How to Become a Witch by Amber K. (best fiction novels TXT) 📕

Weatherworking is one form of nature magick with a mixed reputation. In ancient times, some Witches were said to control the winds and could capture their spirits in a triple-tied bag. Release one knot, and a gentle breeze would spring up; two knots, and you would have a brisk wind; three, and a violent storm would strike. Today, Witches are very cautious about interfering with natural weather patterns, though our coven has occasionally done successful rain magick to break a drought.

There are many ways to work divination with the aid of nature. Dowsing, or “witching,” for water is traditionally done with a forked hazel stick. Some can read future events in the patterns of clouds, the flights of birds, or by scrying in a still pond. Astrology reveals much by the positions of the stars and planets in relation to the zodiac and each other. The magicks of nature are as varied as Mother Nature herself, and many Witches prefer these powers to the cerebral and abstract arts of the ceremonial magician. Both have their place.

The elder trees

Witches are known for their skill at glamoury, or creating an illusion so they look like something else. Some elder trees in particular are supposed to be Witches in disguise. A famous thorn tree in East Anglia, England, is called “the Witch of Hethel” and was first recorded as “the old thorn” in the thirteenth century. It is the oldest living one of its species. She has been there for more than 800 years and must hold the record for the longest-running glamour. But any tree might be a Witch, so be careful how you treat your tall green neighbors.

Nature and Spirit

“In wildness is the salvation of the world,” said naturalist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau. You know already that Witches don’t feel the need to be saved from original sin, but we do think the living earth needs to be saved from human folly and overuse.

Partly, this is a matter of simple survival, since destroying Earth’s ecosystems is a certain road to species suicide for homo sapiens. However, it’s even more than that for Witches. Nature, including our home planet, is the body of the Divine for us—the embodiment of the Goddess and the God.

We don’t believe the mainstream notion that all “creation” is just something God made, separate from him, to be wisely stewarded or trashed, depending on whether you believe the Rapture is imminent. We don’t divide the material world (nasty, where the devil hangs out) from the world of spirit (nice, belongs to God). For us, nature is the gods incarnate.

By the air that is her breath,

By the fire of her bright spirit,

By the waters of her womb,

By the earth that is her body…

This Pagan chant from the Reclaiming Tradition of Witchcraft sums it up. The wind, the rocks, the trees, the critters with fur and feather and scale and skin—all are part of the sacred body of Deity. Nature—which is, simply, everything—is spirit-filled, ensouled, holy, sacred. When you strip-mine, dump toxins in rivers, or pollute the air, you are doing that to your Holy Mother and Divine Father and your sacred self.

Gaia

Alias: Mother Earth

Our bodies are made of many elements and systems, interconnecting and interdependent. And we have company: we are host to living things such as bacteria, fungi, archaea, yeasts, and protozoa. There are a lot of them; though we have about ten trillion cells in our bodies, there are ten times that many bacteria in the intestines alone. Many of our tiny passengers are “friendly”; they compete with pathogens, manufacture vitamins, or remove toxins. Others have no known effect on us. Occasionally some go “rogue,” like cancer cells.

As above, so below. As below, so above.

You have heard of the Gaia Hypothesis, now called the Gaia Theory, first widely noticed when James Lovelock explained it in the 1970s. He suggested that the earth behaves like a giant, complex living organism that could regulate its atmosphere and oceans to create and sustain an environment friendly to life. Lovelock defined Gaia as “a complex entity involving the earth’s biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet.”[1] There was perhaps the implication that Gaia was both purposeful and friendly to life.

Well, yes. In 1971, Oberon Zell, the well-known wizard and author, wrote about “a discovery so vast that its impact on the world’s thinking will ultimately surpass the impact of the discovery of the Heliocentric structure of the solar system. This is the discovery that the entire Biosphere of the Earth comprises a single living Organism.”[2]

But Lovelock may have been surprised when certain people took the next step and said, “Yes, living, self-regulating, friendly to life—and intelligent, conscious, and enspirited.”

“No scientific evidence for that,” said Lovelock’s supporters. “That’s mysticism!” True, but it’s exactly what Witches believe; we are science- and technology-friendly, but are also willing to journey beyond into spiritual matters.

Our relationship with Gaia, the earth, is that of living, sentient, enspirited beings to a greater such being of which we are part. One could also say that we humans, all almost seven billion of us, can be compared to some of Gaia’s bacteria, or cells in her nervous system. Some authors have suggested that the human species is analogous to Gaia’s brain. For Gaia’s sake, we hope she has a better brain somewhere, because homo sapiens is not behaving intelligently in our relations with the rest of the planet.

In fact, some argue that we are now a cancer on the Gaia organism. Oberon Zell said: “When in the human body some cells start multiplying all out of control and excreting toxins into the bloodstream, we have a cancer….At this moment, humanity…is multiplying wildly out of control and excreting vast quantities of deadly pollutants into the air, water and soil…If our own cancerous population growth is not halted—indeed, drastically