As the wheel turns to Samhain, the Witches’ New Year, you may feel the pull toward making some witchy new year’s resolutions. To do more witchy stuff. To be more witchy. To enhance your personal practice and live the witchy life.
Yes! You can do it! Harness the power of the season of the witch to propel yourself into deeper personal practice. After all, the only way to be a witch is to practice the Craft.
I was an armchair priestess for a long time in my early days. My Craft was all in my head and a little in my heart, and not at all in my real life except as curio or trivia. There was a novelty to doing spells and rattling off witchy factoids. But it wasn’t a spiritual practice for me. It took the unexpected death of my first teacher for me to cut through the fog and realize that the real Craft is here, now, embodied in our daily actions, a living and breathing way of life.
My objective in this essay is to give you a list of possibilities, suggestions, inspirations. Choose the ones that appeal to you and work with them, then determine if it’s something useful that you should continue or something that should be jettisoned in favor of another practice. There will be trial and error involved. That’s part of the experience. Some things will seem terribly mundane; find the spiritual in the embodied experience. Therein lie the Mysteries.
November
Take time at Samhain to acknowledge that this is the end of an old year and the nascent beginnings of a new one. Reacquaint yourself with old spirit allies and introduce yourself to new ones. Journal about what your ideal witchy practice would look like. Do a twelve-month tarot reading for yourself and record it in a notebook to refer back to later. Look into your family history and get to know the stories of your ancestors. Start a regular Coffee With The Goddess. Reflect on what witchiness means to you.
December
Harness the good cheer of the holiday season by connecting with your nearest and dearest. Make prosperity talismans for your home. Make extra ones to give to friends and family. At Yule, schedule some spiritual spa days for yourself in the next few months — time when you deliberately work on spiritual projects or development. Keep those appointments. They’re important. Make wassail.
January
Propel yourself into the new calendar year by starting a bullet journal or other customizable planner/diary. Stick with it a few months and see if it turns into a creative outlet. Pick up a spiritual development book. Read it just to get a feel for it. Don’t do the exercises yet.
February
Those exercises from the spiritual development book? Start doing them now. Find a rhythm that works for you — every morning, every other evening, Thursdays after work, Saturdays before the kids wake up. Keep having Coffee With The Goddess. Make candles or other supplies for spiritual use. Air out the house on a chilly day and let the first breath of spring cleanse the funk of winter away.
March
Dye eggs. Collect fresh flowers for your dining room centerpiece. Start a container garden of useful herbs. Get to know the spirits of each plant. Change out your winter clothes for your spring wardrobe. While you’re at it, donate the things that don’t suit you any longer. Out with the old, in with the new.
April
Is your bullet journal a messy work of art yet? Make it into one. It’s a combination planner/diary/book-of-shadows/pocket-reference-guide. Get creative. Keep having Coffee With The Goddess. Keep doing those exercises from the spiritual development book.
May
Savor strawberries. Enjoy a sensual feast. Spend time with your lover — especially if that lover is yourself. Love your body for the temple it is. Rekindle sisterhood. Create art and hang it in your home. Bless the land. Set or refresh your household protections.
June
Leave offering for the Fae. Dance beneath the solstice moon. Ask your familiar spirits what they need of you. Attend a bonfire. Make music. Keep having Coffee With The Goddess. Keep doing those exercises from the spiritual development book.
July
Relax in the heat of summer. Let the natural processes of life take their course. Make time to tend to your own happiness. Have a barbeque with friends. Drink wine and mead and beer and make merry. Enjoy fellowship with those who’ve shared good times and bad ones. Remember how important you are to one another.
August
Recall that winter is coming. What do you need to do to prepare? Cast aside that which does not serve you. Make new commitments to yourself. Be patient with the heat. Enjoy berries and ice cream and cobbler.
September
Face your shadow self. Make peace with it. Accept it as part of yourself. Know that one day you too will die. Leave an offering for Death on the equinox, just to say hello. Keep having Coffee With The Goddess.
October
Feed your ancestors. Look back at the past year. Journal about how you have changed and how you have remained the same. What can you do now that you couldn’t do last year? Sit with Death and learn his secrets. What does he have to teach you except that life’s too short and precious? Transform yourself into who you would be if you were not afraid. Begin again.