I've loved being a practicing witch over the past two years and thus I figured it's about time I started a blog series on it!! I'll try to cover advice, personal anecdotes/my journey with it, spell recipes and step by steps, and hopefully help educate people on the history of witchcraft as well as dispel some of the common myths & lies about the practice to help shed light on how demonisation has affected public perception of witchcraft as a whole. 

But to start, a personal anecdote of the first witchy experience to actually freak me out a little lmao

This story comes from Sunday the 21st of July...

My brush with Hecate (...i think)

A week and a half before this particular Sunday I had decided I wanted to start working with a deity in my practice. I had dabbled with deity work a bit before, however it was passively, by decorating my room with odes to Persephone; roses, shells, pearls, pink & red, perfumes. But I wanted to do more active deity work and so I began researching who I should start with. 

The deity that stood out to me while researching was Hecate as she is the Goddess of sorcery, ghosts, and the crossroads.

When working with deity's you can't just start asking them for stuff or expecting them to give you want you want right away, you need to start slow.

My way of doing that was to stand at a crossroad (the best way to contact Hecate, you can use any crossroad or threshold, even a doorway) and think and/or say "hello" and that I was interested in becoming involved with her and incorporating her into my practice.

I did this for a few nights until it came to the titular 21st of July, which is where I got my reply.

I remember it all so vividly. I was standing in my front doorway waiting for my dog to go to the bathroom outside, it was about 11:30ish and really cold so I was feeling a little impatient, that was  until suddenly an owl flew right past my face and landed on the back of my dad's bike, like maybe a meter away from me. 

Naturally I was really hyped cause omg I'd heard owl calls from my garden before but I rarely ever saw them, especially not this close. I was kinda just trying my best to not get too excited and startle it lol.

(I'm pretty sure the owl was either a "tawny frogmouth" or a "boobook" if you're curious)

(you can check out the owl here)

Anyways, it was just sitting there relaxed, staring at me. I felt kind of awkward just standing there staring at it so I tried talking to it a little. Just silly things like "Hiii", "Aww you're so pretty" "Hello theree :D". It's pupils kept dilatating at me when I talked to it, which I've heard could be a sign of aggression or nervousness if it's exhibiting additional behaviours like tail fanning, but this owl wasn't exhibiting any of those other behaviours and so that usually means it's excited.

We stayed there staring at each other for minute after minute until my dog returned and spooked it a little. Luckily it didn't immediately leave though, instead it flew up onto a cable, still close to where I was, and sat there staring at me for a little while longer.

This was the moment where I got ~the vibe~. There's no way to really explain what that means but it was just an intense feeling of "ohhhh, this isn't a normal owl" that I couldn't shake, it was like a pit in my stomach. Idk that probably sounds rlly weird but I guess iykyk.

Because of this feeling I remembered that I had been reaching out to Hecate that past week and in a moment of pure gut feeling I said to the owl "...Hecate..?", to which it dilated it's eyes for the last time and flew away.

So of course I immediately started excitedly spamming my closest (and only witchy) friend about it freaking out. We started googling about Hecate and owls, seeing if there was any association and this is what we found:

"In Greek mythology, Hecate is often depicted with an owl, which represents her connection to the underworld and her ability to see through darkness. The owl is also a symbol of wisdom and knowledge, which reflects Hecate's role as a goddess of magic, witchcraft, and the moon."

(this is where this excerpt is from)

You'll notice I highlighted the bit about the moon as well as the bit about the owl. That's because after reading this I looked outside and it turned out to be a full moon!! And not just any full moon, a full moon in my sign Capricorn!!! ajfhe;asjkghjlrdbfgajgr

Here's a screenshot of my moon calendar from that night + me and my bestie freaking out together on the night lmao

I have genuinely never had such a clear sign in witchcraft before and I still think about that moment as so cool even if the owl was just a normal owl with zero intentions.

To me it felt like a pretty clear sign that Hecate was saying "yeah you're chill" so I made sure to leave an offering to her to say thanks.

My offering was comprised of:

• Dried lavender
• Dried rose petals
• A coin
• A key
• Garlic cloves
• Garlic skins
• Two chicken bones
• An orange coloured and scented candle
• An obsidian stone necklace that I was asking her to imbue with protection

Here's what the offering looked like if you're interested <3

Sadly I haven't worked much with Hecate since then as my school life has been very busy due to TAFE but as soon as I have the time I will 100% be getting back on it!!

--

Anyways, the whole experience then ended up having an even more wholesome twist. I told my mum about it as she used to be into witchcraft when she was my age too and she ended up telling me about how her mother used to love owls and her birthstone was the moonstone.

She explained that whenever she's an owl she likes to think its her mother coming to see her since she passed away when I was in primary school. It's a really sweet thought to think that maybe it was her saying hi to me, but I suppose we'll never really know. :')

I ended up talking to my friend about it too since it was too cute not to.

(you can kinda see how far up I had to scroll to find these messages since they were from like 2 months ago lol)

I was planning for this entry to be longer but it's gotten quite late so I think it'd be best for me to get some beauty sleep now instead.

Will make sure to add more entries to this blog soon, the next one being less about my own experience and more about the history of witchcraft and how it came to be so demonised instead of being considered a spiritual practice like any other religion (spoiler: it has a lot to do with the crusades)

Hope you enjoyed reading, and wherever you are in the world I  also hope you have a wonderful day or night.

Until next time.

- O.Lovelle <3