I am not gonna lie. There are many reasons why I am now being called back to my witchy path. The ‘short story’ that you see on the main page is a very VERY shortened version.

First off I am going to confess something. Well, maybe not so much confess as divulge? I struggle with anxiety and depression. If you know me at all you know this, because I am very open about it. If you have only just met me you might think bwahh??? But it’s true. It’s a daily struggle and I am a master at masking. I have been working with a therapist for a year and have been medicated for much much longer than that. Heart breaking life changes put me in a place of deep sorrow and then along came that anxiety wondering if I would ever feel whole again. This has happened over and over throughout my entire life. So really, this latest chapter of “Shandai is a witch?!” started, a year ago. It was my (most recent) breaking point.

I had been feeling for a long time that I was missing something. A partner? Well ya, that was obvious but that wasn’t it. Maybe it was something that had been missing even longer? Something deeper? It was like piece of me had become dormant during those last few years of my dysfunctional relationship. Let’s face it, having a toddler taking up every minute of my time and a pandemic stealing away any prospect of taking breaks and feeling connected did not help in the least. It felt like my zest for life was waning… hard.

I have always had this weird feeling like I should be doing something “more” with my life. When I was younger I definitely thought that I was this amazing singer. I knew someday I’d be noticed and signed on to stardom. (Not that I don’t currently still have my audition song for The Voice picked out and practiced! Cuz that’s a thing) But, to be honest, it’s never really thrilled me so much that I actively pursued it. In my 20s I sang weekly at a local open mic, and when I was approached to audition for a band, I failed to show up.

A little farther down the road I thought the answer was that I needed to do more creative things. I ramped up my creative business and focused on that for a couple years as maybe even being my main gig. While that was highly enjoyable, not in the least profitable, and very stressful, it was not the answer. I will continue to create for the joy of others and myself but it was starting to feel like creativity was a weight around my neck instead of something that freed up my heavy anxious heart. I have ultimately decided just in the last couple months that I will take some time off actively making stock to sell and having tables at Art/Craft Fairs around the cities (and beyond) and just focus on me and my little family of 2.

When the tiny turned 5 it just sort of clicked that I could make this a new witchy beginning for both of us. At the very least, I thought, we would start celebrating the Sabbats on a regular basis and with more intention behind it. Up until that point I had just been noting the day in my mind and occasionally doing something to celebrate. And then, little things started poking at me, telling me that I was moving in the right direction.

I found a Podcast called Comfy Cozy Witch quite by accident, because I don’t really listen to podcasts and certainly wasn’t looking for one. The title just popped up and beckoned for me to tap it and have a listen. Jenny Blonde’s voice is just so delightful, from the very start it put me right at ease. A real person, admitting to all their faults and still a strong woman saying confidently, “I am a witch and you are too if that’s what your calling is.” I am usually the person who listens to the first couple episodes of a podcast and then gets bored with the content and goes back to using Spotify as a jukebox. Not so this time. It was so exciting to hear about something I knew about (peppered with some things I didn’t) framed in a way I’d never heard before that I haven’t been able to stop listening. To paraphrase Jenny herself: if you find the thing that draws you in roll with it and let that be the guide you use to figure out what your witchy path looks like. Her attitude towards the craft and how it can be quite literally different for each and every person is the elixir I have been missing my whole life.

Now reasonably I have always felt that way about spirituality. It is absolutely impossible that any two people could have the same beliefs… Unless they have been brainwashed but lets not get me started on that topic. But, even then, hypnotized as they might be, a white man who makes a decent living is going to have a different experience and, lets call it, a different flavor to their belief system than a underemployed BIPOC single mother of two. Regardless of them both claiming to belong to the same religion there are bound to be some pretty drastic contrasts in where their focus lies. Socio-economic theories about organized religion aside… I don’t know why it hadn’t fully clicked for me that Witchcraft was the perfect answer to that unasked question in the back of my brain: Can you really just do your own thing* and call it Witchcraft? Hundreds of Witches in organized covens and solitaries who still follow very specific rules have come before me. The answer according to Jenny is yes. Just a side note, Witchcraft really isn’t a religion, not to me anyways, its more a way of life that makes you feel better about being alive. Maybe that’s the way all religion should be, though, now that I think about it.

(* humorous side note: When I say do your own thing I mean within the realm of witchiness, taking what works for you, leaving what doesn’t, adding as you go intuitively, and always learning….. obviously doing something random like jumping on a pogo stick wearing cardboard wings and blowing “I am a witch” into a Kazoo doesn’t in and of itself make you one because that doesn’t resemble any magical practice… that I am privy to anyways… well maybe a little magic, in the realms of the body’s ability to pogo and blow a kazoo at the same time…. but I digress)

A little “desire to celebrate the Sabbats with my kiD” here, a little “simple but ultimately lifechanging podcast”, there, and a lot of just thinking and going through all my old witchy stuff remembering that these are things that mean nothing to anyone else but me… and here I am. I kept things that my reasonable mind thought was silly even as I collected them and labeled them as magickal apparatus in my subconscious. Even as I packed all these silly little ‘trinkets’ up before the last move I didn’t feel much of a connection with any of them. I actually even pondered just tossing the lot of it, I was just so heartbroken. Some part of me knew that would be like tossing out a little piece of myself and I would regret that some day of I did.

I am so glad that I have woken up and now find that these are things and thoughts of power I have in my possession. I want to share them with my tiny as long as she wants to walk this little path with me and I want to manifest for myself a practice that grows and flows and supports me for the rest of my life. Blessed Be.