The Daily: 23 October 2025

It is the time of year when I am increasingly compelled to define my path. What does a witch do? What does a witch believe? What does it mean to be a witch? I find that the definition often leads to more words in need of definition, bound up as they are with the world outside this culture, outside of normal dialogue and expression and experience, or simply outside normally accepted connotation. Words like pagan, locavore, anarchist. Animist and pantheist. Hedge-rider, Earth-bound, seer. Awake, aware, alive. Magical.

Let’s do that last one first, since magic is what most people hear when they hear witchcraft.

One definition of magic that many people in the pagan world accept is “to change perception in accordance with will”. I don’t entirely agree with this because I don’t entirely believe in a will. What part of this complex composite organism gives rise to a will? Are there decisions actually made within this will entity? And how, within the context of inheritance of varying sorts? There is just no end to the blaring questions on the existence of a willed self. But it gets worse. If I accept that there is a will, a disembodied motive force associated with a body, then “which body is driving” becomes the central question. Whose will? Is this imposition of will? Upon whom? If I act with intention, how do I ensure that those intentions realize beneficial results? And in what context? To whom? I just don’t have the time and patience to deal with these questions, so I tend to refrain from inflicting my will, such as it is, upon the world.

I prefer to think of magic as the opening of perception to the reality of the world. To see the flow of change. To feel bound within that flow, to move with it, allowing it to take me where I need to be. To hear the harmony and balance and to join my voice in that music. Not to control. Not to influence. But to fill up this body with the joy of belonging, of knowing, of meaning, of being.

What does that mean in practical terms? (Because I practice practical magic…)

Well, that’s where those other words come in.

To begin with, I am a pagan witch. I’m not an urban witch, not into choreographed ritual and hereditary traditions, not a ceremonial magician or sorcerer — which all seem too much about status and control than I can tolerate. No, I am a pagan. I am of the land. I practice land magic.

There is a saying that all witches are pagan, but not all pagans are witches. The latter is certainly true. There are heathens and druids and nature magicians and on and on and on, all of whom consider themselves pagan and few of whom embrace the path of the witch. But I don’t think all witches are pagans either. Maybe that was once true, though the people who practiced what is now labeled witchcraft would not have called themselves either witches or pagans. And even in those distant days many practitioners of witchcraft tended to be more bound up with human society, not as much with the land except on the interface between humans and nature.

And a deep relationship with the land, largely unmediated by human prerogative, that is what being a pagan is.

I say “largely unmediated”… But, as pagans are human and have human needs like food and shelter and not getting eaten by bears, there is often an element of representation. The pagan witch is the intermediary between her human community and her more-than-human community. She has her muddy boots in both worlds. She hangs her pointy hat by many doorways. She speaks all languages. She seeks healthy balance. Call her the village ambassador to the land.

And it usually was a woman. Quite often, a solitary woman, or at least one with an unusual degree of independence from the patriarchy (hence her cardinal sin). Men tended to lean more toward ceremonial magic and cunning craft, the imposition of will and dominance of the land, if the land factored into their work at all.

These days there are few witches or pagans of any kind who practice this mediation between human and land communities. From the books in print and the accoutrements offered for sale, you might be forgiven for thinking that contemporary witchcraft is mostly woo-woo self-help with a hefty side dose of garb and décor. And Neo-paganism is crunchy organic farming and earnest co-housing, with drumming circles and solstice parties.

But that deep connection to the land is the central reason I name myself a witch and a pagan. That connection is also why I believe that this path should be more widely followed.

What does deep connection mean? What does it mean to be an intermediary between humans and Others, between the land and the tribe?

In past times, humans needed that ambassador to speak for them to the land, to appease the land, to ensure that human needs were met. This meant the pagan witch listened to the land, observed its health and needs, then communicated to the village what needed to be done. Such things as setting aside portions of the harvest for wildlings displaced by the plow or refraining altogether from plowing in fragile or especially sacred places. Certain trees were left standing no matter the need for wood and fuel. Certain forage herbs and plants were allowed to regenerate after over-harvesting or grazing pressures. Certain portions of woodland or bog or rivers were taboo to all human needs.

The witch often set the calendar, by fiat if not by official decree. She watched for the signs and spread the word through her informal kitchen networks. She determined when the land was ready for food production, when it was time to sow and time to harvest, time to lead the herds into the uplands and time bring them back to the byre — and most importantly time to rest, to lie fallow, to withdraw from the land. She set days aside to celebrate the first blooms, the rains, the setting of berries and then nuts. Whole weeks were given over to mushroom hunting. The witch also tracked sky observances like the solstices, eclipses and new moons, but the land didn’t care about such things. The tribe sure did though! And watching the skies is an effective way to keep time in a time before clocks and paper calendars.

(Sometimes gifts or tokens were offered to the waters or the chthonic beings, but, as today, this was probably more for show, for influencing human perception (ie magic of the marketing variety). The land doesn’t want sanctified pots or shiny coins or precious resins or costly libations. That’s all about human values, mostly humans of a class that generally isn’t pagan. Those offerings that conferred little benefit on the land were much like modern elites endowing a chair at Harvard or donating money to the arts council.) 

Witchcraft, meaning healing and mediating and keeping time — these are still tasks of the modern pagan though the tribe no longer listens. Still, we watch and make notes. The main difference is that these days we watchers speak for the land. Humans no longer feel the need to appease or honor nature. The pagan’s task these days is to give voice to the needs of the more-than-human world and to do the work of restoration and repair when humans refuse to stay their rapacious greed. We watch the dwindling of the bees and plant wildflowers. We see hungry birds and plant wild berries and seedy grasses and flowers, and we put out bird food for the growing disconnect between migration and the arrival of spring. We see trash and we clean it up. We see the polluted waters and soils, and we go to local council and commissions with plans for ending the contamination. Sometimes we work with nature to remediate the mess without cooperation from the polluters or their paid politicians. We plant willows and mustards in the most toxic soils. We plant flower gardens in abandoned lots and trees along roadsides. And in the worst cases, that which can’t be fixed in human time, we fence off the poisoned land to protect nature from us, redefining sacrifice zones from places that are sanctified and left free from human intrusion to places that are utterly destroyed by humans. Because nothing is sacred.

But, still, we watch. And do what work we can.

And those of us who are committed pagans do not willingly contribute to the destruction. If it’s our job to witness and clean up the mess, we become highly reluctant to make it.

This is where the word locavore enters into the definition of my path. Living in place fosters relationship with the land, of course, but more importantly it does not take more than the land can sustain — which means taking from other lands when your own place is tapped out. Living in place does not create imbalance. You live within local limits, in ecological balance, using no more than you need and wasting nothing.

This once was normal human behavior — and the main reason that humans felt a need to treat the land with respect. Humans used to be wise enough to recognize our interdependence with place. Now, we’re stupidly self-centered navel gazers… It is no coincidence that destruction rises when humans no longer honor the land. Pagan witches know this, see it, feel it. And we seek to root into the land and reclaim that connection, give honor where it is due, respect life in all its forms. Treating the land as our family and friends — as is, in fact, the case — inspires us to refrain from harming the land. And this flows back into our human community in the form of good health, good food, good homes, good lives. In short, when the land is healthy, so are we — because we are part of the land.

Practically speaking, living in place means staying put and taking from nowhere else. It means sourcing all your needs as close to home as possible. It means forgoing things that require transport and complicated manufacturing streams or buying true needs once and using them so minimally that they last your lifetime. I do not have a microwave nor a dishwasher. I think I may have a hair dryer, but I don’t use it. I do have a clothes dryer, but I avoid using it (not least because it destroys my clothes). I have a bit of electronica, including this machine I am typing on. Very little of it sees daily or even weekly use, but it is all old.

(And being “outmoded” by planned obsolescence… with which I do not cooperate… In fact, I threw a fit over the summer when Verizon announced that it would stop supporting my aging phone. I cancelled the Verizon plan and hooked up with Spectrum, who don’t seem to care about old electronics. Now, I can’t send or receive messages unless I’m on WiFi… I consider that a perk.)

I don’t buy many things and minimize my use of the waste-intensive things I do have. This means that I produce quite a lot of my own needs, and I maintain what I have. I grow a good deal of my own food, buy what I can’t grow from Vermont farmers and mills, and cook all of it myself. It is rare that I eat out, a special occasion. And I can’t remember the last time I engaged with the monstrosity that is fast food. I don’t buy new clothes except when my underclothes and socks are beyond repair and consigned to the compost pile (for that reason, I don’t buy synthetic fabrics which are not compostable). When I want to wear something different, I take the things I’m not wearing off to thrift stores (making sure those places actually sell their donations and don’t landfill most of them) and I go shop vintage. Or I make things. I’m a fairly good knitter and competent enough at sewing to make the sort of simple clothes that I like. (Which tend to be rather like potato sacks… square and loose…)

I don’t get rid of fraying or broken things. I repurpose or fix them. My car is over ten years old and has nearly two hundred thousand miles on its wheels — though not on its gasoline engine where mileage equates with wear (I think I’ve filled up the gas tank maybe three times this year). Still, it is a rust bucket, and common wisdom would have me trading it in. But I will not take on a new car’s worth of resource use and material transport, nor will I see this car turned into toxic waste. I will keep fixing this thing until it falls apart around me, and then whatever still works, at least its battery, will be turned toward some other need. (Hopefully, by then I will be able to bike where I need to go.) I treat everything like that car. I use it minimally. I take care of it. I repair it. I repurpose it. And then when something non-biodegradable and toxic is truly used up, I seal it up as best I can and haul it up to the attic. I don’t make land fill…

This, of course, means that I am reluctant to buy things that are going to be toxic waste in my attic, and this reluctance to engage with toxicity has flowed into the rest of my life. I don’t buy waste, don’t generate it except within my own body. I don’t buy single-use plastic any more than I am forced to do so at the grocery store. And I choose plastic-free packaging wherever it is available. This affects what kind of food I buy. Meat and dairy products come with much more of a plastic burden, though the more local and small the supplier, the less plastic is involved (also, not unrelatedly, the higher the quality of food and lower the cost). Grains and nuts less so. (Happily, these things are better for my body even ignoring the plastic issue.) I can’t eat much sugar, so I don’t have to do the math on the ecological harm and social injustice wrapped up in that stuff, plastic wrapped or otherwise. I just don’t buy it. And if it comes in a plastic lined can, forget it. It’s toxic waste, the lining ruins the recyclability of the can, and it tastes utterly foul.

I have also cut out many cleaners and hygiene products, buying the minimum necessary to keep my home and body healthy. And where I can’t eliminate my use of something, I buy local. I am lucky that I am in Vermont, home of Seventh Generation, among many other purveyors of relatively less toxic household goods — though you must be careful even with them because locally sold does not mean locally sourced and manufactured. 

(Ironically, the highest concentration of plastic in my house is in the medicine cabinet. You know there is something wrong with a culture when its health care is inextricably bound up with toxic waste.)

Now, I’m not virtue signaling. This isn’t bragging, and I will tell you that I slip up all the time. First, there is ignorance and the great difficulty in digging up any information that might lead one to buy less stuff… I am constantly learning and adding new things to the no-no pile. And that is also where I slip. Because it’s so exhausting and frustrating! Sometimes I don’t have the energy to fight. Sometimes I don’t know where to turn. Sometimes I’m just so angry that I do stupid stuff. But I always regret it… Because it hurts me and everything I care about.

So, I’m not bragging. I’m showing you the path I am on, hopefully showing that it can be and is done. The received wisdom in this culture is that a life without wasteful hyper-consuming is akin to destitution and that localizing your life is impossible. A witch is just contrary enough to prove them otherwise… Also we’re magical… But most importantly a pagan witch doesn’t have any other choice. Because you simply don’t treat the world as our culture does. You don’t harm your friends. You don’t throw trash about. You don’t take more than you need. And you show everyone respect.

This is where animism and pantheism come into the definition of my path. The pagan witch knows every being is imbued with life-force, the anima. I believe that this spark, this primal cause and ground being, this is deity. This is the divine. I don’t know if it is eternal and infinite and omnipotent, but I am quite certain that it is as old and as extensive as this universe. It is everywhere and in all things. It might even be older than all that we know. (Because where did all this come from anyway, and does prior existence imply change imply motive force imply life?) Whatever it is, it is sacred and worthy of respect, worthy of worship. This means that everything is sacred. Everything is worthy of respect. Everything is divine and worthy of adoration.

Not all witches are pantheists. The Wiccans will hold on to their binary-gendered humanoid deities. And many traditional witches don’t believe in divinity at all, or they carefully segregate their Craft traditions from their religious beliefs, mostly Judeo-Christian. (Don’t ask me what the Feri faith believe in…) But very few pagans, those of the land, bound to the land, in deep relationship with the land, yes, very, very few pagans are not pantheists and animists. We simply know that all things have some sort of life spirit and that life spirit is deity. This is instinctual knowledge, gut knowing… So it is that many pagans both past and present have never put their beliefs into such words, nor even recognized that they hold such belief. For most, this is just how the world is. It is so obvious that it’s unseen. The water to our fishy minds…

As you can imagine, knowing that all things are divine rather puts the kibosh on participating in this culture of pervasive harm. If everything is worthy of the honor due a god, then nothing is expendable. Nothing is a sacrifice zone. Everything has agency and meaning and its own integrity. Everything is just like me. In fact, when you realize that life is common to all things everywhere, including in your own body and all its constituent parts, then you quickly conclude that all things are me. All things are connected by that living spirit. All things are a part of life’s whole. Harming the world is always harming yourself. 

So, being a pagan witch is anathema to our self-serving, waste-spreading, injustice-perpetuating socio-economic system. 

We can’t willingly cause harm, and we do our best to stop it in our small corners of the world. 

But recognizing the life in all things undermines another of the key tenets of this system. If everything is worthy of respect and everything is part of the whole and everything is alive and inspirited, then nothing is more worthy than anything else. There is difference. But there is balance. Being a pagan means being radically egalitarian. Add that to being a witch, a body who lives in the edge spaces and does not set much store on the dominance culture, and you get full-blown anarchism. I can’t hold both hierarchy and animism in my head at the same time. These are utterly incompatible concepts. Status is meaningless in a living world. Leaders are just egotistical children who do not know the true nature of being, which is leaderless, can not have leaders or there would be no balance. Superiority, nobility, elitism, privilege, supremacy. These are all empty words held together by the black magic of propaganda. They are foolish words, disgusting in their wrongness. There is no place in life for these ideas. And where these ideas are imposed, life falters. 

However, life is stronger than silly human ideas. It has faced far more difficult challenges. And it will always restore balance… Those who have elevated themselves will always fall.

It is quite pragmatic to be small and firmly rooted…

Now, note that there is nothing about correspondences or candle burning or path-working or ritual or divination in any of this… 

A real witch does not do much in the way of spells. Now and then we may sit down and have words with the universe. Sometimes it’s prayer, sometimes it’s more like diplomacy. I’ve been known to build wards and craft charms, mostly to set my own chattering mind at ease. I don’t believe these have any effect beyond my body, though maybe occasionally the squirrels get freaked out by the energetic thought-forms I’ve left hanging around the ristras… probably not… but I like to imagine what would happen if that were true…

A real witch doesn’t have to do magic. She lives it, embodies it. Everything in my life is a spell. It is all suffused with magical import. Everything is part of the path. Everything inspires me to perceive the world as it is, to pull back the tattered and mildewed curtain of our culture and reveal the glowing flame of life, the divine essence of all being.

The choices I make are the magic that I do. When I choose to reduce my harmful impact on the world, this changes my perception. I see the world, I see myself as healthier, stronger, more resilient, more alive. When others see my choices, my magical spells, their perceptions may be changed also. My magic may inspire others to look again at their unexamined beliefs. But even if that is not true, the craft that I practice is good for me and good for my part of the world. And that is true for all on this path.

You follow this path, you make your life better by making life all around you better. You may even be making life in distant places better if you pull in your needs and become a true locavore. 

And one final benefit… by watching the world, by being rooted in deep relationship and aware of the life around you, you know what is going on. There are fewer surprises. You are more equal to emergencies because you can predict most of them and prepare for them. But best of all, knowing your place, even in the worst degradation, is knowing that life is flowing and that it will endure. And that hope in the midst of the great derangement is quite possibly the most magical thing of all, the best part of being a pagan witch. Whatever horrors may come, whatever destruction rains down from the dominators, whatever dire conditions we may face, we know, absolutely and without qualification, that life will carry on. 

And that knowledge is what carries me along my path. That’s what makes me a witch…

Though I am not above cackling and wearing midnight when the need arises…

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©Elizabeth Anker 2025