General

by Erica Sittler

Let’s talk about Instant Magick for a moment, which for this Level 1 Witch is one of the most powerful tools in my day-to-day life. Yes, yes, I use it for red lights and parking spots and not being seen by the police as I drive a little too fast down the Natchez Trace. It is also useful to secure the house when I just might have left the front door open and again it can turn off the oven which I actually am prone to do regularly. But there is so much more to instant magick than that!

Yesterday, a fierce, sudden storm blew in while we were driving home. Winds gusted upwards of 70 mph. Suddenly, we found ourselves in what felt like an isolated tornado.

Swirling, blinding sheets of rain blew against my husband’s old truck. Pine cones or hail pelting us. Suddenly, I could feel the trees snapping, though I could not see or hear them, due to the raging of the wind and rain.

I barked out a cry of alarm while my husband drove and immediately started doing instant magick with breath, words, and hands.

Breathe. I started using my breath to fill a protective sphere around the truck.

Speak. I began talking to the swirling wind and the trees as we were now enfolded in the yellow-green cast that is the hallmark of a tornado.

Hands. Trigger symbols firmly locked, I began moving in a pattern while I and breathed and spoke, enforcing the shield: front, sides, top, below, and back… over and over and over… filling that shield till it was the equivalent of a steel dirigible. Breath, command, hand gestures.

Commanding calmly and firmly for the wind to go over and not through us. Mentally and with my hand gestures, hoisting it up and over our vehicle. Fearlessly facing the wind where I knew the storm was originating, while simultaneously enforcing the truck’s protective shield, I repeatedly told it what it would do. For a little over a mile, I did this, while my husband drove us to safety and our 13-year-old son sat in utter silence in the back.

Understand, there was no place to pull over. Further, I do not advise or encourage you to ever put yourself willingly in harm’s way as a lark, but the only path for us in that moment was to go through the storm.

Later that night, we drove back down the roads we had traversed as well as others to see what damage had been done. Snapped trees and fences were everywhere, but on the road we had travelled none of those fallen objects had turned into projectiles. The road itself was eerily clear of everything save leaves and twigs. Other nearby roads had snapped power lines and downed trees flung across them. The nearby park looks as though a bomb went off, with massive oaks tumbled about and upended like toy blocks.

Later that night, under the guidance of my high priestess, I lay on the ground in the backyard in as little clothing as possible with dark stones placed on my 3rd eye, my chest, and a strand of jet beads (that I’ve owned seemingly forever) wrapped around my neck. The purpose, as you may know, was to let the excess energy drain out of me. For hours later you see, I still had ringing in my ears, felt like I was on the verge of vomiting, and walking was more like a drunken stumble best not attempted, even after eating “grounding” foods.

That laying on the cool, damp, leaf-strewn soil, feeling the curious bugs crawling over my skin, looking up through the leaf canopy into the dark, stormy sky, while letting that excess energy go back into the earth was perhaps the best bath I’ve ever had. As I lay there, all I could say over and over again to earth, sky, stones, and trees was “thank you”, “thank you”, “thank you”.

This, I believe, makes magick different from prayer, though a magickal practice can certainly incorporate prayers and hymns. This experience was using a magickal skill I had been taught and applying it in a real situation in which I felt danger and needed actual protection. Because of this skill, instant magick, I had a form of power. I was not helpless. Unlike prayer, I was not requesting we not get hurt by the storm. I was not making a petition. Rather, both physically and psychically, I was using my will and my magick to both command the elements and to move the harm away. Furthermore, because of my lessons, I knew enough to bid those elements not to harm others in their now rerouted path I had created through instant magick.

More than 24 hours later, we still do not have electrical power, and yet the storm, from the local news media accounting at least, was a “non-event”. Tree wreckage, true. Power lines down? A couple. A few roofs damaged. No fatalities. No hospitalizations. Nothing actually to report here. Perhaps that, my friends, is one of the biggest side benefits of instant magick in action. “Nothing happened.”

It was “only” a F0 tornado (winds under 70 mph). Most folks will simply shrug it off. However, for me, it was a seminal moment in my practice. My son will not likely forget it either. “I knew you were doing magick, Mom, and I wasn’t afraid of the storm anymore.” Even my skeptical husband, who would like to chalk it up to his good driving skills, in seeing the aftermath of those various roads, knows that something peculiar happened on that particular patch of road that wasn’t quite ordinary.

So, consider practicing your instant magick regularly. Sure, use it for parking spaces, avoiding tickets, and winning door prizes. Just remember, it just might become a more powerful form of magick in your mundane life, if you work with it.

Erica Sittler is a Witch practicing her craft in Mississippi where she is a local, active member of the Temple of Witchcraft. Her magick is in the mundane and in bringing honor and attention to those small things that build a sustainable and adventurous life. She is a Witchcraft I Mystery School student under the instruction of High Priestess Sellena Dear.

In this episode, host Adam Sartwell talks with our 2023 TempleHearth organizers, Shell Kyle and Lindsey Piech, about our upcoming online February festival of classes, rituals, magick, and community! Give it a listen:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:46 — )

The Temple’s Pisces Ministry is pleased to announce High Priestess Sellena (Amanda Dear) has accepted an invitation to become our third deputy minister, rounding out our ministry. Sellena is a wonderful addition to Pisces, bringing her creativity, wisdom, and magick to our monthly meetings. As a Pisces celebrant she offers community Wheel of the Year sabbats and other events to the community in the Jackson, Mississippi area, as well as teaching for the Mystery School there. Her main duties as a Pisces deputy are performing monthly divinations for the Temple during the full moons. Please join us in giving a warm welcome to Sellena! We are so grateful for your presence!

The Temple of Witchcraft is excited to announce our newest board members. Deborah Stellhorn and Dan Lupacchino will join the Board  of Directors for the 2022-2024 session as two of the three voting advisors to the board, serving alongside current board members Elsa Elliott (Voting Advisor), Steve Kenson (Secretary), Jocelyn Van Bokkelen (Treasurer), Christopher Penczak (Vice-President), and Adam Sartwell (President).

Debbie is an ordained high priestess in the Temple, fundraising coordinator, former Templefest housing coordinator, deputy in the Sagittarius Ministry of education, and an active teacher in the community, co-teaching The Work of the Mighty Dead and Psychology & Magick extended courses. Debbie brings twenty-three years of professional experience in working full time in the religious non-profit world, from fundraising to direct services. Her perspective is a valuable contribution to our next phase of growth as an organization.

Dan is an ordained high priest and official teacher in the Mystery School of the Temple, senior Teaching Assistant in the online school, sabbat ritual celebrant in our Connecticut community, and instrumental in our 2022 scholarship fundraising, as well as being a full time healing professional. Dan’s calm, kind energy as part of the next generation of leaders is deeply welcomed to the board.

The Temple of Witchcraft board of directors is pleased to announce that High Priestess Matooka Moonbear has been confirmed as the new lead minister of the Temple’s Pisces Ministry and High Priest Jason Gamache has been confirmed as the new lead minister of the Temple’s Taurus Ministry.

Matooka Moonbear has over thirty years experience as a priestess, diviner, and healer. A graduate of the Temple’s seminary program, she previously served as lead minister of the Temple’s Cancer Ministry. Matooka served as a deputy minister for Pisces for several years prior to taking on this new role.

Jason Gamache is a graduate of the Temple’s seminary program and a former Pilgrim of the Sun and Stars. Prior to accepting the lead minister role, Jason worked as a volunteer in Taurus Ministry, particularly on the Green Man Grotto sacred space on the Temple’s land in Salem, New Hampshire.

Both new lead ministers will be installed in their roles at the Temple’s public Beltane ritual on April 30th, 2022.

by Renee Bedard

Walking along the hiking trails of New England, you can find so many beautiful treasures. The winding paths through the woods will lead you into forgotten places and mysterious locations. You can often find cellar holes, old foundations, and defunct mill sites. Each enchanting place can stir something within you if you allow it. One of my favorite New England hidden gems are the old stone walls. Only a few feet tall, the mossy stone border lines weave their way through the woods and overgrown fields. Echoing back to a time when they marked important boundaries, these stoic sentinels stand steadfast to this day as they hold their ground, maintaining property lines from long ago. Allowing my mind to wander, I begin to reflect inward. Where are my boundary lines? How to I maintain a healthy foundation? Are my inner and outer landscapes reflecting my needs? Am I honoring myself by maintaining a healthy and well-balanced lifestyle?

There are so many connections and clues around us. Each are asking us to check in with ourselves. As we develop a healthy and sustainable self-care practice, we breathe deeply into our bodies, learning to listen to the quiet and steady voice within. It helps us to understand who we are and what we need to continue our path that we choose to design. Remembering the important role of the old stone walls, they did not quickly come together and form their lines for the farmers. No. The stones were dug out of those fields. The farmers cleared and cared for the land. With the rocky soil now cleared and ready to be fertilized, they painstakingly built the walls, piecing them together one by one. This action took time and a lot of effort. You can even say that the task was a labor of love in order to provide for themselves and loved ones. Like the farmers, we too, can remove and detangle what does not belong to us and cultivate healthy and necessary boundaries we need in our lives as well.

It is true that it can be difficult to create healthy boundaries, especially when we may find ourselves always putting others first. We can fall into a routine, get consumed by our schedules, and end up getting swept away until it is time for us to plop into bed, hoping tomorrow will be different. The thing is, nothing will change until we decide to create that change for ourselves. The key to healthy boundaries is to create beneficial patterns that promote and foster what you need. Another key? Begin to really dig in and get to know yourself. What makes you happy? What makes you sad or angry? The stresses that bubble up to the surface, why are they there and what are they trying to say?

As we begin to remove old patterns of behavior that no longer serve us, we will need to plant the seeds for new beneficial patterns. The task can seem daunting, I know. Yet, the most important and helpful habits take time to foster and grow. Patience, persistence, and a good sense of humor can all help as we learn to live in a new way. But where do we begin?

• Meditation and journaling are great places to start. The more we understand who we are, we can see our patterns and why we have created them. Once we see and understand the pattern, we can begin to undo the habit and replace it with something helpful.
• Start in small ways – little actions go a long way and will create the confidence needed to make the bigger changes later. We can hold a lot of anxiety with our cell phones that are on all the time. Texts, calls, emails, and social media are always going and are always at our fingertips. Healthy boundaries can begin when we shut off thew phone. If you are feeling stressed or anxious, do you really need to reply to the text or email right away? If not, leave it. You can continue doing what you are doing at the time or meditate, reflect, or just breathe. The point is, you are the one in charge of your life.
• Learn to ask for help when you need it. This can be very difficult for a lot of people. You are certainly not alone. Asking for help and telling others what you need is not a sign of weakness. It is an act of kindness that you can offer to yourself. You do not need to do everything all of the time. Ask for help. It is something you can do to help to elevate some of the weight you carry. Maybe you can even ask yourself if you are taking on too much responsibility for the time you have allotted to you. Again, you do not need to do all the things all of the time for everyone. If you spread yourself too thin, you will not have the energy for yourself or anyone else.
• Learn to say no. This is one of the hardest things to do for so many people. By saying no, we can begin to do the things that we need to do for ourselves. We have many choices in our lifetime. What does your life look like when you have the power and control over it? When we say no, we are advocating for ourselves. We are saying that we are valuable and all that is within our lives is valuable too. No is a word that can help us foster what is important to us because we are being the gate keepers of our life. Another thing to remember is that ‘No’, is a full sentence. It is healthy to say no.
• Leave your options open. Of course, by saying no right in the moment, depending what the issue is, it doesn’t mean that it is forever. Things can change. Our schedule may free up, granting us a little time where we can experience something that we want to do.
• Be honest in your words and deeds. When we are honest with ourselves and others, we build a healthy line of communication. This is a wonderful gift that you can give to yourself and to those around you. Speaking what is in your heart can sting sometimes, but if you are gentle in your communication, understanding can be had on both sides of the conversation. Is there an outcome that you can settle on?

As we begin to untangle the pieces within us, we can start to cultivate our field, our inner landscape. With what we discover inside ourselves, we can prepare for healthy and prosperous growth. By doing so, we are laying down the foundation for our necessary and healthy boundaries. Our new personal boundaries can feel strange or difficult at first. We can even lose our hold on those boundaries from time to time. That is normal. The important thing to remember is that you can always pick up where you left off. Please remember that you are beginning to change some patterns that you held for a very long time. It will be difficult and may take some time. There will be times when you fall back into the old routines. Please remember to offer yourself forgiveness, examine where the break in the boundary was, and simply try again. These new healthy patterns are there for you to continue to grow, develop, heal, and evolve. How do your important boundary lines expand through your landscape?

Renee Bedard is a psychic intuitive and a Reiki Master Teacher. She is currently a Witchcraft 3 student and a Virgo Ministry volunteer.

After my father died my mom and I had a rare conversation about religion that has stuck with me. She said that she wished she had the faith others had because she thought, in troubled times, you could take great solace in your spiritual connection. My thoughts turned to this conversation as I spoke with friends and my students this week. We were all reeling from the impact of grief, the after-effects of the pandemic, and some significant changes, and the one thing they said they had lost focus with was their spiritual practices. My immediate response was “That is all right, you are dealing with a lot, don’t worry, it will come back.” Then, as I drove home my mother’s words came back to me. It had me considering: Do I take solace and refuge in my spiritual practice when things are hard?

The simple answer is: yes, I do. As I examine and unpack it more I notice that my spiritual practice adapts to the holistic circumstances, both internal and external, of my life. I ask myself, “What do I need from my spiritual practice today, this month, this year?” Sometimes my answer is hard core practices when I need a spiritual kick in the tush, initiatory transformative experiences, or just a desire to dive deeper. As I unpack this, these extreme practices are not my go-to when I need solace or refuge. It all depends on whether diving deep into them brings the clarity and focus I need to get through what is going on. I find that strangely I get more “done” when I am in the flow of deeper practice. 

When the answer to my question of what I need is solace and refuge, I turn to the simple daily practices or practices that respond to my circumstances. My simplest practice is my altar devotion, which is just lighting my altar candle and saying an invocation of the infinite divine to protect and guide me in my thoughts, words, and deeds to my true will, deepest love, and greatest wisdom. It is the one constant practice for me and I take refuge in its simplicity. 

The practices that work with what I need shift with the circumstance. Need guidance, a divination; need peace or alignment, a short meditation; need healing, some reiki or charging water; need protection, anointing with protection potion; need a jolt of energy, make an elixir with my planetary spygerics; need to finish an assignment from a class, do that. In grief, I take a moment to talk out loud to the deceased and offer them some light or a glass of water. Sometimes the practice is just to get on with my day for that is what is needed. 

It is up to you to ask yourself these questions and find your own answers. If you need solace and refuge think about why that is? What will offer you the opportunity for that now? Be open to your answers and take action on them, even when the action is inaction.

Adam Sartwell works as a certified Consulting Hypnotist with the National guild of Hypnotists and ICBCH, and professional Tarot reader. He is a co-founder of the Temple of Witchcraft. Award-wining Author of Twenty-one days of Reiki and The Blessing Cord, he has been published in anthologies such as Green Lovers, Ancestors of the Craft, and Foundations of the Temple. For more information on his work as a hypnotist and online courses, go to hypnointuitive.com. To see more about his work as an author, psychic reader,  and teacher go to his website adamsartwell.com

The Temple will be offering an online Ritual of Remembrance for David Erwin on Sunday, July 25th from 2 to 5 pm Eastern Time. Elsa Elliott, Lead Minister of Scorpio, will lead a service including a ritual for honoring the dead and providing mediation to David as he journeys to his next phase. Members are encouraged to have a candle and simple altar set up in their homes, if they wish.

Please join us to honor this wonderful man and Temple member. May he rise in power and his memory be a blessing. Who is remembered lives!

You can register to attend this ritual online on Zoom at this link.

If you are looking for resources on grief, please contact the Scorpio ministry at [email protected] and see www.templeofwitchcraft.org/scorpio for more information, reference materials and a suggestion for an altar honoring the recently deceased.

At one of the reiki shares we were sharing what was going on a bit in our lives. One share stuck out to me the next day. It was of a parent who was putting two kids through college and how as parents they had to go over what their budget was so they could afford to send both progeny to college. One thing that had to be factored into their budget was witchcraft and what they spent on it. I started to mull over this idea of a “witchcraft budget.”

Budgets in themselves are not very exciting but they are necessary to achieve a long term goal. To make one you have to be introspective as to what your priorities are. It takes courage to see yourself in the eyes of a budget for it can bring up sadness as we let go of things of less priority to make room for our true priorities. This could be why people avoid doing them. As witches we need to be introspective and a budget is a great way to think about how we “spend” our lives.

This conversation had me thinking not only in the terms of money but also in the terms of how I spend my time and energy when it comes to witchcraft. What practices give me the most back in enjoyment, benefits to community, benefit to my own self growth? As witchcraft is a science, as well as an art and religion, one needs to have data to be able to judge how well something works for you. Turning back to my journal I looked over what seemed effective for me and where I had “over spent” on something that did not give a whole lot back. This type of introspection is helpful to make future plans.

Tracking our “spending” in our journal can be a valuable experience. Spending a little time learning how to track one’s progress and self in a journal can be valuable. Learning how to bullet journal can be helpful in learning what you have been doing and its effects.

A budget is just a plan and should change with the circumstances. Looking to my students through their progress through the craft, I have found that at different times students’ “budgets” had to change to accommodate a priority. One example was a student who lost a family member during their classes. Suddenly they found themselves behind because their budget had to now accommodate their grieving process. This sudden life change disrupted their life but was a sudden priority change that was completely necessary to their healing process. This is why the witchcraft budget is an adaptable plan to the circumstances we are going through at the time.

We have to include the circumstances we have to deal with in our budget. Every one’s circumstances are different. Some people have kids, some have medical conditions, some have elderly parents to care for, an addiction, a chronic issue, a job commitment, or a multitude of variables. These circumstances call for us to be creative and to realize what our priorities are. When it comes to dealing with our circumstances it can be helpful to budget out time, money and energy to see what we can afford. Some people put off their craft to make room for these circumstances and some will over spend on the craft to escape dealing with them. The goal of the budget is to find a way to make it balanced and remember the benefits of your craft.

As a hypnotist I think about what I say and how to frame things to make sure I am telling my subconscious things that are helpful. Saying that “this isn”t in my budget yet” is different then saying you don’t have the money, time, or energy for it.  When I say it isn’t in my budget I am saying I have different priorities right now and If I want to make something new a  priority I have to shift things. You have time, money, and energy but they are being spent on different priorities recognizes that you have abundance and does not put energy into creating lack. Following the sentence with the word “yet” makes it so you are not limiting the field of possibility for this to manifest in the future when priorities shift.

Adam Sartwell (New Hampshire) works as a certified Consulting Hypnotist with the National guild of Hypnotists and ICBCH, and professional Tarot reader. He is a co-founder of the Temple of Witchcraft, a religious nonprofit. Award wining Author of Twenty-one days of Reiki and The Blessing Cord. He has been published in anthologies such as Green lovers, Ancestors of the craft, and Foundations of the temple. For more information on his work as a hypnotist  and online courses go to https://hypnointuitive.com. To see more about his work as an author, psychic reader,  and teacher go to his website https://adamsartwell.com