The art of the witch is complex. So many moving parts. It’s easier to learn when you start to see the patterns. The cycles. The alignments between systems.

Learn a touch of numerology, build a working understanding of archetypes and narrative structures, and tarot starts coming naturally. Astrological movements follow regular, reassuring patterns; if the sun is in this sign, this month’s new moon is in that one. I have some talent for rote memorization (hello, Virgo placements), and had expected to rely on it much more when I decided to learn the craft.

Instead, I find my most potent magic involves another kind of memory.

In the moment, life often feels chaotic. We make do, we muddle through, and we make it through the day – in my case, often lamenting that we did not accomplish this more elegantly, more neatly and with greater grace and style.

It took me many years to learn – in fact, it took becoming a witch – to find the power in the life I have lived, rather than the one I felt I should have lived in retrospect. I knew, in the sense that no one can avoid knowing, that life (including mine) is often messy. I knew in some abstract sense that stories of struggle are stories of strength, and that a story without struggle of one kind or another is very rarely a potent and engrossing one.

In nature there are seasons, orbits, cycles that have power. If a person came to me and asked me where to start as a witch – though I would first advise them to seek more experienced teachers – I might be inclined to suggest they start there. But the essential thing is seeing how un-separate we are from all of it. Humanity does not stand outside of nature; we are part of it. With practice, we can learn to live more in tune and in time with that truth.

We are part of the cycles without. The other half of the magical equation is the cycles within.

What are the chapters of your story? Where are the landmarks, and what souvenirs do you still hold? What’s been carried with you – whether a physical object, or a wound, or an insight – across the time and space of your inner cosmos?

Magically speaking, I often work with the power of narrative and memory. My house, in addition to being my shelter, is a personal museum of sorts, with a provenance behind every object – rarely discussed, but always there. Every trinket in the photo that accompanies this post is a personal talisman. An emblem of a certain time, a certain place, and a certain set of lessons.

There is power and magic in that, which can be called upon. And that is what I love about my chosen path – each practitioner’s journey, even though they’ll likely draw on many common resources from established traditions, is uniquely their own. Coloured by and amplified through the prism of their personal story.