The Contemporary New England Witch

The Contemporary New England Witch
Author Ms.Faith

Thursday, November 29, 2012

What is being a witch all about?




Good Evening,

I'm asked questions about what I do all the time,  about what witches do, what we are, how we view things. I thought tonight I would answer some of those questions, the best I can. Of course, let me say first and foremost that I can only speak from my perspective. Truly, each witch is different from another.

For me being a witch is being authentic about who I am, and what I do. I know that what I do is not evil, illegal or in anyway wrong, so I do not speak about what I do in whispers or covertly. I do not lace my speech with archane language, unusual verbiage or strange words which are designed to confuse and create awe. I answer questions clearly and with the intent of helping the asker understand what it is we do.

Anyone can be a witch. It is not for the 'gifted', 'special' or 'chosen few'.  Yes! I did say that! Anyone can be a witch. Plenty will be upset because I said that, but I care not! Frankly there's an elitist attitude starting to creep into modern day Witchcraft and it is only messing things up for people, and I find it foolish at best. But enough of that, back to what being a witch is all about.

Being a witch, to me, is about loving and revering nature.  Honoring the moon and sun, respecting the land, the waters and the sky.  Are we tree huggers? Sure, some of us definitely are. But there are witches in corporate America as well.

I use natural ingredients such as essential oils, herbs, resins, minerals, crystals, candles and powdered wood to bring in wanted natural energies or to banish unwanted energies. 

I try to be as honest with myself as I can be. I try to respect myself and others and allow others to have differing opinions from mine, without getting an attitude or passing judgment against them.

I celebrate by the moon and can't look upon her without my breath catching and a comfort seeping into my soul.  I honor the Goddess and the God on a daily basis and give them thanks for all the blessings in my life.

I seek to find acceptance for all that is around me, even if it's not my choice or desire. I don't have to like something, to condone it to accept that it is.  If there is something in my world that I find I cannot accept, I seek to change it by changing myself and how I interact with it. I've learned that I can't change anyone else, but I can change myself.  That's truly magickal!

Being a witch, to me, is about finding happiness in my day to day life and using nature to help me do this.

Peace and Happiness



© 2010-2012 Faith M. McCann. Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. Please note that the copying and/or further distribution of this work without express written permission is prohibited. 

If you know someone who would like my work, please send them this link. If you or they would like to be included on our daily email distribution list send me an e mail with your email address to be included. If you ever wish to unsubscribe to this blog, please contact me and you will be immediately removed from our list.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

A Happy Magickal Thanksgiving to you all!


Good Evening,

I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!  People have asked if we, witches, celebrate Thanksgiving. We certainly do! As a matter of fact our three Autumn Sabbats, Lughnasadh (August 1st), Mabon (September 21-24), and Samhain (November 1st) are all harvest celebrations. Harvest celebrations are by definition Thanksgiving feast days, celebrating the abundance and bounty of the harvest.

There is also a bit of sympathetic magick to be found in a feast day like Thanksgiving. By having plenty of food, an over abundance actually, is meant to symbolically stand for an abundance of food throughout the winter months.  Nowadays, abundance, which at one time meant plenty of food and shelter, warmth and clothing, now stands for wealth in general.

So modern witches celebrate Thanksgiving much as everyone else does. We celebrate with good food, plenty of it!! Celebrating with family and friends.  I also like to burn a candle, a love candle for the love of family and friends,  and to give thanks to the Goddess for the blessings I find in my life everyday. For the family I have, the friends I have been gifted with and the love and abundance I find in my life.


Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!


Peace and Happiness




© 2010-2012 Faith M. McCann. Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. Please note that the copying and/or further distribution of this work without express written permission is prohibited.

 If you know someone who would like my work, please send them this link. If you or they would like to be included on our daily email distribution list send me an e mail with your email address to be included. If you ever wish to unsubscribe to this blog, please contact me and you will be immediately removed from our list.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Using 'Cat Magick' to aid your day to day life!

 Good Evening,



Tonight's discussion must first and foremost start with a big hello and thank you to my friends Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone in Ireland. For it was Lady Janet who gave me the magickal information that I will impart to you this evening.  Both Janet and Gavin are world renowned authors of many books on Wicca, magick and magickal workings. If you have a chance to read any of their books, I personally highly recommend it! Janet is also a lady who has a natural affinity for and a deep love of felines and knows more than anyone else I know abut these wonderful creatures, both magickal and practical. Here's a bit of magickal lore she shared with me when we visited this past summer.

Cat Magick. More specifically, how to use naturally shed cat whiskers and claws in your magickal workings. I myself am blessed with seven fabulous felines and come across naturally shed claws and whiskers on occasion. I've been of a mind to pick them up and save them, but I didn't know what to do with them, so when Janet and Gavin visited Enchantments this past August I asked her her thoughts on the matter.

She told me to use the cats whiskers, which are occasionally shed (keep a look out for them) and to place them in a small envelope or paper packet. I use a small zip lock baggie normally used for jewelry. Place the cats whisker in your vehicle, somewhere out of the way, in a glove box or center console. Leave it there. It will aid you in avoiding accidents and other mishaps "by a cat's whisker"!

If you already have one in your vehicle and your cats gift you with others, make a gift out of them for loved ones.  You can't have too much traffic/travel safety magick, especially in New England in the winter time!

The other naturally shed item from your feline friends are claws. They naturally scratch to remove old claws and reveal newer, sharper claws on a regular basis. You will find cats claws much more readily than whiskers. You can use these in your magickal workings to help you climb out of a difficult situation, "climb your way to the top" so to speak. Especially in very difficult circumstances. You can use them in spell mixes, pouches with other items such as stones, herbs and crystals. Place them in a small bowl on your altar or on a shelf where you keep your magickal tools and supplies.

A witch uses what nature places before her to help aid her in her magickal workings. In this matter, your cat can really be your familiar when you use the gifts it leaves for you, right under your nose or feet as the case may be!

Start looking closely for these gifts from your cat, save them and use them well.


Peace and Happiness


© 2010-2012 Faith M. McCann. Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. Please note that the copying and/or further distribution of this work without express written permission is prohibited. 

If you know someone who would like my work, please send them this link. If you or they would like to be included on our daily email distribution list send me an e mail with your email address to be included. If you ever wish to unsubscribe to this blog, please contact me and you will be immediately removed from our list.

Monday, November 5, 2012

How I spent my Halloween!

 Good Evening,

Well, Halloween (Samhain) was just wonderful this year. We had quite a scare with the hurricane that threatened to ruin the Halloween celebrations AGAIN this year.  If you remember, last year it was a Halloween snow storm that ruined it. But where we are in central CT, we luckily got our power back by Tuesday evening and Wednesday went off very well.

You might have wondered, what a witch does on Halloween? Well, I can only tell you what it is that I do, and I have a lot of fun doing it!  I celebrate the children on this holiday. I love the energy that comes from little ones dressing up and enjoying a holiday that has its origins as far back in time as 5,000 years ago. 

My witches cottage is located in a residential neighborhood with lots of houses, children, people and pets.  There's approximately 80 - 100 houses in our small neighborhood which makes for many children, and even more that come to our neighborhood for the bountiful trick or treat candy haul.

In front of my cottage I have an old cast iron cauldron, that weighs a hundred pounds or more on a tripod. I have little red, orange and yellow lights fixed underneath the cauldron with handfuls of sticks carefully placed on top, which gives the effect of a small fire burning under the large iron cauldron.  I have large spotlights affixed with red bulbs which light up the entire area with an eerie red glow.

Into the cauldron I put some warm water and have a bunch of dry ice chips nearby. Also at hand are some 'tasty' rubber snakes, rats and spiders. Some years I can find some gelatinous fake eyeballs to use also. This makes for my witches stew. Then I start practicing my cackle and I sit in a chair by the cauldron with a big stirring stick and await the first trick or treaters.

As they come up my walk, princesses, bat men, and cowboys clutching their precious candy bags or plastic pumpkins they spy me and sing out the expected "trick or treat" chorus that is expected to get some candy loot. But the witch stirring the cauldron doesn't respond to the song. Instead she's busy stirring the pot, with wisps of smoke flowing out from the cauldron and being illuminated in the eerie red light. She grabs a tail of a rubber rat and dangles it in front of the little costumed monsters and asks them "Do you want some of my witches stew? The rats are quite tasty" and then she grabs a handful of dangling snakes "and the snakes quite delicious!"  This is met with "ewwww's" mainly from little girls. Many little boys say "yes!" I would like some!"


"Ah," the witch continues "but, they're just a bit underdone. Hmmm, well , we can't be serving guests raw snakes or rats, that's just not polite."  "Well, now what can I possibly give you?" she asks, then notices the sacks being held open in silent appeal.

"well, what have you got there?" she inquires. "What's in your bags?"

"Candy!" comes the response.

"Oh Candy! Chocolate!" the witch exclaims. "Well, I had an elf that came around a while ago and left me a whole bunch of chocolate and candy. Would you .    .   .    you wouldn't like that would you?" she asks doubtfully.

"YES!!" "CANDY", "TRICK OR TREAT" are all  responses she hears throughout the night. And into the candy sacks and pumpkins goes a small bag filled with chocolate treats.  Many parents ask for a picture to be taken, and I sit before my cauldron and hear the children as they continue on their candy quest

"This is my favorite house every year!" " Mine too!" " You know .  .  .  She's a real witch!"

This year we had 56 children come to the witch's cauldron and get a candy treat. Afterwards I serve a dinner for just ourselves or sometimes for a few friends that is made up of appetizers and hor d' oeuvres, punch and party foods to keep with the spirit of the occasion.

Halloween or Samhain, whatever you call it, is a sacred holiday. But as such, a sacred holiday does not mean it must be somber, quiet, reverent and boring or sad. It's a celebration. On one side of the coin we celebrate the loved ones who have passed on into their next life, and on the other we celebrate the life we have here. And children are the best example of life on earth that we have!

I hope you had a Happy Samhain!


Peace and Happiness



© 2010-2012 Faith M. McCann. Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. Please note that the copying and/or further distribution of this work without express written permission is prohibited. 

 If you know someone who would like my work, please send them this link. If you or they would like to be included on our daily email distribution list send me an e mail with your email address to be included. If you ever wish to unsubscribe to this blog, please contact me and you will be immediately removed from our list.