Emma Kathryn Wild Witchcraft

The festivities of the season are in full swing, Yule and Christmas approach, and oh how we are all so busy with it all! Even if you enjoy this time of year (which I do), the extra stress and pressure, combined with whatever else you might have going on, can lead to having little time for yourself and for your own practice. I always find solace in the land where I live, no matter the time of year. It helps ground me and helps me recognise my own place in the grand scheme of things. It helps my witchcraft practice and strengthens it as I build relationships with the land and the spirits that reside there.

But what happens if you don’t feel that connection with the place you find yourself? It happens, quite often in fact. I often feel that modern paganism has a lot to answer for in this respect. Mighty oceans, high mountaintops, the wild wood are all magnificent places and when we are in those spaces, we feel the raw power of them. We cannot help but be moved by such places and to feel the strength of their spirit. And sometimes, we feel that if we aren’t in those places, we cannot connect to the spirit of the land. Our own everyday lived experiences in our own places feel dwarfed and lessened.

However, it needn’t be the way. The land is alive with spirit, including those places that are more familiar to us, even if they don’t feel as magnificent as those big places, the spiritual heavy hitters of nature. Here then, I will share some tips on how you can connect with the land where you live, no matter where that is.

Start Small

I’m terribly impatient, so I know what it feels like to want to do something and to be great at it straight away. But when it comes to building connection with the land, starting small is the best way to go. But what does starting small even look like? Well the truth is it can look like many things, but the easier these initial small steps are to fit into your life, the easier it will be for you to do them and as such, easier for them to be integrated into your busy life. You might decide to take your morning tea or coffee outside and just observe what is happening in the moment. Slowly you’ll come to recognise different aspects or notice particular cycles. Spending time outside at the same time each day allows it to become a part of your routine and you’ll also become familiar with those cycles and deviations from them.

Get in the Know

So I might be biased because I’m a teacher in my day job, but learning is so important to us as a species, the ability to take on new knowledge and make adaptations based on that knowledge is vital to the survival of the species. I might go a step further and say that it is vital to our spiritual survival too. Learn to identify the plant and animal species that share your space with you. In doing so you can begin to build up a better understanding of the land where you live. This can be built on further. If you can identify plants, then you can learn about how they grow, what nutrients and growing conditions they require. You can explore any uses they may have in your spell work. This learning of the flora and fauna can be developed further by exploring the folklore and stories associated with them. All of this helps to build a better understanding of the land and helps us to see our spaces as more than we may have done so previously.

The Great Outdoors

So perhaps you’ve begun taking your morning beverage outside, watching the world wake up, or maybe you’ve chosen another time to begin noticing. Great stuff! But simply observing can make us feel separate from the land, spectators not involved in the action. The truth is we are a part of nature and so it is important to get out and become a part of the land. The best way to do this is to get outside. Perhaps you enjoy walking or cycling or running. Then do it outside, in your local landscape. Or simply sit in your garden and enjoy the way the sun, wind or rain feels on your skin. Touch the grass! Literally! Bury your toes in the earth. Look at the animals you might have noticed, the birds for instance. Sometimes they are looking for food and sometimes they are singing or doing all the other things birds do. They are naturally a part of that space and so are you! Take a book and sit and read it outside or make sketches of the different aspects. The idea is that the more time you spend actively being outside, the more natural it will feel and slowly you become a part of that living landscape instead of an observer.

Cycles and Rhythms

The natural world is full of cycles and rhythms from the moon cycle to the seasons and everything in between. Becoming aware of these cycles from the perspective of where you live can greatly aid our understanding of how they affect them. More importantly, they can help us feel connected to the land where we live. This step is particularly important if you feel that there is just nothing to connect with. This can be a great way of recognising the micro within the macro and can be a great first step on the journey of reclaiming your connection to the land where you live.