How to Become a Witch by Amber K. (large ebook reader txt) 📗

without intimacy, observation, perception; also emotional detachment, isolation, lack of self-knowledge, erratic behavior.

Moon in Pisces (the Fish, a water sign ruled by Jupiter and Neptune): Sensitivity, empathy, connection, kindness, understanding, imagination, solitude; also daydreaming, impracticality, emotional parasitism, oversensitivity.

Witches have long been associated with the night and the moon, perhaps because of the mystery and magick we feel in the moonlight. We have a reputation as “night owls,” though obviously not all Witches are. Some love the dawn and the sunlight.

The world is both smaller and larger by moonlight—the known world is smaller, the unknown world is larger. Sight recedes; sound and smell and touch become more acute. The few things we can sense are more important, more intimate. Things we never notice by day—the sound of a dead leaf wind-scraped along a pavement—loom larger and more significant by night. Moonlight washes out color and leaves all in shades of gray. There is a paradox: we may be afraid in the dark because of what we can’t see, and at the same time we can feel protected by darkness and there can be a sense of freedom because others can’t see us.

Moonlight is a time for dream and fantasy, shapeshifting and transformation, mystery and the occult; all is fluid, hidden, unknown. The moon can help you make friends with the night, be at ease in darkness, and find the special beauty of the nocturnal realms.

The moon gives us opportunities to do pieces of large projects, short cycles of sowing and reaping within the greater Wheel of the Year. This lunar month, what can you accomplish on your way to achieving the larger goal? We get the gift of a new beginning every 29.53 days, twelve or thirteen times a year.

The lunar cycle, like the Wheel of the Year, is also a reminder of the wheel of life, the Wheel of Fortune in the tarot cards. What goes around comes around. What is low shall be raised, what is dark shall be light. As one variation of a common Pagan chant says, “All that dies shall be reborn…All that falls shall rise again.”[1]

Esbat Exercises

Walk outside. Is the moon visible? What phase is she in? (If you can’t see her, check the Internet.) Do this nightly; begin to get a sense of her rhythm and phase until you notice it automatically and always know what phase she is in. Watch for her waning crescent in the daytime, too.

What is your relationship to the moon? What do you feel when you are outside at night in the moonlight? Try to sum up your feelings in a poem, and write it down. Later you may wish to put it in your magickal journal, often called a Book of Shadows (see chapter 3).

Find more names from various cultures for the monthly full moons on the Internet.

Think of the magick or divination work you could do that would help meet your needs at four different phases of the moon:

diana’s bow (early waxing crescent)

full moon

hecate’s sickle (late waning moon)

new moon/dark of the moon

The Wheel of the Year and the lunar cycles are just two patterns that can help define and guide our lives. We can fit our projects and goals into them—whether earning a degree or building a house or doing spiritual work—and we can both blend with their energies and rhythms and use them to help achieve our hearts’ desires.

There are other cycles; watch for those that are special to your life—they may involve your career, your kids and school, your hobbies or sports, and so on. Just by being aware of these and planning for them, you can “go with the flow” more easily.

Beyond these are the recurring dance of day and night, the astrological cycles of the planets, and the reincarnation cycle of your lives, deaths, and rebirths. The mysteries and powers of all these are open to the Witch.

[1] “Hoof and Horn” by Ian Corrigan, http://www.bornpagan.com/upca/song_cycle/05%20-%20Hoof_and

_Horn.mp3 (this version has All that’s cut shall rise again).

Chapter 3

Power of the Pentagram

The Witches’ Paradigm

Water, fire, earth, and air,

Touching magick, wielding power,

Ruled by spirit, all is there,

I am a Witch at every hour.

In our model of reality, the universe is formed of earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. On one level, they represent solid matter, gases, energy, liquids, and spirit. On another level, they are our physical bodies, minds, energy fields, emotions, and souls. All of the first four elements are connected and harmonized in spirit. The elements—and all the correspondences, or subsets of them—make up the symbolic language of Wiccan magick.

In chapter 1, we talked about the shamanic and ceremonial magick roots of Witchcraft. Of the four elemental components of being, the shamanic roots are physical (earth) and emotional (water), and the ceremonial is practically all mental (air)—but both work with energy and will, the fire element. The shaman might raise energy through drumming, chanting, dance, or song (physical and emotional expressions), while the ceremonial magician would be more likely to raise power by pure mind alone (focused and concentrated thought). So working with and directing energy is where the shaman and the ceremonial magician come together, and this is the synthesis that Wiccans use in magick.

The box below contains the most commonly used system of correspondences in modern Witchcraft. (Some traditions assign other correspondences to the four directions, and that is okay; there is no One True Way.)

At this time, you may want to make or purchase your first tool: the Book of Shadows that every Witch should keep. (We’ll cover more of the tools in chapter 4.) A Book of Shadows is a blank book in which you record your journey as a Witch. Every spell, every ritual you perform or participate in, as well as notes taken in classes, should be recorded in your book. Ideally, you might make the book yourself, but you can buy your Book of Shadows ready-made. A search on the Internet will find dozens of sources for