When I came into Reclaiming in the late 80’s. I’d already worked in transition houses for many years. I liked the political focus of Reclaiming. It fit with my life and my passion for social justice, and as a feminist I felt I was connected to the witches of the burning times who I imagined were the activists of those times.

In the early years the magic of Witchcamp was much more focused on the environment. I was burning myself out in my day to day fighting for systemic changes in violence against women and supporting women and children. I had very little left over for making further commitments for the environment. Although I was aware that everything is connected I had nothing more to give and relied on that the pieces I was working on would contribute to the whole. Over time my work changed to be anti-oppression and custody and access in intimate relationships that were abusive. I did a lot of coalition building, organizing, lobbying, and brief writing. Still our language and ways of working were being increasingly co-opted by the systems themselves as a backlash against feminism and political correctness was taking hold and the changes we had fought so hard for were being retracted. I was considered a dinosaur in the work where staff frequently burnt out in a couple of years; I burnt out numerous times. But where as I had always managed to remain tactful and persistent working with systems I was beginning to feel like lunging across the table, and was tired of always having to say the hard stuff and everyone acting like I farted in the room. It was time to go.

Now my body is much older and in chronic pain. I am really limited to what I can do. There are so many things I want to support, like protesting against the pipeline, Indigenous activism, rallies against racism, and I am seldom able to physically get there, much less walk. I do believe we must respond to what’s happening and show our support for social justice, but I have come to believe that art is more likely to change hearts. My experience has been our facts and lobbies are frequently turned against us. I think social movements are more likely to be aroused through song, art, ways of speaking to people’s hearts about justice and possibility. And when you get down to it magic is an art. In fact it is the art of changing consciousness at will. I believe we can not only change our consciousness, but we can use magic to change our collective consciousness.


Visioning vs Fixing Bent Nails

We must respond to injustice and oppression, but we can waste our time and energy trying to fix bent nails. By this I mean trying to fix systems that are broken. Our bureaucracies and organizations are established in ways that protect the status quo. Systems and organizations create their own group entity that takes on a life of it’s own. In magic this is known as an egregore, a psychic entity made up by the thoughts of people in the group and taking on a life of its own to influence the group.

Working for non-profits I can not tell you the amount of time, energy and resources that were used responding to requests from systems that had no intention of changing. Often the intended outcome was known, and the calls for presentations and briefs were only to demonstrate that they had done public consultations. Once a nail is bent you can not straighten it. Our systems and organizations are formed in the context of colonization and privilege, and serve to self perpetuate within systems of racism, white supremacy, sexism, transphobia and homophobia, classism, ableism, the list goes on. Those at the edges see what’s happening the clearest. They haven’t been allowed to join the club, have less privilege and the least to lose by not upholding it, and with that and the oppression they experience the greatest understanding of how it works.

In magic we also tend to address these ills instead of the vision. I want to know what the possibilities are away from the status quo. I try to do magic that names possibilities and visions of what we want to bring into the world rather than what is wrong. It fits with how we create spells. We tend not to make a spell to manifest something and name all the reasons why things are not good. We focus our energy to envision having the thing we desire in our lives and our emotional response to how that would feel to create resonance. It is like calling to like. It is not like there is no occasion for naming what’s wrong, words and naming are powerful magic, but I think we need to lean more into what could be. There are more possibilities than we can imagine and magic can open the door.


Do It Anyways: Don’t Wait

One of the things I really like about Reclaiming is that anyone can offer anything. I have done this often. We have networks to put it out. Even if you are not part of Reclaiming you can still initiate magic and put it out for others to join. I am doing it so I commit to the work, whether or not anyone else shows up. I do it anyways, on my own when no one comes. I don’t like the whole glamour, group clique thing so I just put it out without any urging or trying to make it special. It becomes just my offering. Then I do it.

For example I began an Open Coven because it is hard for new people to find a coven. I committed to 22 covens following the major arcana for almost 2 years. Sometimes people came and sometimes no one did. I did the magic anyways. Another time Witch Camp was cancelled and an invitation only camp was created. I joined Lilly, Beet, Fox, Skyheart, Allyson and Pat to create Pheonix Camp, where everyone came together for a camp and created our own magic and ritual. I recommend if you feel the call to do something, just do it. Commit to the work.


Daily Practice

Daily practice is critical, powerful and more easy than you think. I do it every day. On busy days I do it at bus stops, on buses, waiting in line, in bed before I fall asleep. There are so many little spaces in between. It gives you practice for grounding and meditating in busy spaces. Don’t wait for perfection. Just do it. The times when you can’t light a candle and have to fit it into the in between spaces also begins to make your magical part of your mundane, like brushing your teeth. It also begins to open up the day to day as magical. It becomes your life.

Everyday my practice is to ground, align my three souls and acknowledge the directions and the Star Goddess. I sometimes do more, but I never do less. After I am humming. When you plug in you become connected with the whole. It makes your day better. It makes your life better. When I finish I use the connection and the hum to send healing to the world and everyone I know who is sick or suffering, or in loss. I ask for healing with people or situations I am bumping up against. I picture everyone I know individually who needs help. (I am careful to not send energy to people with cancer because I think it could feed it, but imagine the cancer leaving & their health). After I have gone through my very long list I imagine I am holding a large dandelion and I take 4 breaths of starlight and make a wish for it to be so and blow the white fluffy seeds out into the world. And yes, I do this on the bus when I don’t have time.

Twelve Step is one of my daily tools given to me by Pandora. I am so very grateful for this magical tool. I use the 12 Steps because I am so easily triggered and I do not want to be in drama or story, or ego. It is so easy to go there. True enough, someone offends you, you are justified. But there is truth, and there is Truth. There is ego and there is soul. The ego is much more easily bruised. I try to recover to soul and bigger places whenever possible. The ego likes to rant. I find even if the ego is absolutely right about what is happening, it's just wasting energy to get caught up. I often have a deeper understanding if I can be conscious enough to remember it. An intention I am working for, a realization I am heading this way and this struggle is taking me off the path, a way of reframing the drama. I try and stay in a truer space, learning to be more connected to the hum and noticing when I am seduced into the drama between. When I can surrender I find more open places within myself and more compassion and better solutions eventually emerge. Besides it saves a lot of time not going over arguments in your head. Sometimes now I try and use these spaces to send out healing or blessings instead, a much better use of the spaces.

Sara Peyton weaves together neuroscience knowledge and experiences of healing with her Empathetic Brain work. Though not magical her work truly opens up gateways into changing consciousness, which essentially is magic. Her explanations are so clear of how the left hemisphere, the “rational “ part of our brain just marches ahead and when something doesn't work just goes faster & harder. It is the part where we replay what happened and go into drama and fixed habits of how we respond. The right brain holds the emotions and it is here where healing can happen through resonance. She has written a great book called “Your Resonant Self: Guided Meditations and Exercises to Engage Your Brain’s Capacity for Healing." It is a choice and we can build our muscles of consciousness to direct our attention and intentions at will. It is a practice and for most of us not a state of being. We find our places of connection and resonance, notice when we slip away and find our way back. It is in these places, within these states of consciousness that magic happens.

David Spangler is another of my heros. As one of the original members of Findhorn he describes himself as a practical mystic. He holds a lot of wisdom. One of the things he talks about is how you can tap into a group field and drop in energetic qualities like a homeopathic remedy. Large sports events, eating at McDonalds, washing dishes all become an opportunity to connect with countless others doing the same thing where you can drop an essence like love in. Life is full of chances to connect and bless.


Magic with Fairies & Allies

My heart leaped when I heard Orion Foxwood say,”Lordy they have no idea what they are up against”. He was referring to the oppressive systems and forms of government that seem to be winning, and to the vast networks of mysterious ones, allies, ancestors, mighty dead, fairies, witches, beings that work with us. While magic is easily dismissed, it is powerful. It made me think of Lord of the Rings when Aragorn awakens the ghost army fighting alongside him. We have powerful connections and alliances with forces. We are not alone in this work.


Fairy Tea

I love the Fairy Congress and have gone for 10 years. Several years ago while at the Congress I got a message from the fairies. They said it was all very well for us magic working humans to gather together at retreats to sustain ourselves, but now it was time to take it out into the world for others to see. I had noticed that the Congress was beginning to have precarious circumstances around location and space for holding the event and people who had been many times were losing their way and having trouble finding the place. It was almost as if it was becoming harder to do to force us out into the world. I wonder about the same thing at Witch Camp as it becomes harder to sustain. Are there forces at bay? Since I received this message I have heard others at the Congress say they are getting similar messages.

That was how the Fairy Tea began. I decided to do magic in collaboration with fairies. For 13 months I held a Fairy Tea, same time, same place and put it out for whoever wanted to show up. Sometimes someone came, sometimes I was on my own. I bought a little 3 tiered plate for dainties, and made an altar of my tea setting. We or I would cast, create sacred space, invite the fairies, offer them a nice cup of tea and sweets, listen to the fairies and do magic together.

At one of my favorite teas, a friend came back with me from the Fairy Congress. We opened the statue of Liberty as a fairy portal. For me she is the Star Goddess and I am obsessed with her. I was partly inspired by a workshop at the Congress some years before by RJ Stewart. He said that John Dee had done magic with Queen Elizabeth and many of the crowns of Europe making them a portal between the stars and fairy. I thought here is a network of magic already set up that we can tap into. Later on I heard the news that the day we opened the fairy portal was the day they had to close down the statue because a woman of colour activist climbed the statue to bring attention to the reality that there isn’t liberty for all. The police had a real hard time catching her.

The next month we opened Starbucks as a fairy portal. To me she is another representation of the Star Goddess. We have gods all around us and yet we do not notice. I have the notation we could create islands of magical resonance and then join them together with paths, and then fill in the spaces so everything hums with eminence.

Of course everything is sacred but in the business of our culture and lives we miss it. I used to go to a group with Christian Hermatists. Writer Robert Powel is a Phd Babylonian Astrologer who comes once a year. One evening after his talk we were in the parking lot looking up at the stars. He said when you look at a star it feels it and looks back at you. I literally could feel the shift, the star’s consciousness coming back to meet me. This is what I mean by creating islands of resonance and eminence. As we become conscious of these spaces the land becomes conscious of us, it begins to hum and others can begin to pick up on the resonance. It becomes easier to connect with these places. It is much like giving conscious attention to someone, a child, or an animal. You can see them perk up. Over time someone who has consistently experienced being seen walks in the world differently. The same is true of all beings.

My art began to express the fairy teas in this picture of Starbucks and the Statue of Liberty having tea. On the table is a bouquet of dandelions which I paint often as a remedy for healing as a friend told me they will grow where other things won’t and heal the earth. I also like that you can make wishes with them. The carrots growing through and cracking the checkered floor is a reference to Trump. Really a painting can be much like a magic spell, instead of adding herbs and stones to a bag or carving a candle and rubbing it with oil you are painting symbols on paper. It is really very similar.


The Tea Party - Bramble


Dragon Dinners

In Reclaiming we have had magical spells working with the Red Dragon. I am afraid I do not know the name of who brought it, but it was originally a spell to cure HIV and AIDS. It later came to include other blood disorders like Hepatitis. We would come together dressed in red, eating red food and drinking red drinks. Sacred space would be created and the Red Dragon was invoked. Throughout the meal people would randomly stand and toast the Red Dragon. “Here’s to the Red Dragon, long live the living blood of the Red Dragon”. Sometimes while toasting someone would stand and toast a loved one suffering from a blood disorder and the Red Dragon. I attended several Red Dragon dinners at camp and hosted several in my home.

I have been collecting blue dishes because I am called to a similar piece of magic. I want to have a Blue Dragon Dinner. I imagine wearing blue, and eating food from the sea and toasting with water. I feel the world’s nervous system is shot and we need to calm the “fuck” down. You can feel the edgeness on the street and see it in the news. There are so many disorders of the nervous system. I have fibromyalgia and chronic pain, my sister and so many people I know have Parkinson's. I and others are so easily triggered, when that happens my entire nervous system crashes and I can’t function for days. I plan to have a Blue Dragon dinner in the near future to calm our nervous systems down.


Healing Oppression

When I worked in ending violence against women our cardinal rule was not to replicate the abuser. We tried to correct power imbalances by all the staff doing menial work and never telling women what they should do. I consider binding (where you bind or prevent an offender from doing harm) to be a tool of the oppressor and don’t use it. Still I recognize it is a privilege to have lived a life without experiencing oppression so extreme that I felt binding was my only means of protection. I do not judge others. Everyone must come to their own conclusions and I realize I could find myself in different circumstances and decisions. I do think it is unethical to do bindings in rituals without everyone knowing the consequences. We can not invoke magic without it coming back at us 3 fold, or 9 fold. We need to be aware of what that means to make an informed decision. I have however created thresholds to prevent certain kinds of energies to cross. Everyone must make their own choices of what is ethical and what consequences they are willing to pay.

Perhaps the most famous instance of magical activism working to end oppression was the Magical Battle of Britain led by Dion Fortune to protect Brtian from the Natzis and win the war. She wrote letters to her Fraternity of Magical Light with visualisations to formulate "seed ideas in the group mind of the race", and worked with angelic beings. I have the feeling that we really should be doing this now when the world feels so precarious.

When a beloved member of our community was being harassed by white surpremists I feared for his safety and wanted to do something. I put out the call and people were interested, even some witches from other communities did magic. I checked in with him and he asked that it not be specific to him but to protect all people of colour. We came together and after setting sacred space put some runes in a crystal bowl of water which we stirred our prayers, wishes and spells into. We stirred in protection for people of colour, we stirred in a change of heart for white surpremists. We stirred and we stirred. This stirring of water is my favorite magical working that I learnt from Josephine McCarthy . The next day the water was taken and poured into the ocean.



I also called people together to do a spell for Dandelion to hold everyone in saying the hard things, listening with open hearts and understanding, and the possibility of change. Only Pasha came, but others did magic in other locations. We drank dandelion tea and painted the sigil that Teri Parsley shared. We listened to Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win, Woman Stands Shining) who is a Diné (Navajo) mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader, and international speaker and a voice for global peace prayers. Jan Byers shared her work in the Authentic Leadership Path at BC Witch Camp. We prayed into the water and placed it outside to evaporate.

Speaking to the Water

My friend Jan Kinsey from the Fairy Congress says , “A witch is someone who has the courage to show up and is willing to act on the behalf of the community. As witches we have perceptions and skills we can lend. One of the ways he does it, is when he sees oppression he follows the threads back to the roots and unties them.


Magical Tools to Support Activism

When I worked as an activist I used magic to support and sustain my work. Here are a couple of tools that are helpful, especially in cleansing or protecting yourself while doing activism.


Setting the Space

Setting the space can be very helpful, especially if you are going into a difficult place. I used to go to a lot of hard meetings as an advocate, many at the police department. I found it made a big difference to set the space. People would even comment about how different the room felt after not knowing that I was setting the energy. You can set the space in advance by setting the space before you arrive, you can do it quickly in just a few moments when entering a room with your eyes open and no one will notice, or you can take your time, close your eyes and do it as a meditation. It is probably good to practice with the latter so you are able to quickly set the space as needed. Here is an outline.

* Ground, send a cord/root down to the centre and back up to the heavens. You can do this quickly- down, up, done.
* Then send a cord like a vine from your foot and crown to a corner of the room, then quickly ground the cord in the corner, down, up. Continue on to each corner, making a circle and sending out a cord & grounding it in each corner.
* Imagine a net. Pull the net through the room from ground up through the roof releasing into the sunlight which dissolves negative energy. You'll feel the weight as you do this. Pull the net through as many times as needed, 3 is not uncommon, it will feel lighter.
* Fill the room with a sparkling shower of present time, to set the place in present time without old stuff clogging it.
* Bring in whatever qualities you need/want, clarity, safety, kindness. 3 is not uncommon.
* You can continue & do the same for the building if you have time.
There is no need to break it down when you leave. More than one person can do this. It's sending your energy out to fill the room and claiming your place. It doesn't prevent others from having their place. It sets the energy with what you need, like opening a window if it's stuffy.


Self Forgiveness & Metas:

This is one of my favorites, go to tools. Again I figured it out as an advocate when I would feel slaughtered after the ugliness of meetings or politics. I would do self forgiveness for myself and Metas for the person I was distressed with. It works and you can do it while you are doing the dishes or carrying on with your daily activities.

For Self Forgiveness, forgive yourself for everything in a chain of consciousness. Forgive yourself for whatever arises, forgive yourself for the things you know & the things you don't know, forgive yourself for not knowing better, for thinking you could know better. What happens is it smooths away all the places where attacks and projections can hook into. And I find in a short while I begin to feel human and have compassion for myself for being human. I first learnt this as a means for protecting myself from psychic attack. It also works fabulous as a cure for insomnia. It is useful to note that we think of attacks as coming from outside yourself, when really we are more often the source. The other tools and skills work for self attacks as well.

Sometimes it can seem heroic or glamorous to defeat or fight back, especially when it's perceived to be a psychic attack or entity, but it's often wiser to not feed the energy. Like the Akito principal of meeting it and helping it through. Projections and attacks work by hanging on hooks, the places where there is a bit of truth, even though minuscule. By forgiving yourself you let go of the hooks so there is nothing to attach to.

I also do metas for the person I am having trouble with. I tend to do the most metas for the people I find the most difficulty with. A Meta is like a Buddhist blessing. The one I use is a Buddhist Meta I added a little to. It's:

May you be happy
May you be peaceful
May you be healthy
May you be filled with love
May you follow your joy (I added this line)

The truth is if the person I am struggling with was all these things we wouldn't have a problem, so it seems like a good thing. Before long I am in a bigger framework and at peace.


Barrier

Placing a barrier between yourself and the attack, or thing you are needing protection from is another method. Creating a shield within your aura is one method. Physical methods include using a poppet/ doll to keep the attack away from your person- or setting up an actual mirror to reflect it. I have two favorite methods. One is cutting a potato in half and leaving it out to absorb any negativity. The other thing I like to do is simply hold my athame and let it cut away any negativity. I find I don't even need to think about it, I can even watch tv, and after a while begin to feel better.


Releasing & Finding Your Way Back

Release the residue as soon as you are able when you have absorbed something. Animals instinctively physically shake it off. Physical activity works well. We walk things off. Cleansing, bathing works well, especially with a scent or salt that you associate with safety, healing, resilience. I find cleaning my home can bring me back after hard times. I call it Cinderella's my way back.

* I want to acknowledge Patricia Novotny who taught me several of the tools here. I may have adapted them over time but the roots are hers.


Magic for The Great Turning

Joanna Macy calls the present time “ when humanity (re)turns towards models of sustainability, and away from our current industrial models of civilization and Patriarchal society, that breeds great social inequities and violent destruction worldwide. the Great Turning.” I have never been, but I have heard that Winter Camp has worked with the Great Turning. Many of us are feeling this coming change. This feeling that we are standing on the brink of an enormous fundamental shift.

Personally I have been working with Revelatitions for over 7 years. Mostly I have worked alone on this but a friend has joined me a couple of times. It seems relevant to work with the apocalypse as we are at a great ending. I work with Revelatition like you do any myth, taking sections and working out how to do magic around each piece/ The horsemen, the plagues, each of the 7 seals all became ways of magically working with the end times. I spend time with each symbol or part until I understand how it can inform my magic. The apocalypse becomes a magical work of ending oppression and injustice. Magic to support the end of the ways the world creates reality in non-sustaining, non-life affirming ways. Right now I am on Chapter 13 where a sea beast that looks like a leopard with seven heads and ten horns with a crown on each one comes from the ocean. Everytime you cut a head off it grows back.


Out into the World

There are some magical acts that I haven’t done, but which inspire me very much. One day I was walking by my bank and I saw a paper taped to a lamp post. It was a writeup on the Goddess Fortuna and her attributes. At the bottom the paper was cut into little sections where you could rip off a picture of Fortuna, like a poster might have phone numbers to take at the bottom when looking for a lost kitten or babysitting jobs. I thought it was a brilliant mechanism to run into something so magical out of the blue. I have also seen a series of photocopies sketches posted on poles titled things like Map of Compassion, Map of Awareness, etc. Posting magical things I think can be effective magical working.

I have bought chalk hoping to do markings on the ground but never gotten to it because my body wasn’t up to writing on the ground. I have also experimented with writing surprising sayings in newspapers that are laying around when I go for coffee thinking my messages might magically reach the right person. Once at Witch Camp Urania was aspecting Hecate. As Hecate, she told me to make alters to her at crossroads, especially dangerous ones. Since I carry wooden keys and I leave 3 keys at crossroads to make an altar.

I often imagine a world where every business has an artist in residence. Can you imagine how different 7-11 would be if there was a resident artist or witch. We could do spiral dances in parking lots and have tables to share your dreams in the morning at Mcdonalds. I used to imagine my dream job would be as one of 3 resident hags in Ottawa & we would cause a stir as we walked into the gallery, hissing at anything we disapproved of.


Conclusion

It is not about the spell, it’s about connecting to what I call the field & the flow, or the hum. People who are new to the craft often look for spells but really it is the state of being that we are striving to connect with. The spells are like modes of transportation, the journey is the magic. The way to get there isn’t as important as the getting there. Often the best spell is tied to your disposition or the things that speak most easily to your right brain. When we are able to listen to our inner voices or tugs from our allies and incorporate it into a spell or magical work we are our most potent.

Resonance is important to achieve. Magic is like a stone thrown into water. Waves ripple out. To do magic you have to get into the pond which is the fabric of life and feel the resonance. It is this we drop our intentions into. We are changing our consciousness at will and from that matter changes.

There is a writer I seem to keep quoting. I forget her name but I think she writes on business systems. She says small groups are easier to find resonance in and works to affect the whole not because it adds up, but because it is a part of the whole. It is part of the field.

We are all singing our souls. We all have a way only we can show up. We matter. What we bring to the world as witches matter. So Witch Up. The world needs you.


References

Dion Fortune: The Magical Battle of Britain

Orion Foxwood: The Flame & the Cauldron: A Book of Old-Style Witchery

Joanna Macy: Coming Back to Life

Wendy Palmer: The Intuitive Body: Discovering the Wisdom of Conscious Embodiment and Aikido

Sarah Peytom: Your Ressonate Self Guided Meditations and Exercises to Engage Your Brain’s Capacity for Healing

David Spangler: Blessing: The Art & the Practice

Starhawk: The Empowerment Manual: A Guide for Collaborative Groups | Truth or Dare - The Twelve Wild Swans: A Journey to the Relm of Magic | Healing, and Actition