What now?

So, you’ve read every book you could get your hands on. You’ve tried all the exercises, and you’ve understood most of what you’ve read. You call yourself a Priest, or Priestess.

Now what?

I can remember getting to the point where I had read just about everything out there. I attended Community events, and had made a lot of friends, but for some reason I just kept thinking, “Now what?”

It seemed that I had all the knowledge. I must, after all I’d read all those books.

Somehow, something was missing. I didn’t feel like I had attained anything. I felt just as clueless as I was before all that reading.

Sure, I knew how to cast a Circle, and I knew how to create and cast a spell, but was that all there was?

What was I missing? All the Elders in my local Pagan Community seemed to have it all together, and here I was, just plain old Ken.

Sure, I had my Magickal name, and everyone knew me as Greyhart, but under it all, I was still just plain old Ken. I had to be missing something.

Everything I had read, lead me to believe that there was supposed to be some Magickal Transformation. By learning all that I had, wasn’t I supposed to be different?

I knew how to create, write, and perform rituals. I knew how to create and cast spells. I had the knowledge, but I still felt like I just wasn’t getting it.

There was more to this being a Witch, but what?

I was afraid to ask anyone I knew, especially those I respected. People were starting to look at me as a Priest. I didn’t want to blow it by admitting that I didn’t really have a clue.

Looking back, I realize that if I had only asked, I would have found the answer so much faster. Some lessons just have to be learned the hard way.

This is where I learned the difference between learning a fact, and knowing the fact. I was young, about 25 at the time. I had a lot of growing to do, both emotionally and spiritually.

At the time, I thought I had finished my study as a Witch, when in fact I had just begun. As I said, I was young.

So here I am. I was calling myself a Priest, and others were starting to recognize me as a Priest. What’s left to learn?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. This lesson taught me why an employer would rather hire a person who has done the job, over someone who just learned about the job in college. This, it turns out was exactly the same thing.

To continue the metaphor, I was the college student. I had studied diligently, and I had my diploma. What I was missing was the job experience.

In this case, I had learned how to be a Witch, but I wasn’t actually being a Witch. Doing ritual and casting spells does not make you a Witch. Being a Witch makes you a Witch.

Ok, so that’s not really very clear is it? What I mean by being a Witch, is taking all that you are, and living life as a Witch.

Looking at it another way, A Christian who only goes to church at Christmas and Easter, is still a Christian. As long as the Christian was baptized in the church, that makes them Christian. In fact, they don’t really have to go to church at all, they are still a Christian.

To be a Witch, you look at everything as a Witch. Life is Magickal. A Witch recognizes this, and seeks the Magick in everything.

We see ritual in everything. Your morning routine when you get ready for work every morning is a ritual. How you grocery shop is a ritual. The things you do to get ready for bed at night, are a ritual.

If daily life is basically a series of rituals, there must be Magick involved. The Witch looks for that Magick.

Finding the Magick in everyday life is what causes that Magickal Transformation I had expected after reading all those books. The books give you knowledge, but they don’t teach you how to apply it to everyday life. Some books hint at it, but they don’t come right out and say it.

Or maybe I’m just a slow learner.

In any case, it took me a good year to come to this realization. I also realized soon after, that reading the books wasn’t the actual study. The study and the lessons didn’t start until after all the reading is finished.

Well that’s not exactly true. The study and the lessons had always been there, I just hadn’t recognized them as such, until after reading all those books.

It’s often joked in the Pagan Community that if you don’t listen when the Goddess speaks, she will hit you upside the head with a metaphysical 2X4 to get your attention. Most people go through life never listening.

The average person is so focused on their problems and their issues that they never take time to look around and see just how wonderful things really are.

Don’t believe me? Just watch Jerry Springer. No matter who you are, or how bad things seem to be, one episode of Springer will show you just how good you’ve really got it.

Unless of course you live in a trailer with your parents, wife, and six cousins, who are all sleeping with your wife.

When you begin to live your life as a Witch, you start to see everything in a completely new way. Everything happens for a reason. You may never know what that reason is, but rest assured there’s a lesson in it for you.

Witchcraft is not something you do on Christmas and Easter, or once a month at the full moon, or even every Sunday.

Witchcraft is a way of life. Witchcraft is who you are. You are a Witch every minute of every day. If you aren’t living, breathing, eating and sleeping Witchcraft, you are either missing the whole point of Witchcraft, or you aren’t really a Witch. Continue Seeking what you really want.

So you’ve read all the books, you’ve looked through this site, now what?

Hopefully you’ve realized by now that you need to live your Craft, just as the ancients did. Everything our ancient ancestors did was based on the cycle of the year, the turn of the season, and the Magick of life.

Now that you’ve read all those books, it’s time to bring that Magick into your life.

I know, now you’re asking, “But Ken, how do I live my Craft?”

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you. Witchcraft is a personal journey. No one can tell you how to walk it.

What I can do, is give you a few examples of living your Craft, so that you can get an idea of what I mean. Once you understand what living your Craft is, you will see ways to start living it.

As you begin to make the shift from mundane to magickal, you will see more ways to transform your life. Each builds upon the prior. Each step along your Path is another step on your journey.

Life is a journey, not a destination. I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse that we are imbued with the ability to set goals.

Goals in and of themselves are not a bad thing. They allow us to mark cornerstones in our journey. It’s when the goal becomes an obsession, and the journey is forgotten, that problems begin.

I can remember the first time I noticed the change of the seasons. I mean really noticed. I had been on my Path for a few years, and I was still not living my Craft.

One warm Winter morning, it was a weekend because I was home, not at work, I happened to think about the fact that it was nearly Imbolc. Suddenly it seemed that I could feel the Earth awakening.

Now, I live in Colorado. At the end of January, there is no sign of anything but snow. Yet somehow, I could feel the world around me coming back to life.

I was living in a condo complex in the suburbs of Denver that had these huge old cottonwood trees out front. They were absolutely bare of leaves, but before my eyes, I suddenly saw them full of leaves, if just for a moment. The grass changed from brown to deep green for an instant.

Was that a whiff of Spring in the air?

A few days later, it was Imbolc. It’s the celebration of returning light. Maybe it was that aspect that caught my attention, but I realized that I could see a difference.

Back at Yule, the sun set between 4:00 and 4:30 pm. Remember, this is Denver. There are mountains to the west, and they cause the sun to set early, and very fast.

Now at Imbolc, the sun was still up until after 5:00pm. Just over a month, and nearly an hour difference in when the sun was setting.

Life is Magical.

At that time of my life, I was working for a minimal wage, and struggling to make ends meet. I had real problems of keeping a roof over my head, and food in my belly.

Yet here I was, feeling Spring coming, and noticing the extra sunlight. There was hope. Life was getting better, or would soon get warmer at least.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s the little things that always seem to make the biggest change in us.

This is living my Craft. I was beginning to notice the magick all around me. It had been right in front of me all along. I had just failed to see it.

I was now looking at the journey, not the destination. Many have remarked on how a Witch always sees everything. You can’t put anything over on a Witch. We train by watching sunsets.

Learn to live your Craft by experimentation. Attune yourself to the Nature around you. Be a rock, or a tree, or a patch of grass. See things from the perspective of whatever you choose to be at that time.

Does a rock feel? Probably not, but it understands everything in its vicinity. The rock has no choice, it can’t move on its own. It has nothing but time. Time enough to observe everything in the most minute detail.

Be a rock. Observe every detail while you are a rock. Forget about how long you take, just be a rock. If time moves faster for a snail, or slower for a humming bird, then time must flash by for a rock. After all, nothing moves slower than a rock.

The Charge of the Goddess says that everything that is, was, or ever will be, was birthed by the Goddess. If you take this Creation Myth literally, that means that everything is divine.

If the Goddess gave birth to a rock, that rock must therefore have Divinity within it. It is a part of the Divine, just as you are.

To recognize the Divinity in everything, is to live your Craft.

Recognizing the Divinity within a thing does not mean you should worship that thing. I see the divine within every thing and every one. I do not worship every thing and every one.

"Wait a minute", I can hear you say, "The Goddess didn’t give birth to my friend Joe, Joe’s mother did."

True enough, but if you look at the creation myth of the Goddess giving birth to everything as a metaphor, it simply tells us that the Goddess is the ultimate mother.

She gave birth to that which ultimately became your friend Joe. The Divinity continued in each generation, and is within Joe, and everyone else.

Divinity is the spark of life. It is the soul. Divinity is that unquantifiable aspect that is life. Life is a journey. Enjoy the journey, it’s the only one you get as you are now.

Look at the places your journey takes you. Realize that you have control. You choose where your journey goes. As a favorite song lyric by Rush goes, “Even if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

Everywhere your life journey takes you, is a choice made by you, no matter if you made the choice consciously or not. When more of your decisions along your journey are made by conscious choice than not, you are living your Craft.

Rate this page!