Note: this post may feel a bit like a rant in some places, and please know that actually wasn’t my intention. I wanted to paint an accurate picture of where I was coming from as someone who’s practiced for 25 years and watched the presence of the Craft change dramatically within that time. Take from it what you will.

It may be hard to imagine, especially after years of learning and work, but sometimes the most powerful healing you can do is going back to basics. Especially in a witchcraft practice.

Let me explain (with love).

Social media and short form content changed everything. Witchcraft posts we loved for the aesthetic and the vibe and the feelings they brought up in us started to disappear, replaced with “fast content”, telling us our attention spans were shorter and that this would be better. We were seeing everything, everywhere, all at once, and it really watered down any authentic witchy content that was out there. Witchcraft became trendy, and when you push an online presence you can push it as anything you like, and most of your viewers won’t have a clue if you actually practice in real life or not.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but some platforms made people think they could act like some kind of authority on all things Craft, declaring what was and what wasn’t, what worked and what didn’t, what was allowed and what was unspeakably untouchable. The words “in my opinion” and “in my personal practice” vanished. And baby witches coming onto the scene were getting a whole lot of information from a whole lot of places that didn’t always line up, and a lot of new things people pushed as “rules” that no one had heard of.

You will never catch me using the term UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis). Not because I think it’s bad, because I’m just too fucking old. You practice and believe what feels right to you. You’re eclectic. Be eclectic. Just call it eclectic.

A lot of real witches stepped back. Went underground. Chose not to participate in the social game their craft was being used to create. And who could blame them? It can get exhausting out there. Though it was a bummer to watch their content disappear with them. On the other hand, some real practitioners jumped on the “I know best” and “do you even hex?” bandwagons, shaming other witches for parts of their practice, creating even more fractures.

Once the online trend took off, retail followed. Gone were the days of finding hole-in-the-wall shops that smelled like Nag Champa and had a beaded curtain that lead to beautiful occult pieces and books. Kind, quiet shop keepers that were happy to help and answer questions, that often pointed us towards new branches in our path without even knowing it.

Loving shout-out to the lady who ran Quiet Moments in Georgetown, Ontario back in the early 2000s. You never knew the safe space you gave me.

Suddenly mainstream bookstores were flooded with tarot decks. Witchy fashion skyrocketed. Brands started carrying witchy-themed everything.

Were there benefits to this? Hell yeah there were. I loved being able to find black clothing in abundance and home decor that actually felt like home. But again, the real stuff got watered down. Lost in the chaos. Indistinguishable from what was popular. It became difficult to tell if someone was a real practitioner or doing it for the ‘Gram.

In an effort to keep up, real witchcraft spaces brought in more inventory, witchy creators started doing haul videos, it started to become about the stuff and not about the practice (don’t get me wrong, I love a good haul video when I’m in the mood for it, but when the shopping outweighs the spell work, the content shifts).

We had all these pretty things, but no fulfillment in our work. We were trying to fill a void in our craft with things when what we really needed was presence.

In short…we kinda lost our way a little bit.

Let me be clear: I am not knocking witchy shops, witchy merchandise, or shopping all things witchy to your heart’s content. I love good witchy merch, I love good witchy shops, I love that I don’t have to drive an hour to find a real cauldron.

What I’m saying is: if you keep accumulating things, be they tools or books or decor or otherwise, and you’re not feeling a deeper connection to your beliefs or practice, then you need to take a step back and be honest about what’s working and what’s not. And sometimes that answer isn’t obvious, so action is needed instead, where we consciously, and lovingly, go back to basics and start over.

Think of it like the Tower card, but nicer.

Remove everything to create a fresh slate, and see what speaks to you strongest (not necessarily loudest).

Have you ever cleared off your altar or working space, cleaned, cleansed, felt better already, then you systematically put everything back in its place (or in new places but still within your space) and when you were done, it felt the same as it had? Or even less inspiring? The refresh you were hoping for kind of falling flat?

That’s your sign, babe.

Go back to basics.

Think back to when you first started your practice. What excited you the most? And be honest: was it stuff? That’s okay. The aesthetic is real and it’s a fucking vibe. But what drew you in from a soul-level? What set off a firework in your heart?

If you’re not sure or you can’t remember, that’s okay, too. You can still take it back to basics.

Here’s what I would do:

Clear everything out of your witchy space that isn’t necessary. If it absolutely must stay, you’ll know. You’ll feel it. I’m a very visual person, so I completely understand the desire for a visually pleasing space. But when you’re trying to reconnect to your path, feeling is more important than seeing.

Clean the space. Sweep, vacuum, wipe down, etc. Physically clean the dust and the stale air. Bonus points if you can open a window and catch a nice breeze.

Then cleanse the space, in whatever way feels best to you. When your intention is clearing and cleansing and making space for your relationship with Spirit/Source/Deity/the Divine, do what feels good.

I love a good sound cleansing with my singing bowl. Sounds vibrations can break up stagnant energy in a space.

I love a smoke cleanse. Burning sage is an old and sacred practice to remove negative energy, prepare for ceremony, honour ritual, and invoke healing. There is something comforting about the energy of sage and what it does to a space. Cedar also works well for cleansing, so does tobacco, rosemary, and many other herbs. You need to work with the plants and herbs and substances that work best with you. That is part of your relationship with your practice. Do what feels good to you.

I also love Palo Santo because I personally connect well with sacred woods. And I love rounding out a smoke cleanse with cinnamon. Seriously, if you’ve never burned a cinnamon stick, it is such a delicious scent, and such a delicious energy. It can represent love, courage, fire; whatever cinnamon speaks to you about.

Water cleansing is beautiful. Reiki cleansing is beautiful.

Do what feels good to you.

I’m going to insert a very important note here: your relationship to your path should be private. Share what you want to share, but you do not have to share everything. If no one ever found out your favourite cleansing practice, that would be perfectly okay. Please release the pressure of audience judgement when there is no audience. No one is watching when it’s just you and your practice. Let yourself be alone with your path.

Then start very, very small.

Place one candle on your altar. Let that candle represent your connection to Spirit/Divine. Or have two candles if you honour the God and the Goddess. Maybe you don’t use a candle at all and you place a crystal. One crystal. Or literally a bowl of water.

My point is, keep it simple. Choose one to three things (maybe four if you like the balance of fours) to represent your relationship, your connection. A direct line between you and the Unseen. Leave out all the rest.

The point of this is to reopen a dialogue between you and the energy that calls to you spiritually. The tools are great to have, the decor can help elevate your mindset and intention, but at the heart of your practice, in the deepest parts of your path, lies the connection between You and Divine. And that is the most important part.

Be in the presence of what calls to you. Open that connection. Start that conversation from within.

Go outside. Talk to the Moon. Commune with the earth. Whatever and wherever you are pulled from within.

As you begin to feel that thread be nurtured as it needs to be, everything from the direction of your path to the way you practice to what you believe and value will become clearer.

Remove all the noise and listen closely.

Do this long enough that you rebuild that relationship, that you stop doubting your practice, that you feel so connected to your path that trust outshines confusion and uncertainty.

And follow that through its natural course.

Some stuff will find its way back into your space, some stuff may be lovingly relocated to other parts of your home, or gifted to friends. You may find yourself seeking new things for your space, or, more likely, new things finding their way to you at the right moments.

There’s a lot of information out there, a lot of paths, a lot of opinions, and a lot of “rules” that are actually just opinions with more aggression behind them. It can get confusing. It can get overwhelming. It can become very, very easy to lose your way.

There is much about the world now that is designed to distract. It is not wrong to ask yourself which parts of your practice are divine and which are distractions. It is not wrong to question, to reconsider, to redirect, to clear the slate and begin again.

To return to the roots of your practice with new eyes.

Listen close to how your space feels, how your practice feels, how your presence feels.

Does it feel like you? A character? A lot of work?

Does it feel natural? Fated? Beautiful? Like home?

I think we’ve been subconsciously trained to question what we think others would question about us, instead of questioning ourselves away from everyone else and making our own conclusions and decisions. Our opinion about ourselves matters most of all. And how we feel on our path, within our sacred relationships, is more important than seeking the approval of someone else somewhere else who is on a path of their own (if they’re on any path at all).

I know that right now, someone, somewhere, is reading this and just the idea of a fresh start in their practice feels like the first deep breath they’ve taken in ages.

I feel you, babe.

Clean the slate. Clear the space. Cleanse the practice.

And go back to basics.

I hope what you find there is You.