One thing that I’ve noticed is how I unwittingly undercut my inner witch child in so many small, subtle ways rather than encourage them, showing them that you do see and care about them.
For example when talking about magic or something else that you’ve tried to do through a spell or ritual or some other form of work (even creative work), the “causation does not equal correlation” is a valid statement, but it also can mean that maybe you actually did have something to do with what happened.
I’ve noticed myself say, and heard others also say, how their magic didn’t work or they listen to someone else who brings up “magic isn’t real, so what you thought you did, didn’t happen because of you” or “it was just luck” or some similar way of looking at how things turned out.
For example, imagine you’ve done a working to bring money or creative success to you. It’s understood that it also takes work, while magic is an attempt to swing the universe to your benefit.
I remember learning that a good approach to magic is thinking of it in five steps like shooting an arrow with a bow. And in any of these steps, if you aren’t believing in yourself, your magic, or what you envision, you might not get the results you want.
First, you need to nock the arrow into the string. That’s the initial step in starting your physical, mental, emotional, and magical work. You decide you want to start your working, whether it is writing something creative, performing a spell for financial gain, or even trying to swing a court case to your favor. You’ve made a decision to take action of some sort.
Second, you find the target. This is where you make the decision on what your aims are for whatever you are attempting to do. It’s putting your eyes on your metaphorical prize (or literal one). If you are about to start to write something creative, you put whatever you’ve envisioned for your creation as your goal — like writing this blog post, I wanted to write about encouraging one’s inner witch child, so that would be my target. It could be deciding you want financial situations to swing to your favor so you could afford to buy a nice present for someone or perhaps handle an unexpected bill — enough to make sure you can handle what’s coming financially. It could even be that you have a traffic ticket that you are attempting to have mercy or understanding from the judge or a civil case against someone who did something that caused you harm — your target could be making sure that karma happens to your benefit since someone did something that caused you harm and you are hoping that justice is served. You’ve locked into what you are aiming for and have it in your mental and magical sights.
Third, you raise your bow. This is where the more tangible work starts to happen – the universe can see that you are starting your working. If you are writing something creative, it could be that you’ve put out a glass of water, wine, munchies, music, turned on your computer, brought up a pen and paper or a journal, and have set the stage to start your work. If you are attempting to perform a magical working to bring you financial gain, it could be starting to do research into what ways you could get some extra money, plus getting together what tools you need for the working whether it is some herbs or offerings, searching for what types of sigils could help, or even what candles, oils, and incense help bring financial success for your goals. If you are trying to do something for a court case, it would be the initial work figuring out what type of legal situation you are in and what sort of legal basis you have for your work as well as what oils, candles, herbs, sigils, deities, or whatever are associated with justice and figuring out what you need to do for your working. It’s laying the groundwork for the physical or energetic aspects of your working.
Fourth, you pull back the arrow and finish your aiming for your target. This is where you have locked into the target and are doing the actual required actions to make your working happen. If you are writing or otherwise creating, you start the actual work of writing the thing, drawing the art, creating the song, or choreographing the dance. If you are doing a financial working, you have looked at tangible ways for money to come to you (extra hours at work, a side hustle, or otherwise put in the effort for things to swing your way) as well as performed an offering to a particularly deity (it can even be one you normally work with since you have a relation with them from previously working with them), casting the circle, mixing the herbs, burning the candles and incense, or whatever you’ve figured out is needed for your spell to take effect. The same with a court case where you have researched and found what points you can bring up in court that points to you being right as well as did the magical work of casing the spell or performing the ritual or other magical act you are using to obtain your goal. This is where the proverbial rubber hits the road and you work to make it happen.
Fifth, the release. It can be hardest part since you need to let go of the outcome, trusting in yourself and all the work you put into what you are attempting to accomplish. When you have the fear of self-doubt or being judged for being different, that doubt impacts your magic, even if you’ve done the rest of the working with complete focus. If you question whether or not you deserve what you are working on or don’t feel that you’ve doing a good job (more self-doubt), it will hold your magic back. Sometimes, we are even afraid of our own power, so that fear of success can impact your workings as well.
Once you’ve released the spell, it’s difficult for myself and most people that I’ve talked with about magic — the impatience for something to happen quickly. It might or might not occur in line with your expectations.
(If you notice if you are unfamiliar with this method of thinking, it can also be visualized in the casting of the lesser banishing or invoking ritual of the pentagram.)
From my own experiences with workings, it can be as slow as a leaf falling without a breeze or it can start slow and turn into an avalanche of change in alignment with your magic.
Every doubt or when you don’t encourage your belief in yourself and what you are truly capable of just impedes your magic.
Having friends who believe in you and what you are capable of make a good magical sounding board. You can chat with them about your intent and the desires behind what you are attempting to do as well as help you focus on the positive outcomes and cheer you on for even the little successes.
Your witch wounds can undercut each of the stages of a magical working. And I’ve noticed for myself if I’m paying attention to the thoughts and feelings I have in any stage of any sort of magical or creative working, I can sometimes see my own self-belief sabotage of what I’m doing and take that needed step back and away from the work.
