gail

19 | she/her | witch and pagan of six-ish years | main - @chrisginny | header by @wolfythewitch

[wortcunningwitch]

intro

hi, i'm gail! i've been practicing witchcraft since late 2019. i started out with a very eclectic magical practice, but began studying folk magic in april 2023 and now mainly follow the traditions of (many of) my ancestors. i focus specifically on english folk magic, as a majority of my ancestors immigrated from england, but i am also learning & incorporating traditions from the mid-atlantic, midwest, and new england regions of the USA. i grew up in the mid-atlantic, near the potomac river, and the lore specific to that region is very near and dear to my heart and my magic. within the spheres of folk magic, i am mainly drawn towards protective magic, plant magic/herb lore/wortcunning, and ancestral veneration. i also read tarot!

religiously, i would label myself broadly as a pagan; more specifically, a polytheist who worships the roman gods. i also am a bit of an omnist, as i believe most all the gods/other figures from every religion exist in some way or another, and that there is truth to be found everywhere.

while i do attend episcopal church services off and on, mainly to familiarize myself with the christian framework that informs my magic, i do not label myself christian, christopagan, or dual faith. i do not believe in sin, as defined in christianity; nor do i believe in the trinity, that jesus was the son of god, or that hell exists. i reject the idea that the christian god is omniscient or omnipotent, as with all gods. i personally believe the gods reflect the imperfections of mortals. through church, i find tools for my folk magic - saint veneration, the use of holy water and incense for purification, the use of bible verses and prayers as spells, and the eucharist bringing me closer to my episcopal ancestors.

my spiritual & religious sideblogs are as follows!

@dea-abundantia: everything for the roman goddess abundantia, of whom i'm a devotee!

@llenadegracia: everything for saint mary, who i venerate to honor my episcopal family and ancestors.

[coinandcandle]

Sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone and read that book that's more than a decade or even century old to learn more about magic and witchery.

You have to interact with literature and media that isn't within your own echo chamber.

You need regular confrontations with opinions and ideas outside your own bubble otherwise you. will. not. grow.

You must be able to read things critically, knowing that picking up a book and reading it does not equal you believing every word.

Learn about how others view the world, learn how people's beliefs work, learn how to intake information without assuming that every bit of information is on a binary of "good" or "bad" information.

This is the witchy version of me telling you, lovingly, to go touch grass.

[khal-winchester]

As a community, we really need to work on this whole "racism has to involve slurs or I can't identify it" thing we have going on.

[khal-winchester]

Here's the thing: Racism in our communities doesn't show up right away as overt racism and slurs and racism in its final boss forms. It starts small and it waits to see how far it can get. It holds out to see what it can get you to cosign before it takes another step and then another one and then another one. It might start as the bemoaning of loss of white European identity and culture*. It might start as BIPOC standing up for themselves being reframed as "drama". It might start as the recentering of anti-racism efforts onto white comfort and white perspectives. We can't just look for shaved heads and known dogwhistle tattoos. We have to pay attention to how our BIPOC community members are being treated, what they are saying, what they are sharing. We have to pay attention to how language is being used, misused and recentered even when that language is not aggressive, explicit slurs.

Racism in pagan and witchcraft spaces sometimes announces itself, but it doesn't always. Sometimes people who are doing racist shit don't even think of the shit they're doing as being racist (regardless of its impact). And people who don't know what to look for on their own can easily fall into the trap of liking, reblogging, supporting or even spreading harm if they aren't willing to listen to the people who do know what they're looking for. Racism makes itself comfortable in our spaces because we allow it to, because we are only looking for overt racism and slurs and hatespeech and we don't respond until it reaches that point.

*There is nothing wrong with being proud of one's European culture on its own and discussing the power dynamics and European specific minority groups that do exist. But that's a whole different conversations.

[glitterandwitchcraft]

Some little things I've learned over a decade of witchcraft:

If you are feel called to work but are tired/drained, sit outside. Take in all the energies around you. Nature can help charge you

Every witch does a little bit of a bunch of types of magic but sticks mainly to one or two in general. You usually won't be eclectic forever. You'll find what magics work best with you.

Never be lazy or cut corners with spirits. Always be respectful and always tell them to leave when you're done

When you see a plant or ingredient with a long list of properties, there are different things at play. Season of collection, the part of the plant, the health of the plant, etc all play a role in impacting which properties it will carry.

Don't call on spirits unless you have confidence and control

Be careful with sea/water magic. Get into it gently and slowly until you have the energy figured out because it can get out of hand quickly.

Adding a little pinch of magic into your breakfast can make a major difference in your day.

Your personal emotions/feelings over something will impact a work

Planting some plants is good, not only to have a garden, but the dirt helps cleanse you too. Get all dirty and muddy. It's good for ya

Not all trees are nice

The more you listen to your intuition, the easier it will be to tell it apart from your anxieties and worries

Incense is very easy to make which is why it's usually cheap to buy. But you can find a million tutorials online on how to make your own personal incense which is great if you want a spell to take effect over a while but also want to infuse the fire energy in it.

The more you work with something the better feel you get for it. Cinnamon goes in almost everything i cook and most of my spells because me and cinnamon just get right along

Your path is yours and no one else's. It will look like yours and no one else's

[wortcunningwitch]

clipping your nails is such an underrated form of cleansing!!

[be-bhinn]

Use witchcraft WITH modern medicine, not INSTEAD of it.

[wortcunningwitch]

as erroneous as many of the pages were, and as outdated as it was to my current practice, i wish i had kept my very first grimoire purely for shits & giggles (and to compare to my 2026 practice)

[natasailincic]

Ace of Cups, Tarot of the Witch’s Garden. Watercolour.

Patreon • FB • Twitter • IG • Etsy • Society6

[vitterdotter]

to other folk witches: how do you engage in protection magic?

I've never been a heavily warded kind of person. if something is coming my way, I often dream about it, and get told the protective measures to take. if I feel off, I'll divine about it, and react accordingly.

[wortcunningwitch]

i like to have physical protective charms around my place of living and on hand, if necessary. i have birch twigs in my bedroom, marigold and lavender under my pillow, a cross necklace and/or saint medals in my bag/purse, an ammonite fossil in my wallet, marian marks drawn on a bunch of different surfaces... so on and so forth. i also say 1-2 spoken charms daily, just as an extra measure, especially if i can't wear jewelry/bring physical items with me where i'm going for the day.

i do like to purify my space every so often - i use a juniper bundle, an herb with lots of correspondences in my practice, to smoke cleanse.

oh, also i lucked out this year with a roommate who also practices witchcraft (though an eclectic variety rather thank folk magic), so i do feel doubly warded knowing she has protective jars, witch bells, and crystals up on our windowsills!

[wortcunningwitch]

been feeling very energetically off, running into a lot of bad luck and feeling disconnected from my gods and the land, so i'm trying to do a fairly thorough cleansing of my room today. my roommate moved out pretty suddenly in march and i hadn't vacuumed the floors or thoroughly wiped down the surfaces she used since, so maybe her leftover energy was affecting me, idk :/ but i did vacuum today and wipe everything down! i think the next step is to smoke cleanse my bedroom and maybe take an uncrossing bath, just for good measure

[wortcunningwitch]

happy may day to all who celebrate!

[stormwaterwitch]

Rabbits Rabbits Rabbits

Reblog this on the first of the month for good luck all month long!

[dumbbbunnnyy-deactivated2021021]

[hillbillybubbeleh]

This problem of appropriation in the occult community is in no way limited to Kabbalah. Jewish religious practices, culture, and beliefs are frequently bastardized by the occult community in new and improved ways even in the modern-day.  From occultists using Jewish prayers but subbing in the names of their deities or having fake Shabbat ceremonies, the appropriation of Judaism isn’t new, but that doesn’t mean that it is okay.

-Kabbalah, Cabala, & Qabalah: Coercion, Appropriation, & the Desecration of Sacred Tradition (2024); Jewitches

[vitterdotter]

it's important to note that not every post about witchcraft is for you, about you, or even relevant to you. kinda a byproduct of us all being different people with different practices or something

[ohmymoxie]

bro i just love witches man. i love all of you. i love us and i love this common ground we tread on.

[gigi-orosco]

"The charmer's root", Roger J. Horne, p. 53, mine the trembling underlinings -

[wortcunningwitch]

playing around with a sort of visually-engaging design for this charm that provides protection on journeys… i like the st. christopher background best (painting by domenico ghirlandaio), as he’s the patron of travelers, but the pale red is also fun for a bit of protective color magic