some things i wish i knew as a baby practitioner:
it’s perfectly okay to change your mind. sometimes the ritual doesn’t line up with how you feel anymore. sometimes you feel pulled in a new direction. it’s all normal.
there’s intense and powerful magic in research. in learning. that doesn’t always mean hours in the library, but it does often mean logging off and learning about your native environment.
let your grimoire be messy. let it contradict itself. add things that are interesting but don’t really have a place yet. it’s your book, and you can always keep going in another one once this book is full.
you will learn upsetting things about parts of your practice. this is mostly for white- and otherwise privileged- witches; it’s important to recognize that the modern witchcraft, occult, and new age movements have a long history of stealing from closed cultures, from marginalized practitioners, and creating synthetic histories to explain modern inventions. if a fellow practitioner presents information like this to you about one of your practices, i implore you to take it to heart. learning more about the origins of your ritual and altering them, removing them, and providing reparations where appropriate are important, vital parts of connecting with your practice.
you may work with deities, you may not. same with spirit, the fae, ancestors, and all other aspects of craft. other people may work with forces you aren’t familiar with or that you struggle to believe in, that’s normal. do more research, talk with other practitioners, accept “no” and “i don’t have the energy to educate you” for what they are: boundaries. trying to subvert them will only hurt you both.
discourse isn’t worth your time. it just isn’t.
not every practitioner is a witch, not every witch is a practitioner. the labels we use to describe our work are historically charged, as magic so often is. what feels good to you may hurt another person, and vice versa.
magic is often closer to jazz than to a well-rehearsed symphony. plan accordingly. learn to improv in each key. learn the core elements of your practice and build from there.
consent. consent. consent. all magic that may touch another being requires it, not just love or romantic magic. healing? get consent first. divination? consent. make sure your subject knows what they’re consenting to. check in often. (think of it like a tea party. you invite them, and they come or they don’t. you offer them tea, they may want it or not. if they aren’t able to respond when you ask, you don’t pour them tea. if they hurt you or something you love, you might throw tea in their face.)
self-care is more than baths and deep breathing. it can be therapy, medication, boundary-setting, any number of really hard things. you deserve that care, though. other people do, too.