Creating a Solitary Rhythm

 

For the traditional witch the goal is real, functional witchery. This means that it is essential for us to do our craft on a day-by-day, season-by-season basis. For some this is easy and obvious, while for others it is hard. These challenges can be long term or last only a season. One challenge can be that many of us are solitary witches. At the Forest’s Edge, we say we are all solitary-in-community. This means that whether we have a local circle or not, we all cultivate solitary practice and work to maintain our ties to our tradition community. For a traditional witch with neither tradition nor local group, solitary- only practice can either be a sparkling gem of independence and self-direction or a quagmire of low motivation and prioritization. For many it is something in between. It can be hard to make practice a high priority if no one is waiting for you to light the ritual fire, but people are waiting for you to cook dinner. It can be especially hard for newcomers to believe in the reality of their work when there is no one to verify and celebrate with. Investing in your practices of divination, hedgeriding, spirit work, and spell casting, for your own sake, can be a part of spiritual growth.

Observing holidays that reflect the cycles of nature is an important part of being a witch and living into nature’s rhythms. Observing these special days connects you to other witches and your spiritual ancestry and gives you a regular opportunity to tend to your spiritual needs. Having a sense of rhythm and connection that is integral to your life comes through your personal practices to a significant degree. The chapter Green and Local Witchcraft further explores the importance of seasonal and personal holidays.

If celebrating holidays or doing regular magical work does not always come easily to you, that is okay. We all have periods where practice lies fallow. We are all working to strengthen our spiritual practice and that process never ends. Start small by adding one new idea or practice at a time and find what works for you bit by bit. There is no hurry and no such thing as being finished. The following ideas are suggestions that have helped some witches through seasons of challenge.

1) Organize

If you do not already, it can be a good idea to put expected ritual dates into your calendar or planner. You might include full and dark moons, as well as any seasonal holidays you choose. If a doctor’s visit deserves calendaring, then so too should your appointment with the spirits. You may even want to commit to setting a reminder for yourself a week prior to each event, so that you have some time to plan. Of course, this only works for cyclical observances, while much of your practice will be a response to emergent needs, intuition, and circumstances.

2) Find an Accountability Partner

A witchy accountability partner helps you stay accountable to your goals for practice, not through judgment but through interest and support. As social animals it means a lot to us when we share a plan with another person, who will then check in with us. It’s a little bit of extra motivation. Teachers and mentors are typically one-sided accountability partners, where they check in on your practice but less fully vice versa. A fellow witchy friend (in person or online) can be a mutual partner, where you each check in equally and show interest in each other’s process. If you have family or close friends who are witchy or supportive of your spiritual path, or both, you may want to ask one of those people to check in with you as well.

3) Create Default Rituals

Sometimes doing the same thing over and over feels like being stuck in a rut; but in terms of ritual, far more often it feels like having a consistent, dependable, spiritual practice—a tradition of your own with or without a larger tradition. So, start your own traditions! And then adjust them as needed. No one is going to make you stick with them always; you are entirely free to shake things up. However, the traditions you establish will be there for you when you need and want them.

Traditions can be just about anything that resonates for you. Maybe you want to make an offering at the base of your favorite tree on full moons, do some kind of house blessing each Autumn Equinox, or make a special dish each Winter Solstice and share it with your loved ones every year. Whatever works!

One great and foundational tradition is to create your own consistent ritual opening and closing and memorize it. Some witches begin and end ritual in very simple and intuitive ways most of the time, and reserve more formal ritual styles for special occasions. Just experiment until you find something that feels right to you.

4) Set a Yearly or Quarterly Theme

Setting a new theme for each year or seasonal quarter may sound limiting, but it is the kind of limit that can foster creativity, much like the limiting structure of formal poetry actually allows creative writing to blossom. It can seem counterintuitive, but having guidelines can really help us flourish. An example of a theme might be “Home and Hearth,” “The Darker Mysteries,” or “Nurturing Creativity,” or it could be a focus on a certain deity or type of spirit. Let’s say that “Home and Hearth” is your theme for this season. You might choose to do rituals that involve a house blessing, connecting with the spirits of your land, or working with a deity that signifies home and hearth. Another way of looking at a theme is to consider it as a goal but a more specific and inspiring goal than “practice regularly.”

When setting a theme, try to choose something that is relevant to you at this specific moment in your life, rather than settling for a theme that is simply the stereotype of the season. What matters the most to you? What makes you the most excited? What do you need the most right now?

5) Experiment

No one is depending on you to create a spectacular ritual that meets their spiritual needs. The only person you have to satisfy is yourself. So, adopt a state of mind that invites play and creative ideas. If something sounds really new or too much or too hard, you should do it. Really! What is failure as a solitary? Even if things do not go as you had planned, you learned something. Experiment with your own adaptations of the ideas in this book as well. If you do not know whether a certain idea will work for you, try it. If it doesn’t feel right, toss it.

6) Just Do It

If you feel tired, uninspired, overworked, bored, anxious, or what-have-you: Do something anyway. You do not have to feel in the mood to do a ritual. Coveners sometimes start a meeting by dragging themselves tired and stressed to another covener’s house. They feel overwhelmed by their work, school, or family responsibilities and even still they spend hours at each coven gathering. Why? Because spending time on your spiritual practice is worth it. For many of us, our spiritual practice is what gives us extra strength to do other things in our lives—and to do those things well and from a place of soul-deep rootedness. Solitary, your rituals are likely to range from five minutes to an hour. Invest that much in yourself.

If you are feeling stressed or otherwise bad-vibe-y when you are trying to begin a ritual or other spiritual practice, try using a method of cleansing that works for you. One of the most common is to light a stick of herbs (homemade or store-bought) and gently waft the smoke over your whole body while your awareness begins to shift toward the magical. Just make sure the herbs are gathered ethically. A spritz with an essential oil spray can do a similar job. As can sweeping around yourself or your indoor altar with a broom or purpose-made feather duster. Or try something else that works for you: a few minutes of meditation or chanting, a bath, or a venting session with your sweetie.

Your observances may or may not look like what you imagine, but establishing a consistent practice is far more important than figuring out the perfect thing to do. There is no perfect. But there is such thing as a satisfying spiritual practice that is an authentic reflection of where you are right now.

 

The Witch at the Forest’s Edge: Thirteen Keys to Modern Traditional Witchcraft on Amazon

 

 

*Printed with permission