15 Facts of Being a Visually Impaired Witch

I’m visually impaired (VI) and a practicing witch, with emotional disorders. I’m sure some of you wonder what that’s like.

Well, here are some facts to ponder. I bet you wouldn’t guess some of them.

1. I was terrified to light incense for the longest time because I can’t see that skinny little stick looking straight down at it. Until I discovered those short Japanese incense sticks. Those were so manageable that I got used to the bigger ones pretty quickly.

2. It’s hard to dance around in a circle, out doors on rough ground, at night, when the bright firelight basically obliterates my night vision because I’m light sensitive. I find a spot and stay there. But dancing is still fun.

3. Six or seven-inch tapers and votive candles are the easiest to light because I can guide the flame to the wick much easier without getting that close to the heat.

4. Speaking of lighting things, it takes both visual focus and tactile guidance to light anything with a skinny end like a wick, thanks to sucky depth perception.

5. I used to think that because my hand writing sucks if it’s more than a few words at a time, that petition magic wouldn’t work because it became illegible. Until I realized that drawing random patterns while thinking of my intent would work just as well, and I got the same participatory experience as everyone else that way.

6. I came up with my first ritual tools out of house hold stuff. My first altar cloth was an old kitchen towel.

7. Tangible forms of magic like cord magic and charm bags are my favorites.

8. I sense energy as changes in atmospheric pressure and sometimes temperature, as well as seeing it.

9. I make my own statuary. It’s kind of primitive but A: not really sure what some traditional images of various deities look like, and B: as long as they don’t mind, I really don’t care, especially when there is traditionally a lot of nudity involved. Just not focused on that kind of thing in my path. E.G. if I did an image of Aphrodite, it might be a woman with flowing blond hair and a tastefully low-cut gown or something.

10. Visualization without a tangible way to stay focused like a stone to meditate with used to be really problematic.

11. I can do rituals to metal music sometimes. And water chants are amazing for trance work, which I only first experienced this year, my ninth in active practice.

12. I still get a lot out of making my altar have a neat visual effect.

13. I still do rituals with the lights off and only candle light. I have a couple electric tea lights going off to the side so I don’t get glare-blinded by my ritual candle’s flame.

14. I receive a lot of information intuitively, through touching a person or object, or entering a particular space. Generally it’s factual information attached to emotions, not so much actual visions.

15. I’m a medium, and spirits make themselves known by their electric fields, which I can feel. I can hear them in my head, I don’t usually see them unless I focus my mind on the area from which energy comes from.

A lot of these are kind of individual to me, I don’t know about other VI witches.