Weaving Our Witchy Web

Yesterday, as I sat outside a café with my mom and dog, drinking a delicious cold brew and eating a homemade raspberry lemon muffin (a magickal morning to be sure), I was joined by a little spider. She perched herself on top of my water bottle and hung out there for a good 15 minutes at least. When we eventually got up to leave, I had to gently encourage her off so as not to take her along for our adventure.

While I observed this friendly little spider, I thought about one of my favorite ways to visualize witchcraft: weaving webs. When I think about witchcraft, for me it’s really about making connections. It’s about connecting to each other, to Mother Earth, to our own hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits, and so much else. We are born with curious minds so that we want to reach out and learn about everything and everyone we may connect to, loving hearts to share a little piece of ourselves with whom and whatever we meet, bodies capable of movement and sensation to carry us around through space and take in all of what we experience in gratitude through our sight, sound, touch, etc, and passionate souls to integrate it all and help us create in our own unique art and then use that art to continue to connect in new and beautiful ways. In short, we are born with these incredible tools to weave our web.

Now, making these connections is not always easy. In fact, it can be pretty dang challenging to connect to some aspects of our lives, and these particular challenges will differ from person to person. Perhaps we enjoy spending time in nature, and we find it easy to connect to the Earth, but maybe the thought of talking to a stranger gives us the full body sweats. Or perhaps, we readily connect to our own conscious mind, excelling in solving problems, but the thought of connecting to spirituality/universal intelligence/source/[insert your own term here] sounds pointless, or even a little crazy. Or maybe we find fulfillment in connecting to our community through social media or the Internet, but we struggle to feel connected to our own bodies, wondering why we have cravings for foods that don’t seem to nourish us and frustrated that we just don’t feel right in our own skin and bones.   

The secret is that those connections that feel the most difficult to form, the ones that scare or intimidate us a little bit or make us turn away because we worry what people with think of us if we pursue them, they are often the ones that will help us most to grow. They are the ones that will help us feel most fulfilled and anchored in our little webs.

For so much of recent history, our focus has been on building towers – our institutions –big business, academia, medicine, religion, etc. Rather than reaching out, we reach up. We double down on the type of connection we feel safe in and that we already excel at. And don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with doing something you love to do and are good at! What can happen, though, is we may find ourselves feeling isolated in some way within our tower of choice. We may feel a kernel of discontent somewhere and perhaps not know the source. We may feel forlorn because we have spent all our time building a successful business, but we have lost out on the healing benefits of being in nature. We may feel dissatisfied because we have thrived as a healthcare professional, but it has come at the expense of connecting with our poetry, our art. We may be a highly productive, prolifically published academic, but we no longer feel our sense of thirst because we are so disconnected from our own body. The key is balance. We have our institutions, and they are mighty; now we can spend a little more time on weaving our webs, on connecting outward.

You might be wondering how to connect, how to make the most positive step forward to feeling anchored in your witchy web. I encourage you, if it feels right, to consider doing a little inventory of your connections based on the little web below– where do you feel secure, and where do you feel you could you grow if you wanted to? The connections that give you a cold pit of dread in your belly? Hold off on those for now. Try to find one that gives you a little flutter of nervous butterflies, that feels just a little bit uncomfortable, but not impossible, and start there.

Create what I like to call a “feast for the senses.” This is when I plan an event, a day, a trip, something, with the intention to connect and then pull the experience back to myself in gratitude through my five senses plus one more: a sense of accomplishment. This last comes from choosing to take a little bit of a positive risk.

An example of one of my feasts for the senses was a trip to NYC where I set the intention to connect with my own mind. I sat at restaurants by myself and didn’t allow myself to take my phone out of my pocket, instead allowing my thoughts to wander or reminding myself to be present in the moment while eating and focus on the taste and texture of each bite. I put my mind to work navigating through the subways, knowing I may end up getting lost, but that would be part of the adventure and that getting un-lost would bring me great satisfaction. I signed myself up for a speakeasy tour with a bunch of strangers, and I pushed myself to chat and ask questions, stretching my curious mind despite the discomfort at being seen. As it turns out, my tour guide graduated from the same small college I had, but 10 years later, and there I was forming a new connection with a stranger. Throughout this trip, I reached out in curiosity and love, and I pulled everything back to me through my sensory experience. I saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched, but I also felt a sense of accomplishment at doing it all myself. I reminded myself what my mind is capable of, and how grateful I am to have it, and I strengthened my little web in this way.

Another example of a feast for the senses was a girls’ weekend in Ogunquit, Maine where I set the intention to connect to my closest friends, my little soul tribe, each of whom I have met at different stages in my life. We enjoyed meals at restaurants to connect over shared food and drink, we danced our faces off, soaking in the pleasure of wiggling and vibing in each other’s company, and we bopped around to the various shops, stopping to connect over what we thought of the art, the books, the stuff. Again, I reached out in curiosity and love, and pulled everything back to me, appreciating all that I tasted, saw, heard, smelled, touched, and I felt the sense of accomplishment at having grown from being a lonely awkward kid into a compassionate woman able to draw amazing people together for this weekend of peace amidst five very busy schedules.

My third example of a feast for the senses was just yesterday, when I spent the day with my mom with the intent to connect with her. I have been sensing that my mom is having a little bit of a hard time understanding what the heck I’m doing leaving my stable pharmacist job at all, let alone to become a wellness witch.  I started the day off giving her a shirt with my business name and logo on it, and she stared at it a little shocked that I went as far as to use the word “witchy” in the name. Over the course of the day, sharing breakfast, hiking a mountain, admiring Ellie’s knack for climbing, and chatting, I started to see her understand what I was doing. I watched her fear slip, at least partially, into appreciation. At the end of the day, I even drew up the courage to ask her if she’d be willing to do a gratitude practice with me and say out loud what we are grateful for about our bodies for allowing us to enjoy the hike. Not only did she agree, but she also thanked me for it afterward.  I soaked in this whole day of connection and positive risk, and I feel incredibly grateful to my mom for being willing to take a positive risk too.

The beauty of a “feast for the senses” is that, inevitably, connections form other than just the one you meant to make. In my NYC trip, I connected to my mind, and in indulging my curiosity and asking questions I also connected to a new friend from my alma mater. In my girls’ trip, I connected to my little soul tribe, but they also connected to each other, forming their own friendships apart from me. In connecting  with my mom, she also connected to her own body in a new way and perhaps even to a new gratitude practice. The secret of the “feast for the senses” is that it doesn’t have to be elaborate or expensive; it just has to be intentional. 

At any moment, we have the chance connect in some new way, and in doing so, allow for other unexpected connections to take shape. We have this incredible opportunity to weave our little webs every moment of our lives, and it is the most beautiful, most powerful, most witchy thing I know. Let’s be curious, let’s love, let’s be grateful, and let’s connect. This is the project of a life.

Mt Kearsarge, NH