Suppose you suddenly found yourself with an amazing opportunity: your life is about to be turned completely upside down. You don’t get to come back “home”. There is no one coming with you. You have 30 minutes to pack two bags (carry-on and backpack) before a car is picking you up to take you and said bags to the airport. You can choose the where. For me, it would be someplace like the wilds of Scotland. For you it may be London or Costa Rica. What would be in those bags?
As a witch with far too many possessions, it’s a good mental exercise, because it leads my brain into deeper reflections that impact real world decisions. This being able to shed one’s very self of accumulation. Accumulation of what? Possessions? Old beliefs? Hurts? Mindsets? To be, like the ancient story of Inanna, able to let go of even the finest of attributes and walk naked into hell…and face the Fury. Can I do that? Can you do that? What would be in our bags?
Suddenly, none of the possessions matter. Everything is up for assessment. What I know acutely is that I want the magickal skills I have learned in my bag. I realize like a lighting bolt illuminating my inner sanctum: those skills are hardly fine-tuned, hardly second nature…nowhere near a reflex…an art form as simple as a deep inhale. Witchcraft I is all about the inner fire…harnessing the mind…have I truly harnessed my mind?
Have I mastered reading the energetics of people, places, and things? Do I know how to consistently and effectively wield light in all its facets? To shield with such authority, not just myself, but those around me and those at a distance when needed? Do I walk in harmony with Nature, knowing her intimately, reading her patterns, understanding specific preferences? Am I able, when needed, to direct a force of nature along a different path? Can I assess all this in the time it takes to blink my eyes or cross my fingers? The answer is that I have not mastered…in any deep sense of the word… any of these skills.
Yet, if I am going to walk naked through the gates of hell, those are the skills I want to take with me…they can’t be removed like a bracelet, garment, crown, knife, or a grudge.
We all go to various hells. Call it what you may: the Abyss. Mirkwood. The Pit of Despair. The Land of Shadow. It’s why we as humans love dystopian and apocalyptic stories: they feed our deep need to see that some of us can go into those abominable places and come out the other side transformed and victorious.
So what will you pack in your bags? I know some of what’s going in mine. These types of quests come to all of us at random, unexpected times.
Good luck on your journey.
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 Temple Mystery School student under the instruction of High Priestess Sellena Dear.