#animist witch

[upthewitchypunx]

Check out the Inclusive Animist Witchcraft community on Discord - hang out with 44 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

Looking for a place for animist witches of all varieties from the atheist to the polytheist? My buddy just started this discord for that. Anyone can be an animist, it's a worldview and a thoughtful way to be in relation to the things around you.

[ancat-dubh]

Definitely in the midst (aftermath?) of a big Paradigm Shift, which I've had at least two or three of since starting my practice. Last year the god felt like storms in October and blue-slate clouds rolling over the hedge, too raw and awesome to feel like a person; before that, a prehistoric ancestor who spoke cipher-like and stilted through my tarot, almost too far removed to be legible. At the moment he's close to the surface, like another part of myself. I find myself looking for him in childhood memories of games I'd play with imaginary friends, slipping between speaking as them and myself and feeling my whole body change for it.

I know the land (and the p/People) where I work well enough to walk there at night, which is also something I imagined doing as a little kid growing up in the woods under my own witchy steam. I've done it pretty often for three years and it's deeply magical every time, kind of an Otherworld pilgrimage. It's intense enough, too, that sometimes I'm simply too unwell for it – the dark woods make my brain itch and if I don't listen to my gut and turn back I start tripping over my own feet at shadows. But it's also been a not-insignificant healing practice, learning when to push myself to blend into the trees and, sometimes, reminding myself that I am the most powerful, frightening animal in the woods. That I can let my guard down and play in the expansiveness of the dark; certainly, that I have allies who won't be fucked with.

Last night I went deliberately to the deepest part of the wood, which after a spliff and my deep meditative slow trance-walking slides into the Otherworld. I turned off the bridge with the full moon dark behind a heavy cloud and stepped into actual blackness, spiderweb strands hitting my closed eyelids. I can step reliably enough that no branches hit my extended forearm protecting my face, but I took my time anyway treading lightly. The sensation of attention snapping my way on this side of the bridge always feels like a huge intake of breath from somewhere very deep.

Sometimes the sensation unnerves me but last night I felt deep calm, nodding hello to the great silhouetted hullk of the Grandmother Tree and noticing a spell from my to-do list sliding to the front of my mind. This kind of intuitive working feels characteristic of whatever's going on for me Paradigm Shift Wise – like I've got some navigation and safety tools, built up over years and lots of trial and error, and now I can really roll my sleeves up and work.

At the Hollow Tree, the very centre of the deepest part of the wood, I laid offerings, made a clear request, accepted what was offered immediately and clearly in return. I sat back on her fallen companion log listening to the season-change humming up from the earth and warp-amplifying the sound of every fallen twig, paw-step, and distant bicycle. Glowing silver strips pulsed and crept across the muddy path strangely enough that it took me a while to notice the moon had lifted from the cloud. The noise and sensation became briefly deafening. I rarely sit still when they arrive but the god reached through to steady me: it’s okay. Listen, watch, react sensibly to what you observe. You’re not the first person on this land I’ve taught this; the Tree knows the stories of the ones who came before. Some of them you already know. Pay attention.

I heard the fox – or was it? Hard to say what the messenger becomes on an Otherworld full moon – before I saw him. He circled just out of the moonlight so details blurred in the Tree's shadow; I could only get the vague melting shape and trotting rustle-sound of him. His face, muzzle, even his white tail-tip evaded me even as I could feel the little precise jolt of his whole regard shift onto me and away. It'd been a little while but I wasn't surprised to see him. This is how I know I'm co-working, that my offerings have been accepted and a healthy mutual curiosity acknowledged. Without seeing, I could feel him studying me and trotting the inner bounds of the clearing. I kept my movement slow and my voice steady. As soon as he went away, a man with a white dog appeared out of the dark and the dog went into a little frenzy circling the Tree, nose furious to the ground. The man called to the dog in French, increasingly frustrated until I spoke up to explain, something I wouldn't usually do but I felt calm enough to say: il y avait un renard ici. He laughed and managed to catch the dog by the collar, and it lunged and barked at me as they went.

Until recently I've been puzzled and hurt by dogs lifting their hackles at me so often in the woods, startling their owners – it startles me too, when I love dogs and they're usually all over me on the street. Recently the god suggested it's because when I'm in it I act like a wild animal, sliding from town- to woods-body language in a way that's confusing to animals who pay close attention to human-scripts. I know he's close under my skin when I start noticing that in myself; when I pause in the middle of a grove to sniff and listen, twist my head around sharply and ease back when a twig cracks, slide myself behind a tree so a passing jogger doesn’t startle catching me in his headlamp. I feel less inclined to make a friendly reassuring noise or awkward greeting to someone I meet out in the dark – so what if they think I'm weird, they're out here like me and everyone acts weird at night. Instead, I catch myself learning to make eye contact with crows so they'll watch for my tossed fruit, knowing how to get a fox to come closer by turning my head ninety degrees away.

I finally put the offered tool in my bag and took my time coming back over the hill, closing out the working with a Neighbourly goodbye and quick cleanse at the Boundary Trees before I headed towards the road. The owls who’d greeted me on the way into the woods called distant on my way out. The god, who’d taken a back seat beneath my skin in the deepest part of the woods, slid forward naturally to chat and approve: this is how you do it. There you go. I told you I’d show you when you were ready.

[starlitofferings]

Hail Netjeru, Netjeret, Those Who Maintain Ma’at. Life is filled with Your Blessings.

I offer this small space to you, in the dark of the night, so that I may share my love and devotions more openly.

Peret er kheru mee pereret em reh en Netjeret.

“May offerings of every kind come forth in abundance, like the things that come forth from the mouth of the goddess.”

[ancat-dubh-old]

realised I’ve had this blog for a proper while now and also want to spend more of my online time being unhinged and thoughtful about magic in a space that for all its gory faults isn’t deathspiral/totally identifiable social media so! little reintro for my like, 30 followers lol:

I’m J, 30, faggy commie historian, Taurus ☀️ Leo 🌙 Cap ⬆️. I started this blog whilst feeling my early pandemic return to witchcraft era and it turned into more of a magic diary party of one. might be a bit more pagan leaning these days tbh or maybe those things are both for me now; either way, feel like writing and building up more of a community here.

I’m slowly developing my own animist pagan practice, a lot of which currently revolves around a particular green space in my city. there’s some faerie shit, some place-based spirit work, some ley lines, some acab-ery, some folk magic+community care politique, some barrows, some prehistoric vibes. a little je ne sais quoi

my magical work is kinda blending with the spiritual and also developing real quick right now. form-wise, I mostly work with genius loci, divination (tarot, ornithomancy, bibliomancy, my own systems), weather, body/movement work, folklore/historical[ly informed] folk magic, astrology, the moon, plants, animals, fire, writing, queer ancestors, foraging, the ocean, and a Celtic- and Algonquian-leaning seasonal calendar. I’m lucky enough to have not exactly a coven but a small close group of regular magical co-practitioners and to live in a city with a big, sprawling, historic esoteric community that I’m exploring more eye arr el as things open up.

I work with deities, saints, and land spirits, maybe right now as focal points/beginning relationships rather than straight up devotion – something something working out of but also in dialogue with diaspora Roman Catholicism. this bit of my practice feels like it goes hand in hand with putting my anticolonial money where my mouth is (family of colonised experience TM, grew up white settler on occupied land, now live in a seat of empire). I work slightly more regularly I guess? with Mars, + occasional Wild Hunt run-ins, some recent exploration with Brigid, and a big ol reverence for Father Thames. also generally v interested in histories/theories of magic, animism, and polytheism, esp atm Shintō, Inuit mythology, and London occult stuff.

lbr this blog is mostly still aesthetic pics of my altar and nice nature spots where I do magic/reference points for myself, also tend to keep this q magic-focused and introspective (personal craft is all under #my stuff) – but might also use this more to talk about (to myself and hopefully with more people) the *how* of developing a practice. this is something I feel like I lacked starting out, also I’m a Leo homosexual so any excuse for a pagan Carrie Bradshaw moment. plus I wanna build up more of an online community and make an effort to chat more – 18+ folk on the wavelength, you’re always v welcome to say hi.

[alicielalone]

Okay, I just want to say to my fellow pagans and/or witches who honor the wheel of the year, but are more on the darker side of things like myself, don’t feel pressured to do the whole ribbons and flowers thing and focus on purification and rejuvenation with the “love and light” and “nature is pure and beautiful” emphasis on it. (Also I’m so sure there’s more to the May Day/Pole thing in the historical sense than we realize and it’s just been filtered as something more gentle as time passed).

Beltane does signify a time where we have more light during the day and fertility vibes are literally and figuratively blooming, but to me, I have found this to be a time to nurture myself and come into my own as I am, warts and all. So with that, I respect the dangerous, poisonous, toxic, intimidating, and ferocious aspects of nature blooming as well. This burst of energy coming from the light also sparks genuine passion and when dusk and evening hit, it’s an enchanting time for all of our natural aspects to come into union, then nurture all that we are at night. We all become passionate about something, but they vary in meaning and perception and I think exploring that is the most adventurous, thrilling, and sometimes terrifying part of the spring and summer seasons.

And for fucks sake, yes, fertility is about nurturing and birth/rebirth too, but the starting pointing of wanting to birth anything is going to revolve around sexual energy, or engaging in/making love to a particular passion before it becomes born. Reflect on that for a good while to get an idea of where your venusian desires/aesthetics come from. More than likely, they’re not pure, innocent, and lightweight. Even a hunger for inner peace requires a courageousness many didn’t think they had.

That light coming in is going to be harsh and unyielding some days, revealing everything. There’s really no need for the forced positivity and forced happiness on a holiday that brings a lot of primal energy to literal and figurative light. Blessed be and shit, but get real with what’s really “blooming” inside you.

And no, I’m not some professional at pagan studies or whatever; this is just my interpretation during my fourth year as an animist and pagan and I’m tired of the light and purity fluff that floods my social media feeds during Ostara, Beltane, and Litha. I’m also not telling anyone how to celebrate and enjoy this or any other holidays. The only intent is to reach out to my fellow pagans or witches who struggle with vibing with the “fluffy” side of this holiday.

Blessed Beltane, bitches.

[cleareyesage]

I need more active blogs on my dash!

Please reblog if you post about...

Slavic witchcraft/paganism

Rodnovery

Southern/Appalachian witchcraft

Lunar magic

Tarot/divination

Animism (plant specific)

NAZIS DO NOT INTERACT

[iamsummonedtothink]

~ Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac, "Rhiannon"

[ancat-dubh]

Been meaning to type up a Big Practice Update for the sake of using this blog more – I miss this site as the last place I can be weird on main! this year I’ve been big mentally/physically ill and big trauma/sex existential and in deep watching-genocides-unfold grief and rage while simultaneously in my first stable home in years, big shock I am spiritually pedal to the metal! – and maybe I will but! Atm I am just attracting So Many Foxes.