Wild Witch: A Guide to Earth Magic

By Marian Green

A practical guide for bringing magic into your life using plants and herbs, the seasons, and the natural elements

A “wild witch” is someone who has discovered the true source of magic. She finds her magic in the elements of the earth, the ways of healing herbs and scented flowers, the ocean’s tides, the cycle of the moon, and the energies of the planets. By becoming intimate with nature, a wild witch comes to see the living spirits in all things—everything is alive. She learns that these spirits must be honored and then they will act as trustworthy guides. In essence a wild witch is a child of nature, a wise woman, a lore master, and a healer.

In this book you will learn how to use:

• Herbs, plants, and trees
• The element of fire through candle magic and spell casting
• The hidden spirit of water through purification, dosing, and scrying
• The language of flowers and scents
• The rhythms of nature, the seasons’ cycles, and rituals of sacred days

Embrace your wild witch and rediscover the natural magic in your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781633411609

Marian Green

Marian Green is the author of many books including ‘A Witch Alone and ‘The Gentle Art of Aquarian Magic’. She is a leading authority on Wicca and magic and teaches and runs workshops on Ceremonial and Natural Magic throughout the world.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

This is a brief explanation about my theory of magic instruction. I have sometimes been asked why I don't write books on more advanced magic for those who have enjoyed the earlier works. After all, they say, I have been involved in magic work for decades. I must know some advanced techniques and rituals. True enough; yet I also know full well that there are three extremely good reasons for keeping such knowledge out of the books which untrained but enthusiastic students might read. These are my reasons:

1 All magical teachers are responsible for those they teach. Anyone who has spent many years studying and practising magic is fully aware of the dangers which entering magic work can involve. To teach the basic skills is fine, for when a student has mastered those he will be able to go on to tackle more advanced things. Within a school, each student is taught, under careful supervision, the level of magic he is capable of handling so that he cannot get out of his depth. With books, there is no guarantee that the unprepared and unwary novice will not attempt, and succeed at, exercises over which he will have no control. I would not put an intelligent and keen child in charge of a fast car on a motorway. Although I might know that he could drive it safely around his garden, he would not have the strength, the awareness or the control to be safe anywhere else. I do teach magic at a higher level – but only face to face with students whose abilities and desires I know.

2 If you study the books on basic magical training and perform the exercises thoroughly – mastering the techniques and mental concentration required – the meditations which lead to that altered state of consciousness in which magic becomes a reality will put you directly in touch with your own interior tutor. The Holy Guardian Angel or Higher Self will teach you all the magical work you can wish for, in a way that you can comprehend, and at a speed and level which is ideally suited to you. Merely copying someone else's ‘Advanced Rite’ or ‘Grade Three Initiation’ before you are ready will do you no good at all, and could genuinely harm you.

There are real dragons which you can encounter before you are adequately prepared to deal with them. When you can do all the basic things well – that is after at least two years' work – then you can ask your own contacts to teach you the higher levels of magic, or put you in touch with a school that will lead you onward. Each student can go as far as he wishes, either alone or under the direct instruction of a school, lodge, coven or other kind of group. If alone, he will first need to make a personal link with his Higher Self by hard, regular and effective practice.

3 Magical work is largely experiential. It is like swimming, riding a bike or playing a musical instrument: the more you do these things, the better you become at them, expanding your experience by actual practice. You cannot learn them just by reading the relevant books. Each person's experiences are different. As an example, take the simple act of entering the meditational state. The body is still and relaxed – fine – but then some feel light-headed and floating; others feel heavy; some feel hot; others feel buzzy and vibrational; some may clearly perceive pictures and hear words spoken to them inside their heads; others may see only vague shapes, or perhaps nothing at all, but they just ‘imagine’ things.

The varieties of experience at this level are endless. To describe all the possible experiences that a student at a higher level of working might encounter multiplies that complexity even more. It would mean either leaving a student in the dark by saying, ‘enter state X using key H’, which wouldn't mean very much, or writing pages of descriptive text, covering as many aspects of any state or symbol as have previously been encountered. Such books would be very boring. A teacher, looking at a small group of students, can see what they are experiencing and how far they are ready to go. She can see if any of them are getting into difficulties, are frightened or seem to be lost. By using her trained inner perception, the tutor will be able to detect these reactions immediately and help the students into calmer waters.

4 You can learn magical arts by being thrown in at the deep end; but this is neither ethical, nor in the end practical, for the nervous student will back away from the magic, accusing it of being ‘evil’ or ‘mind-bending’, simply because he has plunged in out of his depth, albeit often of his own choice. Although it may be over-cautious on my part, I prefer not to put those keys into the hands of unprepared novices, but to lead them along known roads until they encounter that aspect of their own inner being which can guide them safely to the stars.

Marian Green

INTRODUCTION

One of the things said about modern life is that it has ‘lost its magic’. We mostly live in warm and comfortable homes, have a wide selection of things to do, plenty of different foods to eat, instant worldwide communications and technologies which would have been beyond imagination even fifty years agao, yet the sense of wonder is often missing. It is for this reason that many thinking people – from all walks of life and from many lands across the world – are looking for ‘something else’. One of the aspects of their quest, which in many cases is not merely on the material plane, is a new spiritual dimension, a reaching outwards for something that is hard to define, intangible and ethereal, yet fascinating for all that. In part, this feeling is caused by a longing for some kind of ‘golden age’ which seems to have passed, even though history tells us that life in previous ages was hard, uncomfortable and not half as glorious as we would like to imagine. Yet, the past holds a real clue to that which is being sought.

Other people, in this search for a new direction, have turned their attention to what they suppose is the simple life of the country; only to find the long hours of manual work in inclement weather are not as much fun as they seemed on the television! Village life can be lonely, the working of the land hard, its harvests fickle, the natives unfriendly and the production of all those succulent, organically grown vegetables tedious and heavy. Again, part of the answer does lie in the soil and its varied produce, but not in quite the same way that the seekers of self-sufficiency imagine.

The underlying theme, which may provide a fulfilment of the quest and an end to the search, concerns Nature. To those who have opted for a pagan answer she is Mother Nature, the Earth Goddess, Gaia or any of her other myriad names. Others have found their contentment by attuning themselves to the long-forgotten tides of Moon and season, Sun and sea, of land and circling stars. Both of these connections with the wheels of Creation have their roots in antiquity and within our own oldest inheritance. It is by rediscovering our magical links with the Wild World that we will be able to recover our kinship with the powers of Creation and re-creation.

The magic that seemed to be there for many people in childhood has not vanished, it is just that our adult eyes perceive things on a different wavelength to when we were children, and so the hidden paths of fairyland seem to have vanished for ever. If we are willing to re-open those clear-seeing eyes of childhood, consciously and carefully, we will all be able to re-awaken the vision which allowed magical things to happen. Each of us has retained the key to our past abilities, but we may well have forgotten where the lock is that it will open. Through the application of arts, skills and techniques we can restore our inherent powers to heal, to see into the future, to change our own lives and to make green again those wastelands, be they in the world around us or in our starved and lonely souls within.

The words ‘Wild Witchcraft’ and ‘Wild Witch’ might appear to be a contradiction in terms, but witchcraft is wild and Nature is magical. Magic is a power for change and has laws which can be used if particular rules are followed. In the past, in preliterate ages, magic was a normal part of many people's lives. Now we have the wonders of modern technologies, the real magic has been put to one side and forgotten. The only thing that stops most people from recognizing the power of magic in their lives, and making use of its transforming energies, is a lack of experience. I say ‘experience’ – not belief – because you will not necessarily need to believe anything: you will come to know the reality of magic by experience if you are willing to make a few experiments, sincerely, carefully, and win an open mind.

There are always forces at work in our lives, our relationships, and in those ever-developing inner skills which we all take for granted. Magic is the art of learning to recognize these elements of change: the natural patterns of flow and ebb, the times of progress, of standing still and of retreating. Once these clearly determined currents are felt and appreciated, then their vast powers can be brought into our own use. Magic teaches us to determine which way the tides of Nature are flowing, to see on which level they run and what they can offer each of us at this moment.

By accepting that each of us is just as real a part of Nature as any tree, animal, ocean, plant or invisible life force, and being willing to rediscover skills that we had forgotten all about, anyone with a pinch of common sense, a fair share of determination and a sense of humour, can discover unexpected talents within themselves, once they are willing to acknowledge that they are there to be awakened. It is simply by re-establishing an understanding of Nature around us and by realigning our lives with those forces of change, that each of us may discover inner peace and tranquillity, new magical arts, ways of healing and self-awareness. We each need to recognize essentially who we are, where we are going and where we wish to go. By perceiving the tides of Nature and working with rather than against them, we will all gain in confidence, health and satisfaction with life. By restoring some of the sense of wonder we had as children, and permitting ourselves to relearn our inherent magical skills, we may find shortly that our whole world has been changed for the better.

In each section of this book there are exercises, meditations and ancient arts described in ways that are acceptable to most modern people. You will not be required to leave your home and dwell in a hut in the woods in order to encounter Nature, nor will you need to pay vast sums of money for outlandish costumes and arcane equipment. You will need to dedicate a little time – each day if you are serious about your interest in Wild Witchcraft – to some kind of mental, spiritual or physical work, just as you would need to practise if you were learning to play the piano or taking up ski-racing.

Magic takes time to master because its various skills and crafts exercise mental faculties and parts of your inner being that modern life scarcely touches. The early exercises may cause strange things to happen in your life, but that is simply the power of magic getting into gear and coming under your control. No one can guarantee that you will enjoy the first experiences, but the thrill of brining more of life under your direct control will be worth any ‘scary’ moments at the beginning.

The hardest task is to persist, even if nothing is happening as far as you can tell, because at first you will literally be working with unseen forces within you. It does take a while before they work to your bidding. Keep at each and every art, craft and spiritual exercise for at least a month of regular practice and you will be amazed at what you have achieved by the end of that time. Try each thing only a few times, without dedication or application of will, and the results may be undetectable or totally unpleasant, upsetting your psychic or dream life and causing events to appear to be out of control. Keep at it, with patience and a sense of playfulness, and soon you will really experience the power of magic within your own nature, and life in general.

CHAPTER ONE

Working with Nature

Probably the hardest thing we modern, technological people have to face is the reality of magic: that it is an invisible force which, like any other energy source, obeys certain laws and can be produced and controlled by those who know how to use it. Anyone, by personal dedication, study and practice, can learn its mastery. It is often an unperceived facet of our everyday lives, for the most obvious aspect of magic is that of change or transformation.

CHANGE AND TRANSFORMATION

It is in the service of change that all works of magic manifest themselves. Some of those changes occur to the ‘magic-maker’ or witch, some happen outside him or her to the physical world. All other changes take place on different levels of reality or in what might appear to us as other dimensions of time or space.

Our first step towards understanding what magic can do is to acknowledge change as a part of the world in which we all live. No one can deny that they have changed since they were children; not only in physical shape, but also in mental attitudes, ideas and basic understanding. We may have changed our job, our partner or our home many times. Some of those changes will have come about because we made a decision to alter something and then went through the right stages in order to achieve it. Sometimes, other factors may cause changes which we have not set in motion ourselves, for example, the loss of a job through redundancy, the loss of a member of the family through death or a change of home due to road improvements. You will be able to think of many examples in your own life.

The third sort of changes may not be so common. These are the transformations that you wish to take place, but appear to have no lever by which you can bring them about. That is where magic might well come into play. But magic is