#environmental witchcraft

[quantumwitches]

Let's talk Sustainable Spiritual Practices

Hello, my eco-friendly enchanters and nature-based practitioners! Today, we’re diving into something that stirs the cauldron with a dash of Mother Nature herself. It’s time to talk about eco-conscious witchcraft—because who says saving the planet can’t be a bit magical? The Magic of Sustainability In a world where every choice impacts our environment, integrating sustainability into our magical…

[notyourmothersspellbook]

Ecological Witchcraft

I have written before on new materialism, but I wanted to make a post about what I see as part of the project of witchcraft (if you can call it that). This might be a bit of a ramble and you may disagree (and are absolutely free to), but I did want to attempt to get my thoughts down while I had them with me. 

Ultimately, I would like to argue for witchcraft as a necessarily ecological practice. Read more below.

The environments in which we live, the organic and inorganic materials and tools that we make use of, the local spirits, the land, the seasons, the weather - these are all environmental aspects that build the very basis for our practice. I think that witchcraft should not only provide practical and effective methods for enacting change in our lives and the lives of others, but that it should also force a radical re-imagining of the environment. An environment in which organic, inorganic, human and non-human, living and dead, find equal footing and become regarded as animate and worthwhile.

 If witchcraft demands the recognition of the power and inherent spirit of, say, a bush of rosemary (capable of producing meaningful and measurable effects) then that same witchcraft must also force us to readdress our relationship with other organic matter and, by extension, inorganic matter as well. If witchcraft suggests that one’s cards, pendulums, crystals, bones, etc. are all thrumming with potential, with energy, then witchcraft must also force us to reconsider the potential and energy of other seemingly inconsequential materials - the cigarette thrown out the window, the stack of recycling, the products and materials that you use, consume, discard, and destroy.  If witchcraft is a practice with which we engage regularly, then I propose (or believe) that our practice (which already focuses heavily on a reverence for certain organic and inorganic items) should push us to reconsider our relationship to things - from our relationship to plants and animals to how we conceive of and interact with disposable items and everyday objects. 

This view of witchcraft is heavily animist, but the way that I see it we already give an enormous amount of thought and energy to what we deem worthwhile tools. Let’s return, for instance, to the example of a rosemary plant. We consider the plant, its growing cycle, its associations, its power to manifest certain outcomes. We meditate upon it and with it, we consider its leaves and shape and smell and practical and impractical applications, we familiarize ourselves with a plant of rosemary in extremely intimate and fascinating ways that, I argue, should naturally extend to everything else. How much more rich would your practice (and your environmentalism) be if you considered every object in the room that you are in now with the same level of attentiveness that you extend to that rosemary plant? You might find new uses for and associations in objects that you overlooked before. You might be drawn to consider the raw materials of the things you own and the lifespan that they will have beyond your use of them. You might be pushed to meditate, for instance, upon the plastic grocery bag under the sink and find that it is practical, but untenable for your environmentalism. 

What might your practice gain from considering things, objects, plants, and so forth, as animate? How might that change the way that you make use of things? That you consume things? That you dispose of things? What if you considered your house as an organism as you cleansed it? What if you reflected upon the extended lifespan of a glass jar before burying it in the earth? What if you granted the same consideration to the mundane objects in your life that you do to crystals, cards, and tools? How might your practice change? How might your environmentalism change? How might your daily practices change? I think witchcraft necessitates these thoughts and practices and meditations upon our environment and the organic and inorganic world with which we work daily.