A few days ago, on my way home from work, I stopped off at the beach. This is a place I know well, the point where the river Taw and the river Torridge blend, sneaking-off together to the sea. The tide was out; revealing tiny striated dunes, wide expanses of slightly yielding sandy mud, and flattened forests of fine green seaweed.

Donning some loose clothing I walked out, far away from the marram grass and the strand line, and on to ground that for most of the day is the river bed. Once at the waters edge I stopped, dipped my hand in the water and anointed my forehead. This river is sacred to me. Not because it has any kind of mythological association (though it does feature in the excellent writing of Henry Williamson) but because of the simple lived experience of having spent a decade of my life living beside it. My river is a simple fact of geography; it is also a spirit, a god (or goddess) and a tributary of the great movement of water that powers the living systems of our planet.

Beside the seaside…

I stand in the water. Wriggle my toes down into the estuary mud, feel my weight sinking tai chi style into the ground, compressing the wet earth beneath me. My ankles are washed cool and my arms rise up. Swinging my limbs gently through the air I inhale, feeling my whole body expand – belly, ribcage, and upper chest. My hands move upwards. For a moment, at the peak of the in breath, my fingers form a triangle, framing the blazing sun (a rare and welcome guest in Devon).

As I exhale the air leaves, belly, chest, shoulders. My hands drift down to clasp lightly at the tan tien. I am standing on the earth, rising out of the water, breathing the clear air, beneath the bright fire of the almost-Midsummer sun. (I repeat this process several times before heading back to firmer earth where I can do a more formal yoga set.)

While I may explain this practice back to myself, or you gentle reader, as being an act of mediation, or prayer or magick it is such a simple thing that it seems strange to wrap it around with complex terms. Certainly this is a willed intentional act but it was also spontaneous, arising from the confluence of elements in that moment, in me and in that time.

My own style of magick tends towards this simplicity. I can’t get all that excited about spotting the gematria numbers on passing demons as they chug along the tunnels of Set (at least not these days). Nor do I find refuge in the toad-fancying iconography and hair splitting separatism of some Traditional Witchcrafts. Neither yet do I care very much for approaches to magick where there is an apparent imperative to wait to practice until one has internalised a vast, complex (and, when all said and done, made up) map of the universe.

Now that’s not to dismiss approaches that might be said to require bookish research, the painstaking translation of ancient grimoires and the memorisation of vast lists of sacred names or whatnot (and yes, I have been there and, at times, done that). For some people these things really work for them. We each have our style and it’s true we also should be mindful not only of doing only what we like, but ensuring that we balance our own proclivities with approaches that will stretch us. Crowley says of the magician and the Great Work ‘…if that pyramid is to touch the stars, how broad must be the base!’

But these days, for me, who spends a fair amount of time (like now!) in the world of words and ideas – standing in that liminal space, on the edge of land and sea, feeling the air and fire of the sky move through my body – this really is a magick that works.

JV

Whether you follow something called Traditional Witchcraft, or prefer a style of Craft more accurately described as Wicca A Witch’s Mirror by Levannah Morgan is a profoundly inspiring book. This slim volume documents the practical witchcraft of one of the most intellectually rigorous and experienced magickal practitioners I know.  This book is at once grimoire, a Still room book and autobiographical account of magick in action. There are sections devoted to the arts of making spirit houses, moon, sea and mirror magick, and many crafts that the skilful witch (or whatever variety) should be familiar with. There’s lots to do here – DIY tips that don’t cost the earth and indeed reverence it (or better, ‘Her’) in a gently yet passionately heart-felt way.

from The Boscastle Museum of Witchcraft collection

Levannah gives us something of her back story, her youth in the wild places of the British Isles and while she avoids any mention of her academic credentials, she does talk about her teacher Hereward Wake, one of the early Gardnerians. But Traditional Crafters shouldn’t switch off at this point by any means. Though this is Levannah’s lineage this book is worlds away from the formalised seasonal celebrations of the Farrar’s and their literary inheritors. Spellcraft in all its forms is very much in evidence, this is very much an operative witchcraft. Her other major teacher was Cecil Williamson, the founder of the original Museum of Witchcraft.

This book also serves, in my view, to dissolve the apparent divides in the witch-identifying community. The deeply animist or panpsychic approach of A Witch’s Mirror shows how much witchcraft is about an attitude to the world. It demonstrates that stylistic details – of whether one chooses to celebrate eight or nine seasonal festivals, to spell coven in the usual way or to opt for the more obscure ‘cuveen’ – are quite superficial matters. Levannah tells us of her craft, and invites us to get involved, with clear instructions and an open-ended approach that allows us to discover our own individual creativity. We’re not being told what to do here, or even what is supposedly the best (or oldest, or most innovative) way to undertake this or that practice, instead we’re encountering the wisdom and generous spirit of a skilled practitioner and knowledgeable teacher.

This book manages to be both a beginners text and a book which I firmly believe will also inform and inspire the experienced. More than that it manages to carry the heavy, mysterious scent of witchcraft within it without kowtowing to that modern habit of binding esoteric tomes in bat vellum.

An extraordinary text that is both a source book for jam-making and a guide to the spirit realm, A Witch’s Mirror will be a valuable addition to any magical library. You can get your copy HERE.

JV