Environmental Witchery
I would truly love to think it’s at the top of our to do lists to be good people. I would love to think that and also see it put into place. We can pray to our gods for others, we can (consensually) do a kind spell or sigil for them too, and it’s all well and good. But what can we do for the environment? I got you covered, let’s take a look at my many ideas on how you can be a conscious witch for nature’s sake!
But, Ariel, don’t you usually use a million links in your posts? This is true, but I’m writing this based on everything my amazing teacher taught me back in my Environmental Science class in college. Except without all the big science words because I didn’t do great at that part, however, I did great at solutions and human theory, which is exactly what we want here. So, I encourage you so much to be inspired by this and look for more sources online! Never stop reading on what you can do to help the environment!
And without further ado, this is a quick stop of A-level Environmental Science by someone who cannot for the life of them remember terminology, woo!
Devote An Activity
Whether this be an organised beach clean up, picking up trash on a footpath, helping a charity store or a petition sign up, or any other environmental activity, devote it to your deity/ies! Just some examples would be going to a beach clean up and praying or just speaking in your mind to, say, Poseidon about how you honour him with this action.
Side note, it’s also a good meditative practice as you clean something up or fulfil a list/sheet.
Pick Organic
You guys thought this was just about shopping, didn’t you? Well, it isn’t, but I do want to say that if you can buy organic you should consider it because it means no artificial chemicals and fertilisers have touched the food. Farmers have to leave previously chemically-touched land to rinse itself and be scientifically declared ‘natural’ again before using it for organics, so when you buy organic, it’s a sign to farmers that it’s worth their time and money!
But no, this is about how you can make sure your plants are organic. Put down the chemical pest control and pick up your phone to research! Something as simple as a two foot board can keep out carrot flies, or planting marigolds and keeping coin or egg shell barriers can stop slugs. There’s alternatives and they’re usually fun to learn about, interesting to undertake, cheaper for your wallet, and better on your little plants and environmental microcosm you have going on there.
Plant Cloning
So plant cloning can be easy or difficult depending on the species at hand, but for the most part all you do is take a cutting, snip it diagonally, and put it in water until it sprouts roots and can be planted. This is called micropropagation, but it’s also some pretty awesome green witchery if you ask me!
You can do this for your herbs so you don’t have to buy more, which is good for your purse, but I also thought that if you consider yourself a good gardener with abundant native wildflowers nearby, or some in your garden, why not try your hand at cloning one? Native wildflowers are the absolute best thing for your native pollinators (did you know some wasp and fly species are also pollinators? It’s not just bees!) Not only that but also native plants are a really good thing to encourage right now because in our current era we’re seeing the negative effects of invasive species. Rhodendrons are a famous invasive plant around the world because it just grows… All year… All the time… Swallowing anything in its path. It also happens with fauna species: Harlequin ladybirds, cane toads, west african giant killer snails (which I’m sure wasn’t the actual name, or was it?), european rabbits, and so on and so forth. Now, we can’t fix the fauna part, but we can do our own little bit for the flora part. Also, if you manage to grow wildflowers, you’ve beat my environmental science professor because he could never get them to survive in his garden, so props to you!
Create Habitats
This is a really great one you probably see people do all the time but never considered to be witchy. Buy birdboxes (or make some!), set up bee-friendly hives (have you see the nests you can get? Google!), but also consider actually leaving dead wood around. I can see the confusion you have right now, but here’s the thing: a fallen tree is an ecosystem for all manners of insects. It creates another level of ecosystem within the bigger environment. For instance, if you go to a nature reserve, ever notice they don’t cut the trees down at the same times? Forgive me, Richard (my enviro teacher), for I have sinned and forgotten the name of the method, but it’s done because it creates different types of environment. Where the trees are pollarded and light hits the floor, flowers may grow and that encourages certain types of fauna. Where the trees create a canopy overhead and the ground is left to be darker and cooler, it again attracts different species. In this same way, a fallen tree is great for certain species. Give it a little research and see what you could attract by leaving that log out a little longer!
Act Consciously
I’m not even kidding with you: trampling is actually a really serious issue with environmental protection and reserves. It straight up makes it onto the Legal Quantative Sheet Thing that people have to fill out when trying to assess if the plans for the land are going to be a gain or loss. It’s why you see designated footpaths and raised walkboards in SSSIs (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) and various other areas of designated protection. It’s really important we think more about how our visit reflects the visit of many. To throw some Kantian Ethics in here, using one of the three maxims, we should think universally. This means we should assume when we do an action, it permits everyone else in the world to do it and they have also done it. When you walk off the boards which are clearly labelled not to, so does everyone else. When you litter, so does everyone else. Honestly Kant’s maxims are a really good way to encourage yourself to be a more ethical person. Just don’t read too much into his whole ethical theory. It’ll hurt your brain. Anyway! Here’s things to try to be more conscious of actively doing:
Pick up litter
Stay on designated paths
Use walkboards when provided
Step around flora where possible
If it says keep your dog on a lead it’ll be because of the wildlife there - usually for safety both ways - so do so until you get to the lead-free zone
Visit the visitors centre to learn more about helping the site or what native plants they have
Don’t practice activities banned in the area, as in fires or driving, because it’s probably because the environment can’t take it
Just don’t invade nature’s space, friendsssss
Donate A Little
Sometimes, nature runs low on funds. If you’ve got £2 for the charity bin to help your local reserve build a visitors centre, why not chip in? Visitors centres allow for education of the public and also visiting school groups. It’s places like that that teach you information like this.
Pray
Simple one here, folks. In between the prayers to deities and thanks and wants or whatever you happen to pray for, pray for the environment. Yours or globally. Also pray for general world atrocities, but that’s another post.
Compost
Literally everything made of some natural material is compostable somehow if you do your research on what conditions and so on, but at the very least all your vegetable peels and fruit slices can be left to one side to decompose into dead organic matter. Dead organic matter is like gold to plants because its natural nutrients which seep back into the soil which originated from the earth anyway! You get to decrease what you send to landfill whilst also giving a little home brewed offering to your plant babies.
Reuse and Recycle
Collect your candle wax to fashion into new candles, collect the ash when you burn things to put into your soil, when you’re done working with magic water, pour it into your plants, turn an old shirt into a braided witches ladder, and so on and so on. There is magic in putting time into fashioning a disused item into something entirely new, or in giving away what you no longer need. I’m going to start calling this The Phoenix Rule and it’s going to be my new witch code as of now (15th June 2019, you read it here first, folks). This is about doing what you can to grow from your own ashes or plant something good out of something old.
Paper? Leaves
Do you find yourself using a silly amount of brand new paper for sigils or intent in spells? Start collecting leaves (or old newspapers and things!) and use these instead of brand new paper. In fact, you could match the folklore of the plant to your spell and sigil. Bay leaves for accomplishing dreams, oak leaves for wisdom and knowledge, there is endless possibilities. Start picking up those fallen leaves! They’re free and they’re not using lots of water and chemicals to make them. Okay water, but water from the sky and ground that isn’t excessively farmed and pumped from nature for the paper bleaching industry.
And I think that’s where I’ll stop for now, but this is definitely not the end of all the things you could do to incorporate environmentalism into your witchcraft. And also, since it wouldn’t be written by me without them, I found some articles to get you started on researching this all further if (hopefully) the eco flame burns on in you~
None of them are witchy because when you Google ‘Environmental Witchcraft’ it’s all some very angry blog posts about who even knows what. Zealots in one. Such strange people. Anyway:
Organic Gardening Tips
82 Tips for Sustainable Gardening
10 Organic Gardening Tips
10 Reasons People Buy Organic
23 Ways to Reuse Plastic Bottles
51 Ways to Reuse your Waste
Why Is It Important to Preserve Nature
Composting Tips
How to Reuse your Candle Wax
How to Reuse your Candle Jars and Wax
Creating a Wildlife Friendly Garden
Creating Habitats in your Garden
How to Grow a Wildflower Garden
Growing Wildflowers
