The Witching Year: A Memoir of Earnest Fumbling Through Modern Witchcraft

By Diana Helmuth

A skeptic spends a year trying to find spiritual fulfillment by practicing modern Witchcraft in this fascinating memoir that’s perfect for fans of A.J. Jacobs and Mary Roach.

Diana Helmuth, thirty-three, is skeptical of organized religion. She is also skeptical of disorganized religion. But, more than anything, she is tired of God being dead. So, she decides to try on the fastest-growing, self-directed faith in America: Witchcraft.

The result is 366 days of observation, trial, error, wit, and back spasms. Witches today are often presented as confident and finished, proud and powerful. Diana is eager to join them. She wants to follow all the rules, memorize all the incantations, and read all the liturgy. But there’s one glaring problem: no Witch can agree on what the right rules, liturgy, and incantations are.

As with life, Diana must define the craft for herself, looking past the fashionable and figuring out how to define the real. Along the way, she travels to Salem and Edinburgh (two very Crafty hubs) and attends a week-long (clothing optional) Witch camp in Northern California. Whether she’s trying to perform a full moon ritual on a cardboard box, summon an ancient demon with scotch tape and a kitchen trivet, or just trying to become a calmer, happier person, her biggest question remains: Will any of this really work?

The Witching Year is a “compelling memoir” (Frances Denny, author of Major Arcana) that follows in the footsteps of celebrated memoirs by journalists like A.J. Jacobs, Mary Roach, and Caitlin Doughty, who knit humor and reportage together in search of something worth believing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Oct 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781668003015

Diana Helmuth

Diana Helmuth writes about urges: to travel, to be in nature, and to feel understood. Her first book, How to Suffer Outside, was a National Outdoor Book Award winner, and her freelance work can be found in various anthologies, travel guides, and humor magazines. She studied anthropology and Arabic at UC Berkeley, and can often be caught moonlighting in Silicon Valley’s start-up land, or producing the occasional podcast. She was born and raised in Northern California.

Book preview

JULY and AUGUST

DAY 1

Many novice witches discover they face challenges in developing an individual and intuitive Wheel of the Year practice.

—TEMPERANCE ALDEN

For no reason at all, I decided to begin my journey on July 31. It’s a day I had free to write, to take staged pictures of witchy books strewn across my office floor with captions like New Project, What Could Go Wrong? According to some, the best time to begin the traditional year and a day of Wiccan training is around October 31—aka Witch’s New Year—because the earth is hibernating. Other traditions believe this is the worst time to begin because the earth is hibernating. Like most everything else in this religion, it’s up to me to decide whose advice I want to take. I decide to stick to the day I had the courage to announce what I was doing on Instagram.

There is one problem with my choice, however, which I didn’t realize until just a few minutes ago. Tomorrow is Lughnasadh.

I discover this while flipping through the sabbat calendar in Cassandra Eason’s A Little Bit of Wicca. The book is about as thin as an electric bill—clearly meant to be a primer on the Craft rather than an exhaustive authority. But it was one of the best sellers, and I’m trying to give them all equal time.

I learn that there are two types of holidays in Wiccan-style Witchcraft. The first are esbats. These are full moon gatherings where covens engage in ritual spellwork, reflection, and, I assume, lighthearted gossip and sampling of premium Trader Joe’s snacks. The other type of Wiccan holidays are sabbats, the high holidays of the Wheel of the Year. Because of Wicca’s focus on the cycles of the natural world, the seasons, the waning and waxing of daylight hours, I assumed all the sabbats fell on astronomical solstices and equinoxes. That’s only half true. The so-called lesser sabbats are Ostara (vernal equinox), Litha (summer solstice), Mabon (fall equinox), and Yule (winter solstice). The four greater sabbats were pulled from Ireland’s pre-Christian cross-quarter holidays, and to my novice eyes have the apparently arbitrary dates of Samhain (October 31), Imbolc (February 1), Beltane (May 1), and Lughnasadh (fucking tomorrow).I

I don’t have anything ready. I’m barely even a Witch. I haven’t cast one spell, I haven’t read a single tarot spread, or communed with one pre-Christian deity. And one of the high holidays is tomorrow? I don’t even know how to pronounce Lughnasadh. It looks like if mashed potatoes were a word. I have to work quickly.

I snatch every Witchcraft book off the shelf and start flipping through all of them with a pen, paper, and a stack of Post-it notes. There is some discrepancy about the underlying myth behind this holiday, but the most common one is that the Celtic god of light (Lugh) sacrifices himself in order to lend the rest of his light to the earth, ensuring the crops may continue to flourish throughout the remainder of summer. Some variations include: Lugh marrying the Goddess, or actually, Lugh is not about to sacrifice himself, we’re celebrating how great his mom is. But most authors seem to agree Lugh is doing something big and important for us all, and things are being harvested for the first time, and we should reflect on that.

I reflect on the fact that I have never harvested a single shaft of wheat in my entire life and wonder if I have ever even held a sickle unironically. The disconnection of my urban life with the preindustrial people who came up with these myths continues to feel more and more pronounced.

Fortunately, my Wiccan authors have thought of this.

Today, if you live in densely packed urban housing with plumbing, electricity, and a nearby grocery store that’s part of an international trade network ensuring you have year-round access to bananas, the celebration is not so much about the literal harvest. The idea of a god figure lending the last of his light to protect the remaining crops is a metaphor to encourage you to think about sacrifices in your own life: to reflect on the results of what was sown months ago, and to consider what must be done to create great things and protect them from the fact that soon (I can’t believe I get to say this) winter is coming.

I read through the rituals written by my cohort of Wiccan elders and feel like I’m having a nightmare about showing up to my SATs without studying. The scenes described are lengthy and lavish, with all the pomp and drama of an eighteenth-century oil painting. They include instructions on which way to walk around a circle, which direction to pass a chalice, who should kiss whom, and of course, songlike liturgy to recite. But I have no one to kiss. I am not a part of a coven yet. The preface of Raymond Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft (known fondly to many as The Big Blue Book) says he welcomes solitary practitioners. But all his rituals assume you have found at least four willing people to join you on a Saturday night for a romping good time donning black robes, traipsing around a pentacle, clapping your hands, and singing, Haste! Haste! No time to wait! We’re off to the sabbat so don’t be late!

For Lughnasadh, all the books seem to agree that I need a yellow candle, some wheat shafts, and a loaf of bread (or some other symbolic block of gluten). Then there are optional items such as flowers, blackberries, star cookies, and dolls made of corn. That’s just a trip to the grocery store. I can handle that.

The trouble is that I don’t have the main altar tools. They include a cauldron, a pentacle, a chalice, a bell, a censer, a candle snuffer, an athame (a ceremonial dagger), a bolline (a different ceremonial dagger), and an unconscionable number of candles. This is in addition to the dolls, crystals, flowers, crowns, centerpieces, and other handmade Craft items specific to the season. I am once again reminded that Witchcraft is truly the religion of crafters. I don’t know why I’m worried about finding a coven; I could probably walk into a Michaels and shout, As I will it? and just follow whoever shouts back, So mote it be! like a game of Marco Polo.

All of my authors iterate somewhere in their books that none of these ceremonial items are required to practice magic and be a proper Witch. But then they spend most of their time explaining how they all work together and how to use them, so I feel a touch double-crossed. I want to do this as correctly as possible. I figure I need to learn the rules before I break them.

Which means I have to go shopping. Quickly.

It’s 4:30, but (and I chalk this up to the benefit of living in the liberal posthippie Goddess movement Bay Area) there are three occult shops within four miles of me, all open until 7:00 p.m. I get into the car with Justin, who has pointed out we also need a grocery run.

At Berkeley Bowl, the Bay Area’s undisputed best grocery store, I buy blackberries and corn bread mix, thinking I can use the bread for both a corn doll and the traditional bread loaf. I am not very adept at arts and crafts, and I don’t think I could make a corn doll out of an actual corn cob. Cutting a man-shaped blob out of a batch of just add water corn bread is more my speed.

I cannot find any star-shaped cookies, the store is out of flower bouquets, and the blackberry clamshell snaps open at checkout, the berries leaping all over the floor. I briefly wonder if it’s a sign. I decide I don’t have time to care. But the corn bread is safe. I can make corn bread work.

The occult shop I visit is called Ancient Ways, a humble storefront with a black sign on Oakland’s Telegraph Avenue. I step inside and the perfume of ten thousand incense cones competes for dominance in my nostrils. The shop is small and dark, but the clerk gives me a bright hello, smizing above her mask. She is chubby and tall, with perfect, mile-long blond braids draped over her shoulders. She looks like the kind of person I would probably gravitate toward at a party, so we could play fuck, marry, kill with all the characters in Lord of the Rings. I feel safe.

The shop is 80 percent bookshelves, with a floor-to-ceiling wall of jarred herbs behind the counter and bowls of crystals and gemstones sparkling inside glass cabinets. I grab a forty-cent yellow candle, a twenty-dollar cauldron (a small brass pot that fits in the palm of my hand and is emblazoned with a pentacle), and an actual pentacle from a rack of necklaces. It’s about the size of a quarter. I was hoping to find a weighty pentacle, iron and imposing, the kind of thing that could double as a trivet for a Thanksgiving turkey. Liza had one of these, and I always thought it was supremely badass. But they have none, so I settle for the necklace. I don’t have time to be picky.

My eyes dart around for the athames, and finally I see two rows of them under the glass cabinet in front of the counter.

Athames are ceremonial daggers, often used to cast a circle around a group before rituals. Technically the sacred athame is supposed to be black handled, to differentiate it from the bolline, which is white handled and used for more mundane tasks like cutting cakes, or inscribing symbols onto candles. The daggers in the case before me are all over the place. One looks like flinted horn and obsidian. Another is wooden and blunt, like a children’s pirate sword toy. I look up and see an elderly man has come behind the counter and spread his arms wide over the glass, watching me. He has wiry eyebrows and a bushy white beard poking from behind his surgical mask.

I call that one ‘my first athame,’ he chortles at the pirate sword, and pulls it out, pretending to slice his arm against the dull wooden blade. I smile in response.

This is it, I think. This is my Ollivander, and I am Harry Potter, and he is going to connect me with my wand.

What are you interested in? he asks kindly. I realize I am probably projecting all the confidence of someone buying their first dildo.

What’s up with the one that looks like it’s made of plastic? I ask, pointing to an opaque white athame that suggests a 3-D printer has gotten into the occult business.

That’s selenite, he says, passing it to me. I think it will be heavy, but it’s light as a fistful of feathers. The material is glossy and foggy at the same time, moonlight made solid. It’s only twenty dollars, and I think maybe this is the one.

I should warn you, you can’t get that wet. Selenite dissolves in water.

My eyes flick up to him, Dissolves…?

Yep, it’ll just vanish if you get so much as a drop on it. He chortles. Poof!

I realize he is making a joke and attempt to chuckle in kind.

No, but seriously, I left mine outside in the rain, and it can deeply damage the quality of the stone if you get it wet.

I hand it back. I don’t want to risk tipping over a chalice of ale and ruining my sacred blade my first night out on the job.

What about that one? I point to a modest little double-edged dagger with a wooden handle that looks like it’s been dipped in watercolors.

You know, this one was calling to me to pull out for you, actually, he says, bending over to fish it out of the case. He rises and places it in my hand. It’s small and light. It’s obviously cheap. I try not to read into the implied insult that he thought it would be perfect for me. Especially since he’d be right. I’m mentally adding up my collection of objects and already feeling nervous about swiping my credit card. I grasp the hilt of the blade. I don’t feel a breeze in my hair or a warm, tingling feeling. But I don’t get a bad feeling, either.

I turn it over and read a little label that says Made in Pakistan. I think about the hands that have touched it. I wonder about fair labor practices, and their effect on my ritual. I wonder what I was expecting: that everything in here would be made from well-fed Irish grannies and Instagram sylphs? And be affordable?

I put the athame on the counter with the rest of my items.

You look like you’re getting the whole starter kit, he remarks, eyeing the candle, the cauldron, and the pentacle I’ve collected from the rest of the shop.

Yeah, tomorrow is… um… you know, I actually don’t know how to pronounce it.

Lammas! the woman chirps brightly from the end of the counter. The two of them chuckle conspiratorially.

Lammas is the other (Catholic) name for Lughnasadh (I later read it is pronounced LOO-nah-sah), but I think many Witches prefer to say Lammas because of its forgiving lack of Celtic consonants. I appreciate that these two are giving me permission to do so, as well.

I don’t have anything ready, so I’m trying to get it all together today, I say, gesturing to my splayed starter kit on the glass counter. You don’t have any larger pentacles, do you? He shakes his head in response.

Okay. I’m sure it will be fine. I mean, I’ll be the only one there, right? I laugh.

The Goddess will be there, says the man, making eye contact with me. He is no longer smiling.

A beat of silence passes where I feel like I am supposed to say something back, but I don’t know the line.

But she’s pretty understanding, says the woman, breaking the silence.

I blink over at her, grateful. A for effort, right? I ask. She nods and smiles at me.

Ollivander rings me up for seventy-six dollars and I try not to squirm. I understand this is still cheap in the relative scheme of things, but this is a lot of money to me. And it isn’t even everything on my list. I am grateful they happened to be all out of chalices. I quietly plan to use a large, opaque black goblet embossed with chubby roses that I have at home. It’s technically one in a series sold at Central California’s famously garish midcentury hotel, the Madonna Inn. It was given to me by Liza before she moved away (or, rather, she was getting rid of it, and I asked if I could keep it). It’s currently holding sticky change and dust on my living room windowsill. Tonight I’ll wash it three times, and tomorrow I will use it to toast pre-Christian gods.

Welcome to the Craft, he says, kindly, as I make my way to the door.

Thank you, I call over my shoulder, and I mean it.

I duck back into the car. Justin had decided to wait here, despite my saying it was perfectly fine if he wanted to come inside.

You smell like a Witch, he says as the incense fumes fall off me like loose powder.

I pull out my little bag of trinkets and begin to show them off.

That’s a kirpan! he says brightly when I produce the athame.

No, it’s an athame, I say, defensive. What’s a kirpan?

A ceremonial dagger worn by Sikhs as a reminder to always be ready to fight against injustice. Justin had a nerd affair with Sikhism during his religious studies class in college, and still carries around the lore at all times.

I suddenly notice a belt clip on the back of the dagger’s sheath and remember the Made in Pakistan label.

Oh my god, I say. I put my head on the steering wheel. It is day one, and I am appropriating already. "I didn’t know what else to do! My other options were a children’s toy, a ninety-dollar goat horn, or a stone that literally dissolves in

Reviews for The Witching Year

[Candy McKinney · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Entertaining and informative. I laughed out loud so many times as the author's experience brought back memories of the early beginnings of my own journey. I loved the honesty and humor with which she recounts her story.