Join us in this episode as we hear from witches who described their first spells, from one half of The Hearth and Hedge Podcast, and from Rachel, founder of the wonderful wellness retreat Anahata's Purpose.
Snack Size 4.
Cliffhanger! Fire! Non-event?
Hi, welcome back to another snack-sized episode of Your Average Witch. In this episode we hear from witches trying their hands at spellwork for the first time. As I'm sure we've all experienced, they don't turn out as expected, but they are really funny to hear about. One accidentally sends someone on an extra exciting bike ride, one has an exciting time with some herbs, and one takes her first steps towards finding out who she really is. There are a couple previous guests, including half of the Hearth & Hedge podcast, and you get a sneak preview of upcoming guest Darcy, who you'll meet next week on the new moon of the 27th. First up we hear kind of a cliffhanger story from a newer witch.
Guest: Hi Kim, thank you for having me on the show. My first spell, I'm a fairly new witch, and I think my first spell was around four years ago when you helped me out and sent me., I think it was a banishing spell in a jar, and I went outside under a full moon, had to add water to it. It was so awesome, such a great experience. But I recently had my first accidental curse. I was trying to do another banishing spell myself. Not on myself, for myself, against someone, and it was a jar spell. I just had to tell this because it was hilarious because I didn't mean for it to be a curse. It was supposed to be a banishing spell, and the person who I did the spell for, fell off a cliff. I'm not joking. Like, was riding a bike one day, and they fell off a cliff. I just meant for them to stop talking to me, but that's how that happened.
Do I think being a witch is a choice? Yes and no. I feel like, especially for my personal experience, it was kind of like a calling where I posted on the internet all these experiences I was having with dreams and stuff like that, and I was hearing voices and spirit, and I was just telling my story, and then I got all of these emails from everyone saying, oh, maybe you might be a witch. And I feel like that was totally not my choice. That wasn't even in my thought or idea process, but... sometimes it is just called to you, and it's up to you on what you want to do with, if you want to participate in witchcraft. So it kind of is your choice, but it kind of is a calling as well.
Would I ever stop practicing witchcraft? I would feel such an emptiness. I feel like there's little things in life we grow up with that we don't realize is witchy. Like half of my family is Buddhist, and there's some similar ties with witchcraft and altars with that. So I just feel so empty if I don't go to my altar every day. So I could never see myself stop practicing witchcraft. Thank you for having me on the show.
Kim: Now this is a friend of mine, and while I had heard the story before, I forgot the part about them falling over the cliff. Don't worry though, the fall was cushioned by a cactus patch. That person is okay now, if you don't count the occasional recurring cactus spine. Next we hear from Jayne.
Jayne: Hi, my name is Jayne, and my story of my first spell actually happened a little over a year ago. I am still pretty new to the craft, and we had just moved in to our new house that we purchased, and my best friend and my sister had come over, and we had just really started discovering that all three of us were interested in learning about the craft. And I had some herbs because I also very much like to cook, and so I was leaning pretty heavy into kitchen witchery at the time, at least what I thought kitchen witchery was. And I had gotten an abalone shell because they're beautiful, and we for some reason decided that we were going to burn some herbs. I don't know what our intention was, I don't know that we had one, we had no idea what we were doing, but I didn't want my kids coming in and bothering us, or honestly I didn't want them to see what we were doing, and make fun of us.
So we had my bedroom door shut, and we were all laying on the floor, and we put the herbs in, and for some reason we each put a piece of our hair in, and I don't know what that was about, but we put it all in the abalone shell, and took a lighter, and lit the herbs on fire. What we did not do was make sure we had something to put the fire out with, if there was a problem. Nor did we open a window, or any kind of fire safety precautions. So here we have burning herbs, and we're laying directly under the smoke detector. And the smoke detector starts going off, and I freak out, and the girls freak out, my, my sister and my best friend freak out. And I pick up the abalone shell, and I don't know what to do with it, because the herbs are still on fire, and the smoke detector is still going off, and the room is filling up with smoke, and I drop my abalone shell, because I just, I don't know, I got clumsy, and I dropped it. And luckily we hadn't done a lot of herbs, so by the time it hit my carpet, it went out, but I almost burned a hole in my brand new carpet that we hadn't even been in for a week, with abalone shell and burning hair. And that is my first spell story that wasn't a spell. It was just a mess.
Kim: I'm actually pretty close to Jayne, since she's one of my patrons, but I had not heard this story before. I will admit that I laughed pretty hard at the idea of her jumping up with the abalone shell on fire. Don't judge me too much for laughing, though, because something similar happened to me in the past two years, because I forgot that paper towels are flammable. It happens to us all. But hey, I do it so you can learn not to. Now we'll hear from Ashley, the FarmwifeWitch.
Ashley: Hey everybody, it's Ashley, the FarmwifeWitch. Oh, thank you back to my first spell. It feels like forever ago. And being a new witch, you always think you gotta do a jar spell. I don't know if that's just me, but everybody does a jar spell. You do a jar spell for everything, right? So I went to Amazon and I got those cute jars and I'm like, cool, this is going to be amazing. And I'm like, what am I going to do?
And I'm like, "You know what? I really need to start loving myself. So I'm going to do a self love spell." Let's just say that's like everything I don't do now. So I went to the local metaphysical store and I got all these ingredients, all the ingredients I thought you needed. And I then did everything by the book, and had to do everything just right, and makes me want to gag now. You know, I don't know what was going through my head when I was making this. And I go through everything, I go through every single step and make up this beautiful jar.
And it is beautiful. I still have it. It sits on my altar. And I did everything. And I get done and I'm so excited. And I'm like, "I'm a witch." It's so funny. I can't stop loving about it now because it took me, just thinking back versus what I do now and all the candle magic I do and how I do everything. And I do not follow a book. Like I do it my way, which is the way to do it. And I'm just, it's funny now. And days would pass. And it's like, "I don't think this thing is working," and I'd shake it every day. It did not go right. I know I didn't do it right. I know I know something wasn't right. Looking back, well, I'm a fire witch. Of course this jar is supposed to work for me. But it does remind me. I keep it so it reminds me that not all spells are going to go right. Something is always going to go wrong.
And that's all right. It's perfectly all right. And I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I did something that didn't work, because it kept me trying to do something else. You know, to find what I was good at. And here I am now in my box. And now I try to push myself out of my box because all I do is, you know, candle spells. But it's funny looking back and remembering that first spell and going, "Wow." All I kept thinking was, "I'm witch now. I'm a real witch now." Definitely makes me laugh.
Kim: I think Ashley's story is a good example of learning self-awareness. Maybe it did kind of work in a way, because now she knows who she is. And that jar spells are definitely not her thing. And now here's Margo, co-host of the Hearth & Hedge podcast, telling us the story of her first spell and answering the questions Is being a witch a choice, and could you stop practicing witchcraft?
Margo: Hi, my name is Margo. You might know me as the co-host of the Hearth & Hedge. If not, then hi, my name is Margo. Kim asked me to answer a couple questions on here. So here goes. What was your first spell, where were you in life, and what were the results? So my first spell that I can remember was back when I was about 16 years old. I had purchased a bunch of, you know, witchy supplies and tools. And I was all excited to get started on my journey. But I was afraid of having my parents come into my room and discover what I was doing and lose their minds, especially my mom, who actually is a witch, but at the time, she was not about that life when she was with my stepdad.
So in order to conceal my activities and my new goodies that I had just purchased, I decided to do a spell to create like a boundary around my bedroom that couldn't be penetrated. So I remember I used a sidewalk chalk and I drew a line across my doorway to my bedroom. And I must have chanted something that sounded really cool and rhymed because that was the thing to do. And I don't know. Honestly, whether it was successful or not is up to debate, because my mom did end up coming into my room and she immediately saw the chalk line. And of course, I got in trouble for drawing on the hardwood floors with chalk. But because she was so distracted by the chalk, she didn't bother to take a look around and see anything else that was going on in the room and bring that up. So it kind of worked. Either that or she was just done with that much weirdness with me for the day. So... you decide if it worked.
Second question is, do you feel like being a witch is a choice? Ultimately, yes, I do. Think it is a choice. Absolutely people can come from a line of, or generations of, witches and be raised into it. You can also be born with some innate abilities that really point in the direction of possibly witchcraft. But ultimately, it has to be your decision. I actually know a couple people with abilities that are pretty impressive who do not practice witchcraft and do not consider themselves witches. And I've also heard of people who were born in witchy families and did not pursue that once they were out on their own. I myself was raised in a Catholic household and despite the fact that I do have witches in my family, I was not exposed to any of that growing up. So ultimately, it was my choice to go and strike out on my own path and discover all these things on my own. And I think that's the same for everyone no matter where they come from. It is ultimately a choice. You can choose to explore it. If you're called to it, you can choose to ignore it and run away from it. And not that I'm recommending that, obviously, but it is a choice in my opinion.
Number three, could you stop practicing witchcraft? I personally could not. No, it is far too much a part of who I am in my life and my lifestyle. I couldn't stop doing it. Even when I am seemingly standing there in silence doing nothing, there could be something going on in my mind that is basically witchcraft. So the answer to that is no. I couldn't. I wouldn't. I don't want to. Don't make me. You can't make me. I guess that's it. I hope that this was helpful, useful, enlightening, inspiring, entertaining... something. Okay. Thank you very much. Bye.
Kim: I personally always find what Margo says to be helpful, useful, enlightening, inspiring, entertaining, and all kinds of something. Finally, here's Darcy telling us the story of her first spell and how long it lasted.
Kim: Could you please share your first spell?
Darcy: Oh.
Kim: That you ever did. And if it was, just how it went, who you were at the time, what you were doing it for, and how it went.
Darcy: All right. So let me introduce you to baby witch Darcy. She is 13 years old. She read about Wicca in Seventeen Magazine and thought it was pretty neat.
Kim: Oh.
Darcy: Yeah. I think The Craft had just come out and you know, it was a blurb. It was a very small snippet. But they explained it as a nature based religion. And I thought "that sounds pretty neat. I've always felt you know, closer to spirit when I'm outside than I have in a church. Maybe that's for me!" And I did a little bit of reading on it, you know, before we had Wikipedia. This was what? 98, 97, 98. And I found out all that I could and I thought, "Okay, okay, this is probably something that I could do." I had an altar by this point. I had a Barbie A-frame cabin dollhouse that had ceased to be used for Barbie play and was used to hold all of my little trinkets. My rocks, my feathers, incense burners, like pill boxes that relatives would give to me. But like any little thing that brought me joy, I would start collecting in this triangular shaped dollhouse.
Kim: Was it pink?
Darcy: So it was, the plastic framing was pink, and like the cardboard walls were teal.
Kim: Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing.
Darcy: Oh, I loved this thing so much. I was so sad when I had to get rid of it. So yeah, I was practicing magic really without knowing what I was doing. And there was a boy.
And I really liked this boy.
Kim: Isn't there always?
Darcy: And we started "dating," quote unquote. And by that I mean we held hands at lunchtime. And that was it. And then he broke up with me and I was so sad. I was so sad. I was devastated, heartbroken. So I sat myself at my little Barbie altar and I cast what I thought to be a love spell. I wanted him to be just in love with me. I wanted him to come back to me. I wanted us to be the hot couple in eighth grade. That did not happen. And then I thought, well, am I ever going to find love?
And then crash and burn. Relationship crash and burn after crash and burn after crash and burn. All of them went horribly wrong. And when I say horribly wrong, I mean like... there was one, like my parents had to force us to stop seeing each other. And I was about 15. It was traumatic. Like, they' got bad. They were bad. Years later, same boy walks into a venue where I am performing. I was doing burlesque by this point. So I am being paid in drink tickets, but being paid nonetheless, to appear partially naked in front of an audience. And he walked in. He saw me. We saw each other. And it was like, "Oh my God, are you..." "Are you?" "Oh my- it is you. What?"
He would not leave me alone after that. He was in my DMs all every day. Like, "Hey, do you ever think about what could happen if we got..." I'm like, "I'm in a committed relationship. So no, but it's nice to know that I haven't left your brain." So it kind of worked. It felt like maybe kind of worked, but not in the way I expected it to. He and I don't talk now. Like he's, we're not Facebook friends at all. I think he's married probably, with kids, and we are not in each other's lives, but it was just really funny to be the object of his obsession for a second. Once we were adults, oh, it was so funny. So that was my first spell. I do not condone anyone trying to cast a love spell without knowing exactly what you're doing. If you do it at all... Maybe just don't do it at all.
Kim: Be sure to listen to Darcy's full interview next weekend on the new moon of Saturday the 27th. Also if you haven't bought your ticket to Anahata's Purpose yet, you need to act fast. As of Friday afternoon, there are only 50 tickets left, and this is not the year you want to miss it. There are two live podcasts being recorded. One is Two Geminis and a Leo, and the other one is the Witch Bitch Amateur Hour. There's a full moon ritual, a bonfire, tons of classes, live music every night. There will even be a cereal bar. And yes, I'll be there interviewing people from my own show as well... when I'm not eating snacks and crying in the river. And in fact, here is Rachel to tell you a little bit about it herself. By the way, you can get tickets at anahataspurpose.com.
Rachel: Hello. Hi, everyone. This is Rachel from Anahata's Purpose. You've probably heard about this thing going down in a few weeks in Pennsylvania. It's pretty cool. It's a huge witchy retreat. If you haven't heard about this, I don't know how you're listening to this now, because that's just weird. It would be really weird if you just randomly ended up on this episode of Kim's podcast and just happened to fast forward to this portion in the episode where I'm sitting here talking about a retreat. But if that's happening to you right now, it's probably a sign that you should come. Just saying.
We're going to do some crying down by the river. A lot of people laughed at me when I said that a few years ago. I'm like, who does this bitch think she is? Tell people to come cry by a river. I just want to let you know that I'm that bitch. I'm that bitch that wants you to come and cry by a river. Preferably with pita and hummus, with Kim and I. Tears by the river. Gonna keep the river flowing. With our beautiful, beautiful tears made of fantastic pita and hummus. I've got some dope things happening. I hope you will be down to join us. Kim doesn't want to talk about this, but I will. She made some dope ass key chains, Anahata's Purpose keychains. Hand made them. A whole fuck ton. Not really.
There's like a hundred. And they're going to be for sale. She hand made each of them. She poured her blood, sweat and her river tears into these key chains. I'm excited about it. You're going to be excited about it too. You're going to want one. You're going to want one. You're going to see it, and you're going to be "Yup.". I'm happy about it. I'm happy about it. I hope you come. I hope you're able to come to the Purpose in September. And I hope that you say hi. Come say hi to me and you tell me that I'm a fucking weirdo. All right. That's all. So sorry about my dogs making sounds in the background. I can't help that. I got a couple of them. All right. I love you, and I will see you all in a few weeks.
Kim: Again, you can get those freaking awesome key chains and come cry by the river by buying tickets at anahataspurpose.com. Thank you so much, Rachel. I love you. You're my favorite. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to this week's snack size. If you want to contribute your own story, record it on your phone and email the file to youraveragewitchpodcast at gmail.com or call and leave it as a voicemail at 520-230-3896. Thanks for listening and I'll see you when the moon changes.