Hey! I was actually asking about your personal practice! Working with the local land is a big part of my magic, I love it. I love hearing about others' experiences too 😁
Oh my god neat!! Ok thanks for clarifying haha!
Oh man oh man so it might be a lot cause like I did mention a few times here I am moving and I am nervous cause I am going to England (London basically) probably to try to live there forever so now everything is going to change!! I mean it won’t be the worst adjustment cause England is pretty magical and I’m already used to the type of magic there but as much as I love Celtic culture I don’t vibe with the celtic calendar much (like not the tree one, I adore the tree one and how the full moons are named after trees, but I mean how spring for example starts with imbolc and ends at beltane, and basically the seasons are shifted one sabbat over. I guess I will try to make up for that by referring to those celtic seasons as the Sewing/Growth Quarter, the Thriving/Light Quarter, the Harvest/Reaping Quarter and the Resting/Dark Quarter. But I dunno celebrating the beginning of seasons on the equinox/solstice is like a thing I will be unable to change so easily).
Anyway right now I am in the Northeast NJ area and I am a NYC commuter. Both areas are a little different so my local magic has two sides. Where I am in NJ is suburban but with a cool center town (actually everyone in the area likes coming here, I am in Montclair), with a lot of magical shops but also tons of parks and forests and we have a reservation nearby. NYC also has MAGICAL AF parks, woods and beaches but they are far and you kind of gotta make a THing when you go cause it can take up the whole day- which is cool cause like you just have to make a magical day trip out of it? In NYC there is Fort Tyron park which has a lot of groves and woods and its on a mountain side looking over the river and there’s the cloisters which is free to visit and has free wine tasting parties in the summer. Aparently a lot of sketchy magic users hang out there too on the ivy covered stone steps or in the darker more shrouded parts of the park. Some people have told me when they went there to do rituals they would find piles of bones or things left behind by past people lol so I guess just be wary? There are also tons of spirits there and city spirits can be ASSERTIVE to say the least. Other parks I’d suggest are the North Woods in Central park, it’s very quiet there and mystical with some waterfalls. It’s also rarely busy. The beach I’d suggest is Fort Tilden, it’s CLEAN and quiet with dolphins sometimes and easy to get to (though a long trip) with public transportation, but since few people are around you can be naked without worry and I did my first shroom trip there it was intense and fun, like no one will bother you. Then there are other cool parks in the NYC area like the Greenwood Cemetery which is MAJESTIC and as long as you have good graveyard etiquette its fun to be there. It’s a beautiful space. Anyway I am highlighting the cool magical spaces in the city cause though it’s hectic as fuck in NYC there are always magical areas. There is also Catland which is a great witchcraft shop and community which has classes in brooklyn I would suggest for people wanting to get into the witchcraft scene there. I made a lot of friends through that shop.
Ok so actual magical practices I guess I would start with city magic first: A lot of my city witch friends have these things with pennies. Usually if you see a coin faced upwards it’s good luck and you should take it if you wish. If it’s faced downwards (and you notice it) it’s not good luck but you can fix that by just flipping it back upwards then not collecting it. There is the usual superstition of holding your breath while passing a cemetery and if you’re successful you should make a wish. I found it super helpful to manifest things that way I don’t know why lol. There’s also street divination. One witch I know would people watch, like focus on a square of land and whomever walks or enters it, they can divine things out of that. (I think that is a common form of divining but with skies or fields, but this is a city version that some witches I know use lol). Another witch friend finds street junk that is very significant to things to come in her life ESPECIALLY when it’s playing cards. She collects a lot of random playing cards and it’s cool cause a lot of them tend to be hearts or clovers. It’s funny cause it’s very magpie in practice. She has an oddities cabinet where she has all these cool or cute trinkets she has collected throughout the city and its cool cause alone it would seem like random objects but put together it looks like a strange magical cabinet with seashells, playing cards, discarded things from arcade dispensers, found crystals, bottle caps, art on cards etc etc. TBH I always thought of collecting discarded mini alcohol bottles you see everywhere and deep sanitize them but use them to store stuff in since they look like little potion bottles but I never have proper gloves/sack with me cause otherwise it seems like a dangerous unsafe thing to just pick up some stranger’s bottle though it’s litter lol. I also love to use city sludge in the hot summer that smells like the bile of hell to hex with. I usually write on a piece of paper the deets then when I am about to cross the street I drop the paper (sometimes a picture of whatever it is) in the putrid sludge. It’s very easy and with whatever that green slime is the paper seems to dissolve instantly so its not so pollutive either.
The plant energy in the city (I kind of spoke about this before) is super sturdy or weedlike (which is also very sturdy). I’ve been getting things like red clover and dandelion from safer sources but that sort of energy helps you to like pull through in hard situations kind of like how these plants can grow out of asphalt. I also find basalt attractive to work with. I have no idea if basalt could be found in asphalt or the sidewalk but it’s a mineral found by volcanoes that are shaped by extreme pressure and I find it’s a stone that helps you through adversity and to stay strong. Cities are cool cause they are intense crossroads and NYC has a very dark energy about it, like it does feel like a hell on earth. Kind of in a romantic goth way with towering gothic and art nouveau buildings that you could never go in cause you’re on the bottom of the socioeconomic income level and you know prolly some rothschild ass people are in there doing some dark shit, but it’s also a hell on earth in a horrible dystopian way and you see a lot of suffering and poverty and extreme capitalism and pollution and it can be a lot. You have a lot of witches here that want to heal and help the city but also a lot tend to be aggressive which is natural for a place so toxic. Like the most evil spaces are like wallstreet for example it feels so off there and its almost like you can feel all the unmarked graves of slaves screeching underneath the soulless office buildings I hate being at wall street lol. (Also doesn’t help that the world trade center is there and that place has SUCH AN UGLY VIBE, like people literally cross the street they don’t want to walk past the fucking sauromon ass tower of death). There’s good and bad with the city and still a lot of nature and life poking through but that’s as much as I can think of with NYC at the moment. I like that it is a massive crossroads so you will meet a lot of magical people and have the options of like 32049342049024 magical stores to get shit from and also tons more nonmagical shops that will sell magical things like chinese supermarkets have great stuff for herbs, pickled things and utensils, soo many tea shops, amazing markets, so many places for incense, so many places for candles, so many places for everything. What sucks about living far from that is lack of those resources I feel like otherwise you will have to just order everything, but the city allows for exploration and easy access to a lot of things.
Also though I HATE the capitalist aspect of the city I do sometimes participate in the seasonal capitalism cause its kind of fun lol. For example when it’s Halloween?? I will be in Party City buying all the cute little things for my space. I have black nailpolish that has a witch hat top lid I got there lol. It’s like super kitschy but cute shit. I feel like the American witch aesthetic can be either mysterious great outdoors or like hyper colorful kitschy and I am inbetween. Party City can actually be a fun place to get things for your craft. Sparkling candles? Colorful lights? Cute random things to hold your stuff, also SAME witch Michaels. I will miss Michaels so fucking bad in London. Potion bottles!! Magical Food things!! They have molds for everything!! Candle crafting!! Jewelry Crafting!! Crystal Beads!! Embroidery!! Like literally everything magical there.
Ok for my NJ area: The stuff I do here is way more nature based, so I will talk more about my nature aspect of my practice. NJ has some extraordinary places nature wise, but the vibe here is very strange, like that Strange NJ magazine really captures the magic vibe here. It’s strange but innocent, like it can be dangerous in some deep woods but as long as you are Also a cryptid dwelling in the abandoned industrial yards or deep in the swamps or mountaneous woods then you’ll be ok as long as you have some discarded iron on you. There’s also a lot of different areas of NJ and appalachia is another world, the shore is another world, and there’s also a lot of republican suburbia I am never around. In my area it’s like a softer version of appalachia in terms of the nature vibe. Like a lot of young decideous forests and mountains; forest creatures like deer, racoons, squirrels, groundhogs, possums, but nothing too dangerous and aggressive. The nature here feels old but also young. Especially when my witch friends from deep PA or NW Washington State visit the forests by them are old (especially in Washington they are ancient) and in comparison the woods by me are young springy and bursting with youthful energy though they are hundreds of years old lol.
I love to make friends with local plant spirits. The trees here are really cool and kind of tempermental as hell but they are always willing to help if you give some nice offerings. I’ve been trying to befriend the younger pine tree in my backyard but I think it’s apprehensive of me cause I used to dump my curses in the poisoned soil not far from it and I once took some thistles without making sure it was ok and then I got the WORST financial luck in my life lol. I have been trying to make up with it by offering some milk and I think it Tolerates me now, but it’s less bitter. I get less of a ‘wtf do you want now?’ vibe from it when I pass. I always had tree friends on my property but some have died over the years due to various causes. I was so close to a cherry tree that would give us so many cherries and blossoms every year that was so easy for my child body to climb and sing songs up on the high branches. It was such a pretty and loving tree but it died from a disease it was very depressing seeing it go after a big storm. I also had a good japanese maple friend in the front yard I used to love to hug and it had such powerful creative energy but some asshole ass kids killed it when they were on a joyride in their parents car and crashed into it. I mean those kids got a really bad sentencing from the unforgiving police but like the tree is also gone. There are lots more trees my dad has planted since then but they are all so young so I don’t want to bother them too much. Anyway plant friends are really great allies and I do enjoy being close to the trees by my home. Some other people in my neighborhood feel the same way cause I once found a fairy shrine at the foot of one tree a few blocks away from me I was like LOL (I’ll try to find the pic later. I had thought I posted it but I can’t find it.)
I talk a lot about the wheel of the year and how I celebrate it. The equinoxes and solstices are the beginning of the seasons for me and the crossquarters are the midpoints, like the pinnacles of those seasons. You can think about me celebrating these seasons as the way one would celebrate moon cycles. Equinoxes and Solstices are like new moons where as crossquarters are the full moon. I also have “first quarter” and “last quarter” points. First quarters are like roughly the 10th-20th of the months of January, April, July and October and I refer to them as the Hastenings of the seasons. They are passive celebrations where I usually like to travel (to the beach or mountains) or do seasonal activities to gather in the energy of the season. In January around this time its blizzard season, in April it’s the middle of the cherry blossom bloom, in July its the ideal beach time and in October fall feels like it’s reaching it’s height. The opposites or “final quarters” I refer to as the transition periods. It’s roughly the 25th-ish to 10th in between the months of Feb-March, May-June, Aug-Sep, Nov-Dec, and I have names for them like The Thawing transition, The Green Transition, The Harvest Transition and the Frost Transition but those are more active where I am constantly making something or preparing for the new season to come. The thawing transition is coming up and as everything thaws I clear and cleanse out my home and my body. I usually abstain from consuming certain things (like dairy, gluten or smoking weed), I get rid of all the shit I don’t want before spring arrives, ESPECIALLY since I am moving this year I will be getting rid of clothing, shoes, maybe crystals I can’t take over or magical items I need to cleanse and sell so they don’t go to waste. I am sad that I have to shed so much from my life but the thawing transition is a period of shedding. The green is a time of growth and the time to get the garden ready (I am lucky to live with a super prosperous garden with a beehive), the harvest is very intense as the farmers markets and supermarkets are at their height, I usually make fire ciders this time of year and do a lot of bottling, infusing, potion making with capturing the height of the power of things. Then frost is getting ready for rest and usually opening the fire ciders to drink as to not get wildly sick as the tempurature drops and preparing for the end of the year lol.
Even the way I celebrate the sabbats are very American in a way. Aside from always wanting a big colorful party with friends I like to bake treats on them like pound cakes or chewy cookies and the food I make tends to be like either a mix of french dishes I just go to (cause I’m half french by my dad) or like soul food that’s often mixed with Haitian influences cause I am a black American with a Haitian mom. It’s funny I made a huge samhain feast for my friends and I think this kind of goes with this clearly cause like I made a rich baked mac and cheese in a pumpkin ceramic pot, candied sweet potatoes and candied brown beans and then I made some autumn infused haitian rum for a ritual with brown sugar, anise and cinnamon, then a pork roast with potatoes, red wine shallots and herbs and served some bougie french red wine with some pomegranate but also there was candy corn, pumpkin beer, chocolate donuts and reeses cups so like you see the combination of the four lol. One of my friends said it felt like it was kind of like a darker thanksgiving but like I associate sweet potatoes and heavy mac and cheese with fall cause that’s like the fall comfort food and you make that every fall if you’re black duh. (Also PS I have rice dishes for each sabbat and Samhain’s is the djon djon black mushroom haitian rice that would go great with curried goat but this is a conversation for another time lol).
I am sorry this is so long and scattered I am still trying to think of other examples.
I am an animist so I do think a lot of things in nature have their own spirit. This leads me to do seasonal magic and collect certain things in their height. In Autumn I like to collect acorns and do spells with them then bury them. It gives back to the earth but also is a nice way to do magic. I like collecting blizzard water, I am obsessed with collecting cherry blossom petals every spring ohboy the stuff I do with that lol, I collect shells in summertime, I use snowdrops, I use dandelions seeds, I use autumn leaves, I eat seasonal foods, I do seasonal magic. I mean I come from a decidous foresty area with a strong four seasons so it becomes my magic.
I hope I will adapt fine to London but some stuff will change so I dunno the direction I’ll go in. My future roommate seems into nature spirituality and some pagan shit so maybe I will do some mini celebrations with her. I mean England’s climate isn’t that drastically different from my region but especially now that I know how to put it into words with the climate project I was doing, England has a climate that is four seasonal yet more mild differences between the seasons and damper where as where I am is HUMID and the four seasons are drastic. My climate is referred to as DFA on the koppen scale (continental microthermal climate) where the coldest month goes underneath 32F and has at least one month’s average temp above 72F. The DFA, DFB and DFC climates can be seen as the extreme four season climate, but the B and C group just has longer more intense winters. DFB is like new england, where they also have hot summers but they are short and the winter is longer. DFC is like southern Alaska which has the same temp of hot summer but its way shorter and usually in a world without global warming is unable to melt the permafrost. England’s is CFB (Oceanic/Highland climate) which has cool summers, cool winters with a relatively short annual temperature range and few extremes of temperature. I remember getting worried at the idea that England might be cold as fuck during winter but everyone is like: no worries! Its chilly all year round but winter is like equal amounts of chilly as summer is chilly lol. It’s not like my extreme seasons here when it’s winter its like are you READY FOR A FUCKIN BLIZZARD?? I think I will miss the American extreme weather here (lol even our climate is extra as fuck) but I am not complaining about mild sweater weather all year round like autumn and spring are my favorite seasons so if the temperature stays within those ranges I won’t mind that much. (Fun fact, where as CFB is cool and damp, it’s warmer counterpart is CFA which is hot and humid like the South East USA. If the earth heats up a lot to change that climate, England’s climate might get hot and swampy with tons of mosquitos and bugs like southern US lol which as awful but like just making some comparisons.)
ok sorry for this long ass post I hope it has given you tons of info haha. I have a tag for NYC witches for things in the area for people to check out. I also have a seasonal magic tag page too!
