What Does Real Magick Look Like?
I always wished I got this question a lot, but… I don’t.
Why not? I write books about witches and I am one myself.
But… I don’t look like one. Paige doesn’t act like one.
People get these preconceived notions of what a witch should look like and… well, that’s not me. I do spells… occasionally. Like, maybe one a year. Maybe. But magick, to me, isn’t about spells. It’s about the energy you put out into the world.
So, what does being a real witch look like in my life?
It looks a lot like someone trying to be a decent human being.
So, what do I do when I need to purge some negativity?
Sometimes, my inside voices are rather nasty, so I'll burn sage. I collect it, too. So, sometimes, I’ll go on walks to gather it, though that was down in the Lower 48. I can grow it indoors here, but not outside. It’s too cold here.
I also drink herbal teas – some of which are now being grown by yours truly. I collect my own home-grown dandelion roots. I grow and harvest my own leaves from my outside and inside gardens.
I have several rocks that I use to focus my thoughts and remain focused on the positive.
I meditate.
What do I do when I need to be grounded?
Living in Alaska, I’ve really felt out of control. All the skills I acquired in the Lower 48 don’t necessarily serve me up here. Being proactive when searching for a fix to a problem doesn’t work up here. Like, say the bathroom exhaust fan broke. My skills would have me on the internet, searching inventory for a replacement part or fan. However, here… the online inventory is useless and, even if you get a hold of a living person, it’s unlikely they’ll know. So, you invest the hours to go to the three local stores only to discover that the closest exhaust fan or exhaust fan part is another hour away. “But, little lady, it’s unlikely that’ll solve your problem. It’ll just be a waste of your time.” And even when I accept the challenge and go to Anchorage, I discover that the "very helpful" man was right. It was a complete waste of an entire day to fix something that would have been done in an hour in the Lower 48.
So… I have zero survival-in-Alaska skills. I can literally solve nothing up here. So, when I’m feeling overwhelmed—which is almost always—I take a walk in the woods. I smell the air and the crushed leaves under my boots.
That’s magick. That’s releasing myself to listen to the voice of the earth as she tells me that the mountains in Alaska are just too big for me to move. And that’s okay.
I come back inside, wishing I had a working bathroom exhaust fan, and get back to work, feeling at least a little grounded.
What is real magick?
It depends on the person and that’s okay. I don’t need big shows. I definitely don’t need ceremony.
Magick is you allowing a sense of something bigger than you into your soul.
Magick is giving the cosmos a part of yourself to make your world better.
Magick isn’t about power. It’s not about prestige. It’s not about books, or spells, or potions, or wands.
Unless that’s what you need magick to be.
At the end of the day, magick—your magick should empower you to shape the world around you in big and small ways. That’s what witches do.
That’s what real witches do. They empower through their own empowerment.
And sometimes, they use tea to do it with. So, yeah.
If you’d like to learn more about how the Whiskey witches do their magick, read here.