Your Witchcraft

[Meisopomenos]

So, what is your witchcraft? How do you practice it? How did you embark upon your journey or learn your craft? Were you taught formally or informally? Were you taught at all?

Let's get to know a bit about each other's paths...

** Do not post anything that you do not want to reveal because of this post. I know there are secrets that come with familial traditions, so do not expect someone to just pour out what their family believes and why. **

[MonSno_LeeDra]

Here is a link to an earlier thread that answers part of your questions.

http://mysticwicks.com/showthread.php?t=162966

Who I am part one
What is Green Witchcraft?
First let me preface this with the statement that all that follows is my own opinion and thoughts on this question. As such they may not align with what others would perceive Green Witchcraft to be.
I think that Green Witchcraft is similar to Shamanism in a number of ways. While the two have similar type concepts I think there is enough difference to make them separate. I find that the Green Witch is closer aligned to the physical aspects of mother earth than any other Witch is, granted many Witches respect the earth and even follow some green type thoughts but they don’t quite reach the same depth.

Follow link for full thread....

Ok for the rest.

I have answered this many times over I think but here is the readers digest version.

I was formally taught as part of my families Traditional pathwalk on one hand. I was also formally taught a pathwalk that was Stregian in nature by a lady that pretty much adopted me as a surogate son. I am oath bound by both groups so do not go into detail of either though if you read my threads you can get a good idea of much of it I think.

The family oath is the more relaxed of the two though it is only discussed within the confines of the family or those brough into it.

Between the two most of my early opinions and idea's were laid. Over the years I have experienced many things that have also influenced me to create the pathwalk I now stand upon. While one time part of a group I have pretty much settled upon a lone pathway which I must walk alone. Yet it is also one facet I have known was coming for it was also part of the earlier teachings I recieved that indicated it would be such.

[Meisopomenos]

I was formally taught as part of my families Traditional pathwalk on one hand. I was also formally taught a pathwalk that was Stregian in nature by a lady that pretty much adopted me as a surogate son. I am oath bound by both groups so do not go into detail of either though if you read my threads you can get a good idea of much of it I think.

Interesting...

You've got a PM coming your way with a question...

[Deerwoman]

I'm a combination of many things, but I mainly think of myself as a folk-magic practitioner. In my personal practice I follow Scottish Witchcraft - collected from bits and pieces, folklore, practices, ballads, superstitions, oral lore, and any books I can get my hands on. I was inspired to do so because of my grandmother. Her parents were from Scotland and she was very interested in her heritage - she was the family geneologist. She collected works on the Druids, Vikings, Picts, manuscripts, Scottish handicrafts and folklore - she also visited Scotland over and over until she got too old. We were like two peas in a pod when I was growing up so her interests have always been mine as well. I've combined Scottish witchcraft with traditional witchcraft practices and using local ethnobotany in my craft - so I may be practicing Scottish witchcraft, but the plants and herbs I use regularly are the ones right outside my door (many are similar anyway though!).

Formally I'm being trained in Anderson's Feri - it and Scottish Witchcraft go very well together, a group has already created a tradition mixing the two. However, most people who know me well would call me a green or a kitchen witch. I'm always fooling around with food, recipes, plants, gardening, and wildcrafting.

[Rudas Starblaze]

i got screwed.
i was born like this. i didnt have a choice in the matter. :(

[Deerwoman]

Poor RS, must've been hardest on your mom :neh:

*bump*

Any others for sharing their non-Wiccan witchcraft path? How you stumbled upon it, why it resonates with you?

[~Nixie]

:)

[Rosetta Morrigan]

I'm very eclectic in my beliefs. I study other spiritualities and religions, taking what I believe and leaving the rest. I'm constantly learning and my beliefs are always building. Most closely, I'd identify myself as a Christian Witch, which I know is really controversial to some, but not to me...to me it makes sense because it is my own unique personal truth.

When I was in fifth grade, I became interested in the Occult. It began with just going to the library and picking out some books on dream interpretation and psychic gifts. Then, when I was thirteen, I read my first book about witchcraft, and I knew, at that point, that it was for me. So I began to study it and how I could practice it without compromising my religious beliefs...and...voila! With years of constant browsing of internet articles and book-reading and self-study...here I am. I informally taught myself, I guess you'd say. I use my Craft as an expression of my spirituality. I use it in worship and to bless myself and others. It's "prayer with props" for me. It works for me and my spirituality makes me excited to exist.

[Sekhmet Soul30]

Rosetta Morrigan, your not the only one that's like that. On the Kemetic part of the forum I talk about that I honor and worship Sekhmet but I also worship Isis, Horus, Anubis, Ma'at, and Bast. I don't practice much witchcraft as I don't have the money (though money is coming my way) and I'm starting to get back into the Wheel of the Year. I'm still searching for what I am, even though I connect to many.

Oh and I live in Mass so that means that I can hop the bus and go to Boston and then Salem. Wicked cool :thumbsup:.

[herbal_legends]

It's always been a part of me...there was no "formal" training and I don't belong to any secret societies. I believe everyone has the ability to influence their surroundings. The easiest description would be Traditional Witch.

I'm a hearth/kitchen witch in the sense that I don't need special (i.e. expensive) tools to perform my craft. I work with what I have in and around my home and I educate myself about herbs and remedies.

I'm a green witch because of my complete reverence for nature. I love my little butterfly garden in my yard! I'm the crazy girl that speaks to trees and feels like they speak back to me. :hyper:

I'm a cottage witch because my home is my magical altar...it is not just secluded to one area....when you walk into my home, you're engulfed by it.

[Sekhmet Soul30]

Lucky you.

[Gaudior]

I have been influenced by Eastern beliefs, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism, but I seem to be moving towards other systems as of late. Feri really interests me, and of course, I love ceremonial magic :D

[)O( ~ Khara~ )O(]

I was raised this way. It's who I am. :whatgives

[Dragonfly Spirit]

Being a witch isn't what I do it's what I am. It also has nothing to do with my faith, I follow a northern tradition religion but that and being a witch is not connected. I guess cottage witch is a good a description of any for me as I don't have special tools or even do any rituals, don't have a god or goddess I associate with being a witch or even follow the wheel of the year in a calendar way.

To me being a witch is just something I grew up as. It's senseing when the year changes and moves on, feeling the difference in the air, the power from the natural enviroument, knowing the feelings of the trees and animals. Knowing that other realms outside of human kind exsist. It's knowing my time here is limited but not being afraid of that as everything has to go in a cycle and feeling the energy that flows through life, trying to harness it for good intent and to always being open to listen and learn from the world around me.

[calamedes]

my faith is one that is continually growing and evolving. i have a bit of a mix between christianity, animism, shamanism, and martial arts (yes, it's a central meditation of mine :D). In the end, it comes down to Green Witchcraft through a medium of movement and meditation. Though I don't practice spells, I do believe that it can happen. I simply haven't yet needed to cast anything beyond protections on myself :P

[TuathaSidhe]

What is it? It is me :D

My witchcraft has become based on Appalachian granny magic, and Kitchen Witchery.

[Sekhmet Soul30]

Like my path below my name states I'm a Tameran Wiccan. However I'm still interested in Christian Witchcraft but I'm leaning more blending my Tameran Wicca with my Christian Witchcraft. Sorry to confused people again but that's how I feel.

[HecticEclectic]

It's always been a part of me...there was no "formal" training and I don't belong to any secret societies. I believe everyone has the ability to influence their surroundings. The easiest description would be Traditional Witch.

I'm a hearth/kitchen witch in the sense that I don't need special (i.e. expensive) tools to perform my craft. I work with what I have in and around my home and I educate myself about herbs and remedies.

I'm a green witch because of my complete reverence for nature. I love my little butterfly garden in my yard! I'm the crazy girl that speaks to trees and feels like they speak back to me. :hyper:

I'm a cottage witch because my home is my magical altar...it is not just secluded to one area....when you walk into my home, you're engulfed by it.

Herbal Legends, this sounds like me, too!

I will add that I have never been formally trained, and that all of my knowledge comes from books, from a local pagan group that meets in my area a couple of times a month, and from this forum!

My spellwork consists largely of cleansing and protecting my home and family, and using the law of attraction to draw positivity and goodness into my life.

[Sekhmet Soul30]

Today I did a cleansing with sage and moved my shrine/altar around. I just felt the sudden need. Now I move on.

[ffetcher]

My arrival on the Wiccan path is documented here several times, essentially Christianity to Ceremonial Magic to Wicca.

I moved down to the New Forest area for uni., and encountered Wicca. The New Forest wasn't deliberate and it wasn't a chance encounter with a coven on a moonlit night , but because I picked up a copy of Farrar's "Twelve Maidens" on a station bookstall - occult/pagan fiction is commonplace now, but back then I do wonder how it got there. By halfway through I knew that something like this was the path for me.

It took quite a while to find anyone who knew anyone, because we in the UK were in the midst of a war between the tabloid newspapers and those occultists and pagans who were 'out', resulting in several people losing their day-jobs and a couple emigrating. But, armed with my new-found knowledge (a copy of "What Witches Do") I eventually found someone who lent me a couple more books, saying - "read these and we'll discuss it some more". A month later, in the uni. bar, acceptance by my first teacher consisted of 'this guy's been bugging me for ages, put me out of my misery and say he can come to the next ritual.'

It was beautiful, and it's stuck. I've worked with three different groups and even in my 'solitary' periods I've considered myself pretty much mainstream Gardnerian. That's up to now.

Over the past five (ye Ghods, that long?) years I've been working with a collection of material from the Crotona Fellowship, which Gardner identified as being the group within which he met the New Forest Coven. Originally, I was just following up Heselton's work, but being local I could spend more time on the stuff. About three years ago I was sitting in the pub transcribing my handwritten (pencil) notes into my laptop, paying proper attention to what I'd got, when I realised that what I had was a fictionalised initiation ceremony. I went and got a second glass of wine and considered that I might be close to Gardner's original initiation. I called my wife. She considered that there would have been too much he had to learn in advance, but I played with it for a bit and decided perhaps not. I went back over the rest and, now knowing what I was looking for, discovered enough that could be made into a system. It's not amenable to proof, of course so I make no claims, but when you knock the rough edges off it, it works (but then, after enough work, so does pretty much anything). So I may, after thirty-five years, be at a turning point.

blessings
ffetcher

[Sharizzy]

When I first started learning about paganism, I was also studying my heritage. You could say that my Celtic ancestors helped me figure out my spirituality, and now I label myself a Celtic Wiccan.

[Violetsky]

It's always been a part of me...there was no "formal" training and I don't belong to any secret societies. I believe everyone has the ability to influence their surroundings. The easiest description would be Traditional Witch.

I'm a hearth/kitchen witch in the sense that I don't need special (i.e. expensive) tools to perform my craft. I work with what I have in and around my home and I educate myself about herbs and remedies.

I'm a green witch because of my complete reverence for nature. I love my little butterfly garden in my yard! I'm the crazy girl that speaks to trees and feels like they speak back to me. :hyper:

I'm a cottage witch because my home is my magical altar...it is not just secluded to one area....when you walk into my home, you're engulfed by it.

Your post also describes my current path. I love that last sentence, it is what I am trying to create in my home with small successes, but still working on improving the energy and appearance,hehe.
My first foray onto my path was reading silly spell books from the library as a pre-teen, then at 18 I stumbled into a Dianic path with some amazing women for about a year and then I moved out of state and there were years of chaos.
After that I was a bit of a festival and gathering type of pagan and then I was immersed in Buddhism and Yoga for a while,adding some Hindu deities to my pantheon.
To be honest I was a bit jaded after being to one too many gatherings and Ren. Fairs,lol.
Sometimes it was an overload of cloaks and capes and baubles and I started to wonder if paganism was mere childish fantasy.People I know laughed at witches and pagans mocking them,etc.
Even so, I really have not changed in my core beliefs this whole time. The only wavering has been whether the gods are "real" or merely archetypes. At this point I am working with "real".:hahugh:
And Kitchen, cottage witchery is where I have been led. It feels grounded and peaceful and I love the idea that my home is magical and sacred.
cheers to magical homes:)!

[sparrowspirit]

I have found some of my beliefs are under questioning..... I'm on a road to self-discovery....and it's often hard to grasp...

[Erebos]

For my path, I try to keep it very much as a nature religion rather than going too far into the New Age occultism (not that I disagree with anyone drawn to that side of things, it's just not where my interests lie). I'm mostly self-taught, though I have practiced with groups here and there, but I practice alone out of personal preference. I like older books by Doreen Valiente, the Farrars and Starhawk rather than the newer books that are more like, "The Goddess and God blah blah blah, now here are some super-cool spells." I practice a generic Witchcraft rather than following a Wiccan or Feri tradition specifically, for example.

I see the Goddess as the Mother, the Divine Source of Life, embodied in the concept of the Moon Goddess. She is cyclical but eternal, while the Horned God undergoes his seasonal cycles of life, death and rebirth. Both deities are equally important, though I tend to put more emphasis on the Goddess, as she is the source, the creator/destroyer, while the Horned God represents the spirit of life itself, and all that is created, destroyed and renewed.

For me, the path of Witchcraft is about going back to the "primitive" roots of religion. It's about being in tune with the waxing and waning tides of life, and shamanic experiences through communicating with other levels of existence than just the physical one. Sometimes I struggle with the word "Witchcraft" as it originates from Christian propaganda against pagan traditions, but in its modern form I think it's a label that identifies a coherent system of revering the old gods of nature and tapping into deeper powers of the mind that we call "magic."

That said, I also follow a path of Greco-Egyptian polytheism (I don't call myself a reconstructionist, although I pretty much use that method when honoring distinct gods of a cultural pantheon in a traditional way). For me there is no contradiction. The Adonia, for example, was celebrated in Greece as a private festival around the summer solstice, so I may honor Adonis with offerings during my Summer Solstice observance. The Greeks also had many moon goddesses, so I typically honor them during the appropriate phase (Artemis during the waxing crescent, Hekate at the dark moon, and Hera Teleia or Selene at the full). I often use Isis and Osiris as general names for the two main deities, as they embody the same principles (especially in the Hellenistic Isis cult, which was very universalist in nature). However, I don't always bring named gods from ancient pantheons into my seasonal celebrations, though I maintain shrines to many of them as a separate way of worship.

Sometimes it really bothers me when pretentious people (some Recons, but not all), say that "Neo-Pagans" are misinformed and do not worship authentically. I'm sure many pagans (neo-pagans as well as Recons) are ignorant of ancient culture and worship, but many are quite knowledgeable. I did a lot of my undergraduate work in Classics, as well as a few courses in Egyptology, so I'm sure I have as good of an understanding of these cultures as any Recon :lol: