This post was inspired by Question #36 from this list.

I tend to prefer keeping my magic simple. I’m not the kind of person who comes up with complex rituals with lots of wordy chants, spell components, and complex instructions. Most often, I prefer to just visualize my objective and send that out into into the universe with a few words. Or I might light a candle or two if I feel the need to have something more concrete to focus on or do.

Surprisingly, this is not a rant about how certain religious groups cough cough try to make a distinction between their actions and rites and “witchcraft.” I mean, I could write a blog post or twelve about that, but this is not that post.

Instead, I want to write about people who do something that’s quite magical, but don’t give themselves credit for being so amazingly magical.

Let me give an example from over ten years ago. It was back during the time I was spending a lot of time on Witchy, Wiccan, and Pagan web forums. We got into a discussion that delved into magic to help children. I forget the exact details or parameters of the discussion. I just remember one particular person’s contribution. She was a relatively new witch — I think she’s only been practicing for a few months and she described something that — according to her own words — “wasn’t exactly witchy or magical, but helped her small child when they were having bad dreams.” She then proceeded to describe how she painted this absolutely beautiful dragon on the awall at the head of her child’s bed and told the child that it would protect them. Amd that took care of the nightmares.

Reading her post, I just about lost my shit and quickly shot off a post expressing that I found this a beautiful and creative solution and that it was abso-fucking-lutely magical at its heart and she needed to give herself more credit to it. I reminded her that what she did is sympathetic magic at its heart and that I personally suspected that the dragon she painted became very real on a level that was importat to her child. That’s all magic. And that is a hill I was and am still willing to die on.

I’ve found that a lot of people often don’t give themselves credit to just how magical and creative they are. They come up with ideas like painting a dragon in their child’s room to help them overcome nightmares and don’t really stop to think about how spectacular that is. Granted, I get it. They’re just happy their child isn’t having nightmares anymore. I don’t blame them for that. But I feel like they also need to take just a moment to pat themselves on the back. Because this witch is more than ready to tip my pointy hat to their amazing creativity when it comes to magical solutions that they don’t even realize are magical.

This post was inspired by Question #17 from this list.

Back in April, I wrote a post about my issues with finding spells on the Internet. I half feel like cut and pasting that post into this one, as it basically brings out one of the reasons I think writing our own spells (or constructing our own magical workings, to use my preferred language) is practically essential. Figuring out how to go about doing a given magical working myself makes it more meaningful to me. It resonates with my own energies more than following someone else’s instructions. And it puts more of my own effort and energies into the working. After all, always remember that magic begins building when you decide what you want to accomplish, not when you start lighting candles, chanting, or whatever other ritual actions you perform as part of the working.