Star Made Witch: Guide to Traditional Witchcraft Daily Practices

The following is excerpt from my work in progress book, Traditional Witchcraft From Scratch.

Daily practice is a fulfilling form of devotion and discipline. A simple anchor to your witchcraft is helpful in making magic your lifestyle and committing to the spirituality. Yet variety is the spice of life and witchcraft cover such a breath of skills and knowledge that you could do a different activity every day to prevent the doldrums of monotony.

Cyclical pattern is abound in witchcraft, from the phases of the moon to the seasons of the wheel of the year to the ages of child, adult, elder repeated in our past, present and future lives. For the cycles of daily practice, I propose a pattern of study that varies and repeats based on a four-week moon cycle.
Daily practice and improving your discipline is a matter of building habits. We know a few rules of thumb about building habits:

1. Spend three weeks of constant attention to establish a new habit.
2. Connect a new habit to an old habit already firmly in place.
3. Make yourself accountable to a group or a partner in building your habit.
4. Reward yourself for success and forgive yourself for mistakes. It is far better to be easy on yourself than to give up to guilt for not being perfect.

Ideally we harness all the best tools for building a daily practice by picking one simple ritual as our anchoring habit with some friends, practice it almost every day for moon cycle – which has room for some missed days included — and celebrate each day we do the daily practice.

I suggest starting very simply with setting out a clean cup of water for one familiar spirit, ancestor or deity you want to work with and saying a short statement to them every day be it a prayer, blessing or short meditation. Keep a calendar nearby your spirit shine and star or check off each day that you have remembered to greet the spirit. Keep in touch with a friend or group on social media or via text/phone/email regarding your progress.

The permanent establishment of this habit will create an anchor for every other witchcraft activity to tie to for a pattern of varying daily practice. It is very important not to try to pile on a bunch of new things at once. Focusing on this anchor will make your future endeavors stronger and more grounded.
Once a full moon cycle has completed let’s say from New Moon to New Moon, you can begin to organize zones a focus for your four weeks cycles. For the second month you might lay the weeks out as follows:

1. Tarot and divination: each day study one Tarot card or rune symbol from your deck – read its meaning, think about your personal interpretations and try to memorize one or two things about that card. The next day look at a different card. If you allow for occasional missed days you will get through a whole deck in a year!
2. Natural history: choose an area of study for the week to learn about trees, herbs, animals, stones, fairies and etc. Having a book about animal magic for example with short blurbs on a series of different animal subjects is a great way to start. Mix it up over the months so you can learn different natural topics throughout the year growing your knowledge.
3. Spell work: there are general magical purposes associated with the days of the week.
   • Monday is lunar and good for divination, dreams and travel.
   • Tuesday is Martial and good for protection, defense and strength.
   • Wednesday is Mercurial and good for communication, arts and luck.
   • Thursday is associated with Jupiter and good for wealth and healing.
   • Friday is Venus’ day and is good for love, fertility and passion.
   • Saturday is for Saturn and is good for banishing and cleansing.
   • Sunday is Solar and good for careers, fame and prosperity.

   You could really get your spiritual house in order if you tend to the major areas of life in little ways once a month doing several spells. You might incorporate the lore, natural history and divination symbols you have been studying the last three weeks into your spells this week. Monthly maintenance on money, relationships, protection and health is a wise way to go. Prevention is the best medicine so fewer things fall between the cracks.

4. History and Lore: take a few minutes to watch a YouTube clip on witch history, read a short fairy tale or listen to a myth on an audio book each day this week. Learning about the magical ways of the past informs modern traditional witchcraft practice today.

As the months progress doing witchcraft daily becomes more natural. Rewarding yourself on the calendar maybe less necessary as you develop your own motivations through the work itself. When your core rituals are very strong you might find room to add more — maybe lighting a candle daily or keeping a journal. However do not neglect your anchor be it the water offering or something different you selected.

A large part of dedicating yourself to the your witchcraft is deciding that you are worth the attention. Making your goals and practice a priority is sometimes hard to do, but the personal power you generate tending to your spiritual life will benefit your family work and causes. The habits included in this article are meant to only take a few minutes to set the tone for all the hours of your day to be more empowered and magical.

Do you have a daily practice? Do you want to have a daily practice? Do you prefer the same things everyday or do you live for variety? Please comment below.

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