Practicing in Passing: Finding Time for Magick When There is None
I have a habit. I complete my work before I complete any self-care or self-growth, like connecting to my spirituality. I have to admit that’s how The Tiny Cauldron started. I had all this dormant knowledge of green witchcraft I collected over a decade, but I could never stay consistently tuned in. I wanted to though.
As college turned into graduate school, and that turned into motherhood, my self-care and time dwindled. I knew that in order to focus on myself, I had to turn my spirituality into something I was obligated to do. In essence, I found a Sarah-loophole: I knew I wouldn’t focus on it for myself, so I found a way in which I had to. And in that obligation, I knew I would grow personally. I conned myself, plain and simple.
As a result, a lot of the time I have to devote to growing as a witch is the time I actually spend tending to my daughter, orders, orders, buying supplies, editing and more orders. What gets ignored, then, is the hour of yoga I’d like to do. The anointing of candles and meditating. The reading of new books.
Making time for my own magick, then, involves having to practice it in passing sometimes. Well, a lot of the time. And if you’re like me, you’re probably doing the same. From one frazzled practitioner to another, here are a few of my tips to Practice in Passing.
Kitchen Witchery
Kitchen witchery is an easy way to incorporate magick since we all have to eat. Why not multitask? The natural way to perform Kitchen Witchery in passing is to incorporate food correspondences, but that’s not where it ends. Much of magick is intention, and intention-building requires being mindful of how you’re constructing those intentions.
In that vein, I ensure that if I am stirring, I am stirring clockwise for prosperity and growth and counter-clockwise for banishing or removal. I focus on my senses, because sense-awareness is mindfulness: What are you smelling now? Feeling now? Seeing now? This allows you to be in the moment, where you need to be, to focus on manifesting intention.
Breath-work
In my spirituality, breath-work is important, but I confess I don’t practice it enough. It’s a concept I became aware of to limit my anxiety, and I grew more familiar with it as I began my yoga experience. But breath-work allows for mindfulness as well; you’re in the moment, stilling the body and mind so that they can focus on intention-building. There are many ways to incorporate breath-work, depending on what you want you want to do (build confidence, ease anxiety, etc.)
Random Bits of Yoga
Due to coronavirus, I can’t venture into the yoga studio, and I struggle (hard) with finding time for my yoga practice in everyday life; it’s difficult for me to complete a full yoga session in my bedroom when there’s other things that need to be done. And I have my favorite poses, which tempts me to focus on those only.
So to remedy this part of myself, while I’m in the kitchen, I ooze into a Warrior III pose or Lord of the Dance while I wait for food to finish. I’ll do tree pose or downward dog when playing with my daughter.
When I started my yoga journey, I noticed that these little practices actually improved my balance during class sessions.
Sneaking Some Reading
This one is hard for me, since I have a chatty daughter who is my shadow. I also have a mind that has a terrible short-term memory and I have to go over something several times before I commit it to long-term memory. So when I read, I take notes, and when I get a few minutes, I go back through those notes. Lately, I’ve been shuffling through the 8 limbs of yoga and some (dry) historical information relating to traditional witchcraft. It’s not much, but I do find that I am able to remember it. That’s important for me because if I can remember it, I can practice it, or at least meditate on the ideas (for a couple seconds).
Practicing in Passing shouldn’t make you feel any less of a practitioner; practicing the path is sometimes like boating in a bumbling river, with so much time and energy to devote to the path that we swim in the abundance of knowledge and practice. Sometimes it’s walking through water that barely skirts the toes, and the most completed was a candle spell. Keep walking through that water by Practicing in Passing. It’ll be waist-deep soon.
