Simple Winter Self-Care Magick to Banish Your Winter Blues

In this time of the year, winter self-care magick can serve as a steady light that will help you to find your way home to your body. Even a few minutes of tending to your internal fires can help you increase your peace of mind, and enjoy being present in your body. Even those of us Witches who love the dark, wet winter months may find ourselves pulled under the spell of seasonal affective disorder – you know, SAD for short – as the days get shorter and darkness consumes the day.

As a feminist, anarchist Witch, I recognize a wide array of aspects of daily life as magick, and as self-care magick specifically. Indeed, in my opinion all it takes to make a thing magick is consciousness. So turn up your consciousness, and get started making magick.

In this article I will offer you three ideas for increasing your simple self care magick and increasing your internal calm.

1. Cook Something Up

There are many ways you can make self-care magick with cooking as the method. In itself, cooking is a magick we don’t often think about; it’s a form of alchemy. We take items and mix then together, and in the process they transform to something else entirely. In itself that is pretty magickal.

And, when we bring consciousness, desire, intention, love, and Will to the process, the magick becomes imprinted with our own magickal signature.

The everyday magick of nourishment is also real. Your body takes food and turns it into energy, and into actual matter. What you ingest becomes your body. Your blood, your bones, your flesh are all formed and informed by what you eat, and drink, and breath.

Ways of Magickal Nourishment

So at the most basic level the magick of nourishment is pretty mind blowing. And here are some ways you can make cooking – and eating that alchemical glory – even more magickal:

• Use items that have magickal importance to you. Many Witches are aware that herbs have both medicinal and magickal associations. The two are often related. Grains do too, and even vegetables. As a matter of fact, all things have magickal charge. What do you need more of in your life? Use the ingredients that will bring that to you!
• Make something that creates a positive mental state for you. Whether that’s a green salad to remind you of summer gardens, a batch of cookies from your grandma’s favorite recipe, a cup of hot cocoa with a nip of brandy in it, or a baked winter squash to celebrate the bounty of the harvest, make it. As you make your delicious treat you will invest in the emotions and thoughts that arise. This is a simple spell to weave.

In my belief, self-care magick, and magick in general, is not static but is relational. You may be able to tell what you need to cook up just by checking in with your body. What are you needing right now? What are you craving? What is your body asking for? Hot soup to warm you deep inside? Nourishing tea to balance your mood?

Find the answers inside, and cook up some alchemical, transformational self-care.

2. Take a Magickal Bath

Just like with cooking, you can create a self-care magick spell with herbs for your bath. When I create a magickal bath I use flowers and herbs, essential oils mixed into milk and then poured into the bath, mineral salt, baking soda, and oats.

Because milk has both water and fat in it, mixing oils into milk helps to emulsify the oils into the water. But milk also has magickal properties of its own. Some say milk has feminine energy. Others say it is protective.

On a physical level, oats are calming to the skin, and to your nervous system as well. But again, magick is relational. What do oats symbolize for you?

Gather your items together, draw your bath, dissolve the salt and baking soda, add in the rest of your items, and submerge yourself. Read, or reflect, or listen to music, or pray, or sing. Be sure to stay in your bath for at least 20-minutes to allow your salt and magickal items to work on your nervous and muscular system.

Note: if you don’t have access to a bathtub, you can make a footbath instead. You can get a basin on Amazon or at your local pharmacy or sporting goods store.

3. Go Outside

Today I went for a walk in a local, well-loved ravine with my kid and her bestie. Immediately upon descent into the cleft, I felt stress fall off my shoulders and dissolve into the dirt.

We wandered around under the redwoods, listened to the running stream, and took pictures of abundant, beautiful mushrooms with names like “fairy fingers” and “slippery jacks.” We breathed fresh air and smelled good, damp, clean earth. We inhaled soothing moisture bubbling off the running stream.

The self-care magick vibe was undeniable.

Where can you go to touch into the heart of nature? Find your place and sink your energetic roots in. Allow yourself to wander, walk, run, flit, sit, or even lie down – if it’s not too cold and wet.

No ritual needed; the magick weaves itself when feet are on earth, fresh air is being drawn into the lungs, and spirit is communing with the planet and with our human and critter siblings whom we share it with.

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