on mortal paper for a mortal reader who would carry living words onward.

The gardener knows what to do in the face of fear. Plant. Teach. Give. Protect. Tend the fragile and the fierce. Mend what can be mended. When it is time to grieve, grieve. When it is time to harvest, share.

The gardener knows what to do with power. Circulate it. Compost it. Turn it back into soil. Keep it moving.

The gardener knows what to do with time. Spend it on what outlives you.

A choice with teeth

I am not naïve about the sweetness of a little more time. We all want it. One more hour with a dying parent. One more season in a house full of laughter. One more year to learn a difficult craft. To desire time is human and good. The question is not whether we would like a few more pages. The question is whether we must bind the book so tight that it can never open again.

The billionaire who dreams of unending life may think he is brave. The strongman who promises unending victory may think he is strong. In truth both are afraid of the same thing. They fear the grief that is the price of love. They fear the surrender that is the price of belonging to a world that does not belong to them.

Havenwood is not real. Its shadow is. The sisters have different faces here. Some wear lab coats. Some wear suits. Some wear flags. All of them whisper that nothing needs to end and that nothing needs to change.

I do not believe them.

I believe in the season. I believe in the teaching power of winter. I believe in the sacrament of endings that seed beginnings. I believe in hands that plant for strangers. I believe in legacy that nourishes, not monuments that suffocate. I believe that mortality turns us into gardeners. I believe that false immortality turns us into hoarders.

So here is the choice, offered without romance and without apology. We can live as mortals who build for others. Or we can live as hoarders who freeze the world and call it safety. We can move with the cycle. Or we can be devoured by the desire to step outside it.

If you listen closely you can hear the hum that the Havenwood story spoke of. It is in the wires and in the headlines and in the halls of power. It is in the lab where a cell is coaxed to forget its age. It is in the chant where a crowd is coaxed to forget its neighbors. It is the tone of stasis, the pitch of fear.

We have another song. It is the one gardeners sing while they work. It has verses for grief and for joy. It remembers. It releases. It returns. It is a mortal song. It is a human song. It is the oldest lullaby and the newest hymn.

May we sing it. May we teach it. May we leave it behind for the ones who come after.

War Magick: Sovereignty, Shadow, and the Sacred Blade

“Not all witches are healers. Some are shields. Some are swords.”

There is a current rising beneath our feet, a low drumbeat that calls not for peace, but for protection. Not for stillness, but for stance.

War magick is not about wrath or revenge. It is the art of drawing the line. Of standing between what you love and what would destroy it. It is sacred refusal. The spell of no more.

We live in a world where many witches are called to heal.
But some of us….

Some of us are called to hold the line.

What Is War Magick?

War magick is not a tantrum spell. It is not chaos cast from the wound. It is magick rooted in discipline, sovereignty, and sacrifice. It is strategy woven with spirit.

It is not always loud. In truth, the most dangerous war witches are often quiet. They listen. They observe. And when the time comes, they strike with precision.

War magick is:

  • Shielding your home against spiritual incursion.
  • Banishing malevolent forces, visible or hidden.
  • Holding energetic boundaries in moments of crisis.
  • Breaking patterns of abuse, manipulation, or ancestral trauma.
  • Defending others who cannot yet defend themselves.

This is not destruction for power’s sake. It is protection as holy labor.

Historical and Mythic Archetypes

Throughout myth and history, we find witches who fought with fire and vision.

  • The Morrigan, Irish goddess of prophecy and sovereignty, walks the battlefield whispering omens and outcomes. She is the embodiment of war’s truth.
  • Nemain, often associated with The Morrigan, is the spirit-woman or Goddess of Havoc whose battle cry is so terrifying it can kill a hundred men.
  • Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess of Egypt, is a war-bringer and healer in one. Her rage is both wrathful and medicinal. She teaches us: sometimes the fever must burn before the cure can take hold.
  • Joan of Arc, guided by visions, led armies not as a soldier but as a vessel of divine will—her power lay in unwavering conviction and sacred command.

And in our modern magical history:

During World War II, with Britain on the brink of Nazi invasion, occultists, including those aligned with Dion Fortune’s Fraternity of the Inner Light, gathered at sacred sites such as the New Forest and possibly the cliffs of Dover. One technique involved a ritual known as the Wyvern Circle, through which a massive Cone of Power was raised to shield the British Isles from harm.

Their work was not done with bombs or blades, but with focused psychic force, ancestral calling, and spiritual alliance.

This was War Magick, ritual action taken on behalf of a land under siege.

The Witch’s Shield and Blade

Every war witch must know the tools of their craft: the shield, and the blade.

The Shield

The shield protects. It contains. It holds the line when everything else is falling apart.

Types of Shield Work:

  • Warding: Sigils, salt lines, iron filings, blessed threads.
  • Cloaking: Making yourself or your home “invisible” to spiritual predators.
  • Ancestral Shields: Calling on bloodline, guardians, or coven spirits to defend a space.
  • Circle of Sovereignty: A personalized ritual to define what is allowed in your sphere.

In a world of energy vampires, psychic parasites, abusive dynamics, and haunting echoes, a strong shield is not optional. It is your first act of war.

The Blade

The blade is not always literal, but it is always final.

Types of Blade Work:

  • Banishing: Smoke, chant, bell, and will to drive out harmful forces.
  • Cutting Cords: Severing energy ties that bind you to the toxic or dead.
  • Breaking Patterns: Spells to unbind ancestral trauma, addiction, or domination.
  • Naming and Unmasking: Calling out truth to dissolve illusions and manipulation.

The blade is not vengeance. The blade is clarity.

Battle Mages and Magical Warriors

Some witches serve at the threshold, not as seers or healers, but as guardians, tacticians, and energetic combatants. In modern fantasy, they might be called battle mages, but this archetype is far older than the term. It echoes in the witch at the edge of the circle, knife in hand. It stirs in the priest who knows when to invoke wrath. It lives in those who do not fear confrontation, but rather train for it.

The battle mage is not wild magic personified.
They are discipline. Focus. Movement under pressure. They are the spellcaster in armor, the one who holds the line when others falter. Where chaos threatens sacred working, they respond with clarity and command.

They are the witches who:

  • Guard the circle when the veil thins or when the working turns volatile.
  • Intervene when an entity pushes too far or an energy becomes unstable.
  • Sense the shift in vibration before others do, and know how to anchor or sever.
  • Use voice, will, and motion to redirect or collapse energy structures mid-ritual.
  • Mediate the sacred space between magickal will and embodied danger.

The battle mage works with more than tools and techniques; they move in harmony with cosmic tides. Saturn, the great protector, lends its weight to shields, boundaries, and banishings. Its energy is the fortified wall, the circle drawn in ash, the no that does not bend. Mars, by contrast, fuels the blade, the righteous strike, the spell of severing, the clarity of direct action. When tempered by wisdom, Mars becomes the sacred flame in the warrior’s heart. Together, Saturn and Mars shape the rhythm of magical warfare: hold, then strike. Watch, then move. Protect, then cleanse.

In covens or magical communities, battle mages are often misidentified: seen as “too intense,” “too direct,” or “too forceful.” In truth, they are protectors, kin to temple guards, ritual sentinels, and martial priesthoods of old.

They are the Blackthorn in the hedge, the edge that cuts, not because it is cruel, but because it must not yield.

Some traditions may formalize this path. In Wild Blackthorn, this current aligns with what we may someday name the Thane Path, the spiritual warrior who stands for the circle physically and magically alike. But even without title, this role exists. The land remembers them. The old gods recognize them.

And when battle comes, spiritual, energetic, psychic, or political, they are the first to rise.

Spellcraft, Tools, and Allies of the War Witch

Tools
  • Iron – Binds and banishes. Use in nails, keys, or chains.
  • Knife or Athame – Not just for circle casting, but for energy cutting.
  • Smoke – Cleansing herbs like mugwort, rosemary, sulfur-rich plants.
  • Black thread – For binding harmful actions or baneful intent.
  • Ash – From sacred fire, carried as a reminder of past battles.
Spirits and Allies
  • The Ancestors Who Fought – Soldiers, rebels, guardians. Call them.
  • The Crone – Not just wise, but wrathful. She does not suffer fools.
  • Land Spirits – Especially in threatened or poisoned places.
  • Wards, Guardians, and Egregores – Create or feed protectors for your space.
Example Working: The Circle of No

Purpose: Create a protective boundary spell to say “No” to spiritual intrusion or emotional manipulation.

  1. Draw a circle with iron filings or crushed eggshell.
  2. Place black candles at cardinal points.
  3. Call your ancestors or guides to stand watch.
  4. Speak aloud: I do not welcome harm into this house.
    I do not host fear in this heart.
    I name this space sovereign.
    And what is not aligned leaves now.
  5. Burn a pinch of sulfur-rich herb or protective resin to seal it.

When the War Is Not a Metaphor

There are times when witches speak of battle as myth, when we cloak our words in symbol and let the blade remain unseen. But this is not one of those times.

The world burns in truth.

It burns in airstrikes, displacement, and genocide.
In book bans and gerrymandering.
In surveillance wrapped in patriotism and hatred cloaked in law.
In bodies stripped of rights. In spirits driven into silence.

And so war magick becomes more than philosophy.
It becomes necessity.
It becomes resistance.
It becomes the unseen rite behind every act of courage, clarity, and sacred defiance.

It is not cast for vanity, nor for spectacle.
It is cast for those who cannot speak.
It is cast for the land that groans beneath poisoned waters.
It is cast for the dead who still echo, unnamed and unburied.

To work war magick in times like these is not to curse wildly.
Real war magick is precise. Strategic. Rooted.

You can raise a cone of power not only to heal, but to hold.
You can enchant a sigil not only to bless, but to banish.
You can anoint not only for peace, but for protection, fierce and final.

There is a reason witches were feared by empire.
We remember.
We name the dead.
We walk the old roads and call upon the powers that do not answer to kings.

And when the gates fall open, when the innocent are hunted and truth is drowned in noise, we do not run.

We shield.
We strike.
We speak names that echo beyond the veil.
We become the weapon and the ward, the line that does not break.

We Stand

Witches have always been dangerous to empire, not because we wield swords, but because we remember what empire tries to erase.
Because we speak with the voices they tried to silence.
Because we hold power that answers to no earthly throne.

War magick is the whispered prayer beneath the siren’s wail.
It is the spell sewn into the lining of your coat as you walk into the courthouse, the school board meeting, the protest line.
It is the breath you hold while lighting a candle for someone you’ve never met, but who you know must be protected.

We are not always called to heal.
Some of us are called to guard.
Some of us are called to fight.
Some of us were born to remember the old rites, and wield them like a blade when the world begins to forget.

If you are one of those, this is your summons.

Not every battle is visible.
Not every warrior wears armor.

But in the shadowed places of this world, the war witches rise.

They are watching.
Waiting.
Warding.

And when the time comes,
they stand.

Sekhmet’s Flame: The Witch as Warrior

Between Mercy and Fire, The Warrior Witch Awakens

Some witches heal with herbs.
Some with words.
And some with war.

Not because they crave the fight,
But because someone must stand at the edge when others cannot.

There is a path within the Craft not often spoken of in gentle circles.

It is the path of the guardian.
The protector.
The one who does not flinch when harm draws near.
Not because they are cold or cruel,
but because they have made peace with fire.

This is the Witch as Warrior.

She is not defined by bloodlust, nor is her power drawn from rage alone.
He is not a caricature of anger, cloaked in ego and shouting hexes into the wind.
They are forged in something older: necessity, sacred duty, and the sharp-edged love that says:

“No more shall this harm pass.”

The Warrior Archetype in Witchcraft

Warrior witches exist in every tradition, though they are sometimes hidden behind softer names.
They are the ones who feel the call to protect, to resist, to draw lines that cannot be crossed.

They are the ones who bless their blades and know when not to use them.

Our myths remember them well:

  • The Morrigan, cloaked in raven’s shadow, weaving fate across the battlefield.
  • Hecate, torchbearer and guardian at the thresholds, holding power over justice and punishment.
  • Baba Yaga, fierce teacher and guardian of boundaries, testing the seeker’s soul.
  • Athena, strategist of war and wisdom, who honors clarity over carnage.
  • Sekhmet, lion-headed Lady of Flame, who burns through plague, tyranny, and corruption, not out of wrath, but holy order.

These figures are not bloodthirsty; they are exacting.
And they hold one thing in common:

Sovereignty.

The Call to Rise

You do not choose the warrior’s path. It rises from within.

Perhaps you found it through trauma, through harm that taught you to shield others where no one shielded you.
Perhaps you woke one day with fire in your belly and a vision of the sacred boundary that must not be broken.

The Warrior Witch is not born from hatred.
They are born from the knowledge that peace, if unguarded, will not hold.

There comes a moment when silence becomes betrayal.
And in that moment, the warrior rises.

Discipline Before Power

Power without discipline is poison.

The Warrior Witch must train, not only with their spells but also with their spirit.

  • Grounding before action.
  • Shielding before offense.
  • Shadow work to know where vengeance lives inside you.
  • Discernment to know which battles are yours and which are not.
  • Restraint to know when to sheath the blade.

Not every fight deserves your power.
But some… do.

What the Warrior Defends

You do not fight for conquest.

You fight for:

  • The child, the elder, the family and the sacred land.
  • The hidden temple inside yourself.
  • The circle you’ve vowed to guard.
  • The truth you will not let be erased.

The warrior does not always cast curses.
Sometimes, she simply stands.
Sometimes, his presence alone says, “Not this time.”
Sometimes, they strike, not with wrath, but with clarity.

Sovereignty, Not Revenge

This path is not about vengeance.
Revenge consumes.
Sovereignty restores.

The Warrior Witch does not retaliate to feed the ego.
They act to restore the balance.
To end the harm.
To protect the future.

They are not ruled by pain, but they have learned from it.

Reflection and Benediction

Are you a witch of the blade?
Of the tower? Of the shield?

What rises in you when injustice knocks?
When harm circles your people?

Can you hold both mercy and fire in the same hand, and know when to use each?

The world is trembling.
And some of us are called to the edge.

If you are one of those, if your Craft has always had a quiet sword in it,
this path is for you.

Welcome, warrior.

Final Blessing

May your sword be sacred.
May your shield be just.
May your heart remain human.

And may your war be worthy.

Invocation of Sekhmet: The Flame That Guards

A Companion to “The Witch as Warrior”

Lady of the Flame,
Lion of the Horizon,
You who stride with burning feet and golden eyes,

Come into me now.
Make my rage holy.
Make my fire clean.

Teach me the sacred strike,
not wild, but wise.
Not cruel, but clear.
Not ego, but justice.

Let me be your mirror in this world of soft betrayals,
the one who does not look away.
The one who says “enough.”

Sekhmet, whose breath scorches plague from the earth,
Whose roar shakes the gates of tyrants,
Stand beside me now.
Make me a blade that sings with mercy and power.

For I will not raise the sword unless I must.
But if I must,
Let it be you who guides my hand.

Optional Ritual Frame: Sekhmet’s Shield and Blade

For solo or group use before War Magick workings

Preparation:

  • Dress in red, gold, or black.
  • Light a red or gold candle for Sekhmet.
  • Have a small blade or wand at hand.
  • Burn frankincense, dragon’s blood, or desert resin.

Ritual Steps:

1. Ground and center.
Visualize a great desert sun rising behind you, filling your spine with light.

2. Speak the invocation aloud, slowly and with focus. You may stand in warrior pose or kneel before the flame.

3. Anoint your forehead with a touch of fire (candlelight hovered over finger, or warmed oil) and say:

“Sekhmet, flame of divine justice, I welcome your presence.”

4. Pass the blade (or wand) through incense smoke or candlelight, saying:

“Let this be the blade of truth, not vengeance. The tongue of fire, not hatred.”

5. Raise your hands and say:

“I do not seek war. But if war seeks me, I will rise.”

Closing:

  • Bow your head to the flame and say:
    “Lady of Lions, leave with me your strength. I go forward unshaken.”
  • Extinguish the candle, or let it burn down if safe.
  • Journal what rose in you.

Between the Candle and the Cable: Witchcraft, Discernment, and the Path Ahead

A traditional witch speaks on commodification, integrity, and the future of the Craft.

Introduction

There’s been a lot of conversation lately about the rise of online witchcraft teachers, the commodification of the Craft, and what it means to lead or learn in a world that moves faster than the turning of the seasons. Some of these conversations are long overdue. Some are rooted in necessary caution. But some forget where we’ve come from. And more importantly, where we’re going.

As a traditional witch who has walked this path for over thirty years, I’ve seen waves of change, and I’ve weathered them. Today, I want to offer not a defense, not a rebuke, but a reflection. A spiral walk through where we’ve been, where we are, and the witches we must become.

The Price of Breath: Commodification Isn’t a Pagan Problem, It’s a Cultural One

Let’s start with the truth: commodification is not some modern poison that’s only recently seeped into the cauldron. It is the air we breathe. Every aspect of our lives is filtered through an economic lens: food, water, shelter, healthcare, education, and yes, even spirituality. We live in a world where entire religions are monetized, where wellness is branded, and where sacred symbols become product lines.

So when people speak about the commodification of witchcraft as though it is a uniquely modern blasphemy, I wonder what world they think we’re living in. The issue isn’t that money has entered the picture; it’s that we often fail to see the larger picture altogether. Witchcraft exists within this world, not outside it. If we want to change the culture, we must first acknowledge it. And that means recognizing that yes, we charge for classes, we sell candles, we write books, not because we are corrupt, but because we, too, must survive.

And ironically, this presence in the marketplace, though imperfect, has also made space for us. It has created visibility. It has offered some measure of reputability. It has allowed witches, for the first time in millennia, to be seen not only as outsiders but as contributors to culture. That’s not a flaw. That’s progress, however uneven it may be.

The Oldest Exchange, Witchcraft Has Always Been a Trade

Witchcraft has always been a trade. Not a metaphorical one, but a real, tangible exchange of energy and skill. In ancient Babylon, priestesses accepted offerings for divination and blessings. In rural Europe, the village cunning person might be paid in eggs, wool, or labor for healing a sick child or blessing the crops. In Appalachia, granny witches received whatever neighbors could spare in exchange for poultices, midwifery, or protection spells.

This wasn’t a capitalist system, but it was an economy. One built on reciprocity, survival, and value. The witch’s labor has always had worth, not just spiritually, but also practically. To frame modern pricing as some kind of betrayal of tradition is to ignore this unbroken chain of sacred service.

The form of exchange has changed, from eggs to PayPal, but the principle remains: energy for energy. Knowledge for nourishment. Time for tribute. This is not commodification in the hollow sense. It is covenant.

Visibility and the Marketplace: What Sells Is Also What Survives

There’s a strange irony at play in today’s magical landscape. On one hand, we lament the commercialization of the Craft, crystals in every big-box store, moon water labeled as luxury skincare, mass-produced tarot decks with gilded edges and no soul. And yes, it can be disheartening. But on the other hand, this visibility has done something profound: it has made our existence known.

It wasn’t that long ago that being a witch was enough to cost you your job, your children, your life. We lived in shadows. Today, a young seeker can walk into a bookstore and find an entire section dedicated to our practices. That is not trivial. That is not nothing. That is a kind of power our ancestors would have marveled at.

Visibility also means safety, for many of us. Not universally, not without cost, but it’s harder to burn witches in public when witchcraft is in the mainstream. It means we can find one another, share resources, build community, and teach in ways our predecessors could not. It has opened the door for people who never would have found the Craft before to walk a path of power and healing.

Yes, visibility invites dilution. But it also invites survival. And more than that, it creates a doorway. One that can lead to deeper study, to true community, to real transformation. It is up to us to guard that doorway with wisdom, not scorn. To meet those drawn in by beauty and teach them depth. The marketplace is not our enemy. It is our terrain. What matters is how we walk it.

Where We Came From: Lineage, Access, and Shifting Gateways

Once upon a time, the gates were locked. To learn the mysteries, you had to be initiated. To be initiated, you had to be vouched for. To be vouched for, you had to find someone who would even admit the path existed.

Traditionally, witches met in secret. Information was passed from mouth to ear, hand to hand. This wasn’t elitism, it was survival. It also meant that knowledge was limited to those with the right connections, geography, and luck. If you didn’t live near a coven, or you were queer, or disabled, or the wrong race, or simply not trusted, you didn’t get in.

That has changed.

The internet cracked the gates wide open. Books poured in. So did forums, videos, blogs, TikToks. What once required years of searching can now be Googled in seconds. But access is not the same as understanding. And knowledge is not yet wisdom. We need more than content. We need discernment.

From Covens to Cunningham: The Distance Between Circles

The 20th century saw a dramatic shift. When Scott Cunningham published “Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner” in 1988, he changed everything. Suddenly, you didn’t need a coven. You could dedicate yourself to the gods and begin a path alone.

This was revolutionary and necessary. It opened the door to thousands who would never have been welcomed into a traditional coven. But it also began a migration from group practice to solitary exploration. From mystery school to self-study. From oaths to openness.

In doing so, something was lost. Not in value, but in weight. Initiatory paths are not better, but they are different. They are shaped by elders, by shared rites, by lineage, by the crucible of community. And when those paths are rare, or corrupted, or commercialized, seekers are left to wander without map or mentor.

The Solitary Path: The American Spell of Self

There is a uniquely American mythos woven through modern witchcraft, the idea that the self is sovereign above all. That one’s own will is enough. That each person can be their own priest, their own coven, their own tradition.

There is power in this. But also peril.

We have inherited a rugged individualism that serves capitalism better than it serves magic. Real transformation often requires relationship, reflection, challenge, and accountability. The solitary path is not wrong. But it is hard. And without guidance, it can become a loop that never deepens. We must remember that being self-taught does not mean we are self-made.

Between Hunger and Harm: Trusting Again After the Wound

Many seekers today are not merely curious. They are wounded. By religion. By culture. By family. By former teachers. And they come to witchcraft hungry, for truth, for power, for freedom, for healing.

But hunger makes us vulnerable. And the online landscape is full of voices ready to feed us, some wise, some manipulative. The wound that drives us to seek can also blind us to red flags. It can lead us to pedestal people, or rush into oaths, or overshare before safety is earned.

Rebuilding trust takes time. Especially after betrayal. But discernment doesn’t mean we close every door. It means we learn to knock more wisely. To walk with both caution and courage.

Discernment, Devotion, and the Sacred Act of Asking Why

At the heart of all true paths is the question: why? Why this spell? Why this teacher? Why this tradition? Why do I want this? Where does this come from? What does it cost?

Discernment is not cynicism. It is clarity. It is love with boundaries. It is faith with teeth. It is the willingness to slow down and see what is actually being offered, and what is being asked.

The witches of the future will not be those who know the most lore. They will be those who can look into the heart of a thing and know whether it is hollow or holy. That’s what we need now. That’s what devotion looks like in an age of distraction.

Why We Pay Our Teachers: Energy, Time, and Sacred Exchange

Teachers today are expected to do far more than simply transmit knowledge. They must develop skill not only in their craft, but in pedagogy, leadership, and accessibility. They must build courses, write materials, research history and lore, adapt to changing technology, and hold energetic space. They must field questions, offer feedback, provide ethical frameworks, and serve as guideposts in a world oversaturated with information but starving for wisdom.

Hosting a class, whether online or in person, carries costs, including Zoom subscriptions, physical venues, supplies, marketing, time spent planning and following up, emotional labor, and spiritual preparation. In years past, a teacher might have been gifted eggs or labor. Today, it’s more likely to be PayPal or Patreon. But the spirit of exchange is the same.

And even when teachers offer their work freely, as many do, there is still value being given. For those teaching under 501(c)3 non-profits or in purely volunteer spaces, an exchange can still be honored. Make a donation. Share their work. Clean up after the ritual. Offer thanks with more than words. Bring them a cup of tea. These are not merely gestures. They are offerings. They are respect made visible.

To say we should not pay for spiritual teaching is to ignore the reality of our economy and the deep tradition of exchange that our ancestors honored. A priestess leading a rite is not simply casting a spell; she’s spent hours writing the working, gathering and paying for supplies, holding the weight of the circle, the working, and the well-being of the gathered. That deserves compensation, whether in coin, contribution, or care.

In my first coven, we always grabbed a plate of food for our Priestess first, fed her, let her relax, and did all the clean up. We also bought charcoal, herbs, candles, and oils to replenish what we used. We all benefited, and I never forgot this lesson. I do it to this day.

The Questions That Matter: Red Flags and Right Fits

So, how do we know which teachers to trust? Whether they’re online, local, published, or self-taught, we owe it to ourselves to ask questions. Not just about the class, but about the person leading it. Here are some of the questions I wish someone had given me thirty years ago:

  • What is your background and training?
  • Who trained you? Where did your teachings come from?
  • How long have you been practicing, and how long teaching?
  • What are your spiritual values?
  • What are your boundaries? What are your expectations of students?
  • How do you handle power dynamics?
  • Are you open to feedback? Correction? Dialogue?
  • Do you welcome students growing beyond you?

And here are some red flags to watch for:

  • They discourage questions or get defensive when challenged.
  • They demand loyalty without earning trust.
  • They blur boundaries, especially around money, sex, or emotional labor.
  • They don’t cite sources, refuse peer review, or rewrite history.
  • They promise quick power, easy spells, or guaranteed results.
  • They isolate you from other teachers or traditions.

You don’t need perfection. But you do need integrity. And clarity. A good teacher will invite questions, not fear them. They’ll be transparent about their history, their gaps, and their growth. They’ll tell you who they learned from, and they’ll encourage you to keep learning beyond them.

And you, dear witch, must be a questioner. Of self, of culture, of content, of tradition. Our future depends on it.

Between the Worlds: Adapting the Craft in the Digital Age

We are in the middle of a sea change. Traditional teachers, those of us who trained in basements, woods, and whispered spaces, are being asked to evolve. To learn new platforms. To stretch old bones into new shapes. To bring the mysteries into rooms with ring lights.

It is not easy. But it is necessary.

The digital age has transformed how seekers find the path. No longer must they stumble into a metaphysical shop or hope to meet someone at a festival. Now, a scroll on TikTok or a link on YouTube can become the doorway. And for teachers, this means shifting how we serve without sacrificing what we guard.

We must learn new tools. Hosting Zoom rituals is not the same as calling quarters in a forest. Filming a teaching series is not the same as holding a student’s hand through shadow work. But the essence can still be honored.

The sacred must still be felt.

Many of us have spent years, decades, walking this road. And now we are building bridges into this newer world. We’re learning to write PDFs and edit audio. To manage online communities. To translate presence through pixels. And this, too, is part of the Work.

But let us be honest. It takes time. It takes energy. It takes a willingness to change and to be changed. The screen is not a substitute for the Circle. But it can become a vessel. A chalice. A flame carried forward, if done with care.

We ask seekers to meet us with patience. To understand that digital doesn’t mean lesser, and old doesn’t mean outdated. That both carry wisdom. That both can serve.

We must also speak the truth: not everything old is accurate. And not everything new is wrong.

There are texts, teachings, and theories passed down through generations that have not stood up to the light of history, archaeology, or cultural analysis. Some have even been disproven, but still circulate, reappearing as if time has not touched them. Just because something is ancient does not make it infallible.

I have deep reverence for my first priestess. She was a brilliant teacher and shaped much of my early Craft. But even she, for all her wisdom, passed on information I later discovered to be incorrect. And when I found those errors, I corrected them, not out of disrespect, but out of devotion. Devotion to truth. To integrity. To the living current of our practice.

This path demands that we be fierce in our discernment. That we wield our minds as well as our hearts. That we become, not followers of tradition for tradition’s sake, but stewards of wisdom. Sharpened by inquiry. Guided by conscience. Honoring what has come before while being unafraid to evolve.

The world is changing. So are we. The Craft has always survived because it knows how to transform. Let that be true of us now.

The Flame That Carries On: A Closing Reflection

We are the living threads in a tapestry both ancient and still in the loom.

Witchcraft is not a museum. It is not a fixed point in time. It is the fire stolen, the bone buried, the whispered name across centuries. It moves. It breathes. It changes form so it may survive, and changes us in return.

As we move forward, let us do so with eyes wide open. Let us be bold enough to ask questions, humble enough to admit when we are wrong, and wise enough to sit at both the hearth and the keyboard with reverence.

To those who carry the candle, and to those who transmit the signal, may you each tend the mystery well.

The Craft endures. And through us, it lives.

The Witch’s Hero Journey: A Mythic Map for the Spiral Path

Prologue: A Witch’s Call to Adventure

“To be a witch is to walk your own myth into being.”

As a child of about five, I recall sitting in the sunlight one morning on the floor of my bedroom; dolls and playhouse assembled before me, stalwart companions. I turned my face into the sun, feeling the warmth upon my skin. “I cannot be five years old,” I thought. “I have been here too long. I am far older than this.”

Science tells us a child this age should not possess such abstract awareness. But the memory is clear, and so, the journey began.

Spirituality concerns itself with the Soul’s relationship to the Universal “Is.” I call it The Dragon. Not because it is a literal dragon, but because it is vast, powerful, and ancient, a hoarder of knowledge, both terrifying and beautiful, creating and destroying in a breath. My Spirit awakened that day. Not my soul, which had long been at work, but the tether to my oversoul, the self beyond the self, lit with awareness.

To awaken is not merely to believe, but to know. To touch something timeless. Some of us say yes at five years old. Others wrestle for decades. But the Call is the same:

“The call to adventure is the point in a person’s life when they are first given notice that everything is going to change, whether they know it or not.”
~ Joseph Campbell

This is what begins the Hero’s Journey. And for witches, for mystics, for the awakened, it is not metaphor. It is lived.

The Witch’s Journey: Myth, Mystery, and the Spiral Path of Becoming

Before we descend into the stages of the journey, we must name the one who gave this map its form.

The concept of the Hero’s Journey was brought to light by Joseph Campbell, a scholar of comparative mythology and religion. In his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell studied myths from across cultures and found a universal pattern, a path walked by heroes, mystics, and seekers alike. He called this pattern the monomyth, or the Hero’s Journey.

In this arc, a figure receives a call, crosses into the unknown, is tested and transformed, and returns bearing a gift or wisdom for the world. Whether it’s Gilgamesh or Luke Skywalker, Inanna or Iron Man, the bones of the story are the same.

But for witches, for those whose lives are shaped by both myth and magic, this journey is more than story. It is a rite of passage. A spiral we return to over and over as we become, unbecome, and become again.

Campbell showed us the structure. We walk it in soul and fire.

One of Campbell’s greatest modern collaborators was filmmaker George Lucas, who built the original Star Wars saga as a living expression of the Hero’s Journey. Luke Skywalker’s path, from orphaned farm boy to reluctant hero to spiritually awakened Jedi, follows the arc almost step by step. It is myth made modern, story made soul.

“What Campbell gave me was a template to follow. A lot of the script [of Star Wars] was built on those principles.”
~ George Lucas

Luke hears the Call when R2-D2 shows him the message from Leia. He Refuses, tries to return to safety, but fate will not have it. Obi-Wan becomes his Mentor. The Threshold is crossed when they leave Tatooine. He faces Tests, Allies, and Enemies as the Rebel struggle intensifies. The Cave? His vision on Dagobah. The Ordeal? Confronting Vader. The Reward? Not power, but truth. His Road Back is sacrifice. His Resurrection is faith. And his Elixir is peace, offered not through battle, but through choosing love over vengeance.

Luke’s story lives in us because we know it already. Witches, too, feel the Force moving within and around them. The symbols differ, but the journey is the same. The Call is real. The descent is real. And the return, bearing the Grail, is the sacred task we are born to fulfill.

But not all journeys are paved in certainty…

The Leap of Faith: Infinite Resignation and the Grail

The Hero’s Journey is not merely a structure of story, but a crucible of transformation. It demands more than courage; it demands faith.

Where Campbell gave us the map, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard speaks to the soul of the traveler. He offers us two mirrors: the Knight of Infinite Resignation and the Knight of Faith.

The Knight of Infinite Resignation is noble in her sorrow. She gives up the thing she loves most, a dream, a person, a calling, because the world seems to demand it. She grieves, but endures. She walks on, eyes cast downward.

But the Knight of Faith is different. She makes the same sacrifice, stands at the same threshold… and then leaps. Not with certainty, but with trust. Not with proof, but with fire. She believes, without reason, that she will receive the impossible, not through force, but through grace.

This is Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade, where the Grail lies just beyond the lion’s head. He steps into empty air, heart pounding, and finds the bridge beneath his foot.
This is Abraham on the mountain, lifting the knife, not knowing what hand will stay his own.
This is the Witch, hands raised in the dark, calling to a God they have never seen, trusting the Circle to open, and the power to answer.

The Knight of Faith does not walk alone. They walk with Spirit.

And perhaps this is the truest spell:
To leap without knowing,
To offer your will,
And to believe in return.

The Hero’s Journey in Witchcraft

This is a mythic map for the modern witch. It may look linear, but it is lived in spirals.

You will walk it more than once.

With Poetic Commentary from the Wild Blackthorn Tradition
A Mythic Map for the Seeker of the Spiral Path

  1. The Ordinary World
    Before the awakening. Life is measured in routines, expectations, and small certainties. The Witch-to-be may feel like a stranger to herself, haunted by unnamed longings or fleeting visions. The soul hums in its sleep. The Circle is still far away—but the breath of it brushes your skin.
  2. The Call to Adventure

“The Call to Adventure signifies that Destiny has summoned a Hero.”
~Joseph Campbell

Something stirs, soft or sudden. A moment of knowing. A presence in the woods. A stranger’s words that hit too close. The veil lifts just enough to reveal a door. And whether in dream or day, the Goddess knocks. You do not yet understand, but the path has found you.

  1. Refusal of the Call
    You doubt. You fear ridicule, failure, madness. You try to forget the signs, ignore the dreams, explain away the feeling. But it lingers. A witch may turn from the fire, but the flame still glows beneath the skin. The Circle waits, not forever, but long enough.
  2. Meeting the Mentor
    She may wear a cloak, or she may wear your face in a mirror. He may be a book that changes everything, or a voice that arrives in a trance. The Mentor reveals possibility, opens a door, but never walks through it for you. Their wisdom may guide you, but your feet must still move.
  3. Crossing the Threshold
    A circle is cast. A vow is spoken. A candle burns that cannot be unlit. This is the step that transforms desire into devotion. The world feels charged, alive, altered. You are no longer on the edge, you are within the Work now. You are becoming.
  4. Tests, Allies, Enemies
    The path reveals mirrors. Some reflect your strength. Others’ wounds. Some lessons soothe and others scorch. You are no longer the dreamer; you are becoming the doer. Magic is tested in tension, and so are you. This is where the bones of your practice are formed.
  5. Approach to the Inmost Cave
    You feel it coming. The storm beneath the stillness. Old fears rise like ghosts. Something in you must die for something greater to be born. You begin to prepare. Not just in spell or rite, but in heart. The deeper gate nears, and the Guardian watches.
  6. The Ordeal
    This is the long night. The silence of the Gods. The breaking point. You may fall. You may curse the Circle that once called you. But here, in the darkness, choice becomes sacred. Will you stand, even if no one sees? Will you walk, even with no light? Here, you choose the Grail or the grave.
  7. Reward (Seizing the Sword)
    You emerge not triumphant, but real. You carry a truth that is yours alone. Perhaps it is strength. Perhaps it is sorrow. Perhaps it is the ability to speak a word that heals or to hold silence when it matters. This is your Grail. This is your sword. Not forged in fire, but in faith.
  8. The Road Back
    The veil is behind you, but its weight remains. You walk again among the ordinary, but you are not the same. You carry responsibility now and awareness. You prepare to serve, to teach, to stand as a fire for others. You are no longer just seeking. You are bearing witness.
  9. Resurrection / Transformation
    Something tries to take you back. The old self claws at your new skin. But you do not break, you refine. You rise as something whole. Magic is now marrow-deep. You do not speak it. You are it. You are not who you were. You are who you are becoming.
  10. Return with the Elixir
    You carry the flame forward. Not for acclaim, but to light the way. You speak when others cannot. You hold the Circle when others forget its shape. You do not walk ahead, you walk beside. This is not the end of the journey. This is where your myth becomes medicine.

Reflection: Your Own Hero’s Path

Before you close this page, take a breath. Let your own story rise in your memory.

When did you first hear your Call to Adventure?
Was it a whisper in the woods, a book that shattered your worldview, or a moment in sunlight that cracked you open?

What was your Dagobah? Who or what was your Vader? And what Elixir did you carry home?

The map is shared, but the story is yours.

To refelct

  • Where are you on this spiral?
  • What was your first Call to Adventure?
  • Who or what has mentored you?
  • What shadow have you faced, or are still facing?
  • Write a letter to your future self as the Grail Knight.
  • Perform a ritual reenactment of Crossing the Threshold.
  • Create a symbolic map of your own mythic journey so far.

How to Work This Into Your Practice

This journey is not only meant to be read. It is meant to be lived. Here are ways you can bring this mythic path into your spiritual and magical practice:

  • Use each stage as a moon cycle theme – Reflect, journal, and create spells aligned to that stage’s energy.
  • Track your personal journey – Return to these stages during moments of upheaval, growth, or reawakening. Name where you are. Let it guide your next step.
  • Craft rituals for key thresholds – Crossing the Threshold, Facing the Ordeal, Seizing the Sword. Honor these turning points with fire, water, ash, and vow.
  • Create a personal grimoire spread or visual spiral – Let each stage become a page of art, spell, or poetry. Tell your myth with symbols and soul.
  • Offer the Elixir – Share what you’ve learned. Speak, teach, heal, write. You carry more than your own fire; you carry the spark of those who will follow.

This is a path of becoming, unbecoming, and becoming again. Let each step sanctify your spiral.

Closing Reflection

To be a witch is to walk the path of myth, not in fantasy, but in fire.
To walk the Hero’s Journey again and again, each time deeper.
To spiral inward until you emerge carrying light for others.

We are the story and the spell.
We are the seeker, the shield, the flame.

We return, not to the beginning, but to the beginning transformed.

So mote it be.

Invocation of the Spiral Path

O Flame that called me from the dust,
O Voice that sang me through the veil,
I have walked the gate of shadow,
I have borne the Grail.

I am not who I was.
I am who I am becoming.
By trial and fire, by vow and breath,
I walk the spiral, beyond death.

For those who seek, I leave a flame.
For those who follow, I speak your name.
You are the myth. You are the blade.
You are the Elixir, memory made.

So may the path rise to meet you.
So may the dark reveal the stars.
And may you always return,
Transformed, and transforming.

Iron Man and the Grail: A Modern Myth of Sacrifice and Sovereignty

A continuation of our exploration in Pop Culture Magick: Modern Myths and the Living Current

Pop culture isn’t just entertainment.
It’s where myth survives, sometimes disguised in armor, sometimes wrapped in fire.

We’ve spoken about the power of modern symbols in magical practice, how characters become archetypes, and how story can carry spell. Today, we look deeper into one of the most fully realized Grail myths of a generation.

Not Arthur.
Not Galahad.
But Tony Stark.

The Wound That Starts the Quest

We don’t always recognize our Grail Knights when they first appear.
Sometimes, they come not in gleaming armor, but in cynicism, ego, and deep personal wounds.

Tony Stark is not your typical knight.
He is wealthy, self-serving, brilliant, and broken.
The architect of weapons, not peace. A man behind the curtain, not the one standing in the fire.

But like the Grail knights of old, Parzival, Galahad, Gawain, transformation begins not with virtue, but with wounding.

His crucible is not a battlefield, but a cave.
A shrapnel-filled heart.
A reckoning.

And beside him in that cave: Yinsen, The Mentor.
Obi-Wan to Luke.
Merlin to his broken Arthur.

Yinsen is no ordinary side character. He is the healer, the father figure, the quiet soul who has already made peace with death, and gives Stark a glimpse of what a life of meaning might be.

“Don’t waste your life.”

And then, Yinsen lays down his own.

This is the first sacrifice.
The template.

It is not power that saves Tony. It’s humility.
It’s relationship.
It’s love, not just romantic, but transformative.
The kind that costs.

This is the seed of the Grail Knight, planted in darkness.

The Grail and the Armor

Tony builds the armor to survive.
But over time, he learns that survival is not enough.

He sheds version after version of metal, of ego, of self, building not just machines, but a man.

By the time we reach Endgame, the stakes have changed.

He has what he never had before:
A home. A family. A daughter. A quiet life.
Peace.

And still, the world is broken.
Half of all life is gone.

To answer the call again, after all he’s nearly lost?
That is what makes him a knight.

The Grail Sacrifice

“You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play.”
~Captain America, The Avengers (2012)

He wasn’t.
But he became one.

Not once, but twice.

First, when he took the nuke through the portal.
Then, when he put on the gauntlet.

He says:

“I am Iron Man.”

And with those words, the circuit completes.
The knight finds the Grail.
And the world is saved by the one who once only sought to save himself.

A Myth for Our Time

This is the myth of Iron Man.

But it is also the myth of the wounded magician, the priest reborn, the leader who learns to serve.

Tony Stark is a Grail Knight of the 21st century, not because he was perfect, but because he changed.
And in the end, because he chose to give everything.

The Witch’s Mirror

For the modern witch, Tony’s story is an invocation.

It is the story of:

  • The ego undone
  • The heart awakened
  • The reluctant Grail Knight who answers anyway

It reminds us:

  • Power without service is hollow
  • Comfort means little if the world is burning
  • Love is found not in conquest, but in commitment

We are all, at times, caught in the machinery.
Tony shows us how to break the pattern.
To build not just armor, but meaning.
Not just legacy, but love.

Final Words

He began as a mirror of everything broken.
He ended as a model of what it means to choose something greater.

And that is the myth worth telling.

image: wallpapers-clan.com