I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.
~ Neil Gaiman
I write this in the days between Christmas and New Years, those days that are like a fog in which we find ourselves lost. A melancholic fog where we can’t help but turn our gaze inwards on ourselves, reliving the good times and the bad of the year almost over and hoping that the year to come will be better, more of the good and less of the bad.
This time is also a liminal time and as all witches know, there is a magick in the liminal. It is a special time, an inbetween time, neither here or there. It’s like time has been suspended and so we are gifted a chance to look both backwards and forwards and project our aims and wishes whilst learning from the mistakes we have made in the past. I recently read an article the other day on modern day witch wars and you can read it here. The author makes some very good and interesting points, ones that gave me plenty of food for thought and even now, I find myself in these alone times, mulling some point or other over in my mind. Like I said, I find this time of year to be a melancholic one. But it is also a magickal one.
I don’t do new year resolutions as a rule and I find most to be self serving and downright boring – the usual drivel of eating better, getting more exercise and so on. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing at all wrong with such aims, but you know what I mean, they are the usual. Now if those resolutions were done so in the aim of making ourselves better prepared for the fight ahead, then great but let’s be brutally honest, most peoples aren’t. But with all of that said, I do believe it is important to set meaningful goals and with the state of the world at the moment, the choices we make, especially as practitioners of magick, can be of importance.
So here, dear readers and fellow sorcerers, let us discuss what 2020 might bring, how we might find our place within it and the changes we might hope to inspire and achieve.
The Environment
We stand on a precipice. The Earth is dying, so we are told. I believe the planet will rid herself of the pests that are so hell bent on destruction before she dies, and for the record those pests are us. But even here there is a fallacy. There seems to be a whole heap of blame levelled at us, the little people, and yet what choice do we have. Our politicians, big business, capitalism are the ones who reap the benefit of the Earths destruction, of polluting our air, water and land and increasingly we are blamed, but in truth what choice is there? Well there is a choice, one we can all make. We can choose to buy locally and ethically, though granted, for the poorest among us, those within the constraints of poverty, the choice is often not a real choice at all. But there are things we can all do to help the planet. We can clean up the areas where we live. We can take care of the wild parts of our communities and the creatures that live there. We each can do something.
Sometimes it is so easy to get overwhelmed by the problems that face us, but if we start small, start in our local communities, it is a start. Everything begins as a trickle. And so this brings us to the next point.
The Community
Take a walk around your community. Look at it, go on. Take a real good look with your eyes wide open. What do you see? I’ll tell you about my community. Let me start on the street where I live. I have no illusions about it. I’ve grown up on this council estate, know it like I know my own heart. I’ve grown up listening to the insults and jibes thrown at the place and the people. I know what others think of it. Within my town it has perhaps the worst reputation of any place, filled with life’s drop outs and lost causes, but I’ll tell you what else it has, more so than other places of better repute – a strong community spirit. You’ll still see kids out playing, neighbours stood on doorsteps laughing and joking, it still has folks willing to look out for others.
But it is perhaps one of the poorest areas in the town. There is much that could be done here, a community healing, as it were. sounds lovely doesn’t it, all love and light, but do not be fooled. The people here are proud and hard and do not accept help easily. And so the help must come from the inside. Becoming a voice for the neighbourhood is one way to start. Organising litter picks and clean ups is another. Coming together as a community where all are equal and equally welcome is a must. But so too is finding those wild places still left, the overlooked and forgotten places where magick gathers, slow and pooling like honey. For me I see it in the trees planted on the estate. There’s a copse of yew trees towards the back of the estate where we would play as kids, climbing the boughs. Whenever I walk past, the magick of memory mixes with the knowledge I have now and that feeling of magick swells and gives me power. All of this from a copse of trees standing forgotten by almost everybody else, so much they might as well be invisible. I find the magick in the birds and the critters that reside in my community, in the overgrown areas, in the thicket of ivy that grows in my garden. And this too is an important part of community healing, the wild and green spaces that we have access to. All too often they are cleared away in the name of development, development which leaves the poorest in our communities even more so.
Whatever changes we hope to make in 2020, mundane and magickal, we must start at the bottom and work our way up. We must begin within our own communities. For some, it is all we can hope to do, but imagine the reach, influence and the benefits of what would happen if all small communities started with themselves first and worked upwards and outwards.
On Solidarity
Watching the news can be so disheartening and discouraging. There are so many problems the world and it’s people face, so much so that we feel powerless against it all. There are many injustices faced by people and animals, and when we too are poor or so consumed in our efforts to just survive, again, it can all feel just so helpless and hopeless.
But we know better, do we not, fellow witches?
Let our witchcrafts and magicks work to aid our mundane efforts in helping others. I stand in solidarity with all oppressed peoples and beings. I stand in solidarity with victims of abuse. I stand in solidarity with the poor and forgotten. Their struggles must become our struggles if we want to affect any kind of change in the world. Again starting small is the only way to start. It might be all you can do is raise awareness, shine a light on the darkness that others are forced to endure. It might mean working magicks to aid healing and to bring help, it might mean sending money if you can, or other aid, or choosing which businesses to support and which ones are culpable. I often say sometimes the only power we have is where we spend our money and how and what we think, so let us use whatever power we have to help others.
There are so many ways we can help make the world just a little more lighter, a little more bearable. The way is hard but we are strong.
So as the new year approaches, let us learn from our joys and our pains of the year gone by and let us go into the new year as the fierce, magick welding warriors we are.
However you celebrate, have a very happy New Year.
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I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something. ~ Neil Gaiman I write this in […] -
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something. ~ Neil Gaiman I write this in […] -
This garden and every living and dead thing within it. The earth, the grass, the trees, the soil, all alive and filled with spirit and as I immerse myself in it, my soul soars, my spirit rises and rejoices, connecting me with everything and everything with me.
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The deep, dark wild woods, mysterious and magical, have an almost mythic status amongst Pagans. Indeed there is something so alluring about losing oneself beneath the canopy of the forest. However, for the beginner, the best place to start is somewhere close to you, somewhere you can visit daily or weekly. It can be a garden if you have one, or a local patch of trees, whatever. What is important is that you can get there as often as possible.
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I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something. ~ Neil Gaiman I write this in […]
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