How to Become a Witch, Amber K. [new books to read .txt] 📗

An incense stick or an incense holder and incense. Don’t light it yet.

A feather.

Pieces of rose quartz (to allow only love in) or hematite (to keep negativity out) or both, two per outside door. (These are the wards.)

Go through your home, opening every door, closet, and cupboard. Starting at the front door, pick up the bowl of water and walk clockwise through the house, keeping the wall close on your left side, in and out of every room. Sprinkle saltwater every two feet or so (and into the closets and cupboards and on the windows and doors), saying, “With earth and water, I cleanse this home so that it may become a place of comfort and love.” Say it over and over as you go through the house. When you return to the front door, end with, “So mote it be!”

Next, light the incense. Pick up the feather in your left hand and the incense in your right, and follow the same path throughout your house. This time, touch the feather to the wall by the front door at about shoulder level, and keep it touching the wall all the way through the home. Say, “With air and fire, I cleanse this space so that it may become a home of happy thoughts and vitality.” When you return to the front door, end with, “So mote it be!”

Finally, dunk the rose quartz and/or hematite in the saltwater and pass them through the incense smoke, saying, “I charge thee to guard and protect this home from this day forward; so mote it be!” Then go to each exterior door in turn, ending with the front door, and place the stones on the floor on either side of the door. Say, “May only good things, thoughts, and people pass this threshold; so mote it be!” and close the door. Visualize a warm pink and golden glow surrounding your home, protecting it and you from harm. Leave the incense to burn out in the living room, and wash your hands with the rest of the saltwater.

A simpler home blessing may become a part of your daily practice. Visualize the pink and golden glow remaining strong and bright, and strengthen it each day by saying, “May this home be protected and safe. So mote it be!”

Blue beads for protection

Ceramic beads in a vivid blue color provide luck and protection, especially for horses and other animals, according to the old stories. This custom seems to have spread from the Middle East—

perhaps a bit of folklore that the European crusaders

brought back from the Holy Land.

Health for Healers

How do Witches differ from cowans as far as taking care of their health? Well, Witches come from a long line of healers. Many Witches seek health and wellness rather than just the absence of pain or other symptoms. Exercise, nutrition, clean air and water, rest, and relaxation are priorities. Most Witches respond to illness and injury with a combination of modern medicine and traditional, noninvasive cures.

We are open to many different branches of healing: energy work, herbs, Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic healing, aromatherapy, soul retrieval, and much more. Witches may use Feldenkrais, yoga, Pilates, the Alexander Technique, reiki, and a host of other modalities. Most Wiccans are not totally averse to allopathic medicine—drugs and surgery—but we see that as only one part of the healing realm.

The “Drawing Down the Moon” position The chakras: from top, crown (rules higher knowledge), third eye (rules higher intuition and psychic skills), throat (rules communication), heart (rules love), energy/navel (rules vital energy), spleen/sexual (rules sexual desire and passion), and root (rules survival)

Mental and emotional health therapies are just as diverse: we may try psychoanalysis, but we’re just as likely to go for music therapy, art therapy, equine therapy, Jungian, rational-emotive, humanistic, or mead-around-the-bonfire therapy.

And to get really witchy, we’ll use divination, ritual, and spellwork as part of our wellness program. Witches know that the body is more than a flesh machine: the mind, energy field, emotions, and spirit are all essential to wholeness and harmony. A large part of this is your energy field, so a chakra check, or “running the energy,” may be just what you need. Chakra? We’ll explain.

The fire part of you is your will, desire, and passion, but also your energy field.

The human body is permeated and animated by electromagnetic energy. The human aura is the glow from that field that can be seen visually or sensed in other ways. Everyone has an energy field, even the dead. But yours, assuming you are not dead, is very obvious and easy to work with. Your energy field is essential to life and health, so it deserves quality time and attention.

Within the human energy field, the places where the power concentrates are called chakras. There are seven major ones (see illustration, opposite page) and many minor ones.

The simplest way to sense your energy field, including both aura and chakras, is to be still for a few minutes, ground and center, and become consciously aware of your energy. It’s a little like a regular breast self-exam (or the guy equivalent) in that you have the chance to notice if something is wrong and treat it.

Many people can see the energy field, some in color, some in shades of gray. Look at any living thing; it’s easiest when the subject is in front of a neutral background and not too brightly lit. Or look at yourself in a mirror. You may first notice an overall glow extending out for a couple of feet, or perhaps a brighter, inner layer that surrounds the body close to the skin.

“But I’ve tried, and I can’t see auras!” No problem. Some people sense auras in other ways. You may feel the aura kinesthetically. Close your eyes and feel the outside of your skin, then extend your senses out about an inch. You may feel a warmth or sense a thickening of the air. When you hold your palm