Wild Witchcraft

“Do not allow others to tame your craft. Do not tame it yourself out of fear that others will look down on you or reject you. Embrace your wildness. Sometimes it may alienate you from those others who dare not lose themselves in the wild.”

From Emma Kathryn



– Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith.

Do not let your witchcraft be tamed. Do not allow yourself to be tamed.

Witchcraft is my escape from the world when everything seems too much. Witchcraft is my weapon against the world, or more specifically against those who would control me or scare me or threaten me. Witchcraft is my everything. It is always there, sometimes in the background, sometimes to the fore, but it is always there.

It is my strength.

Do you ever just look at things and think ‘shit’? Look at all the doom and gloom in the world. Poverty, exploitation of people and nature. Capitalism and all of the other ism and schisms that divide people from one another and the land. What’s the point in trying to fight back? What’s the point in trying to help others against the rising tide of shit thrown at us, all of which we have no control over?

I think those things, sometimes quite often.

But I don’t give up. I just can’t. I can’t roll over and give in. Perhaps it is the fighter in me, always ready and game for a tear up, the working class woman, the council estate girl who has had to battle for everything in life. Everything I have and everything I have achieved has come about through sheer hard work, determination and will.

Sometimes in this world, it is hard to resist, to keep your witchcraft as something wild. Sometimes even other practitioners and pagans will warn you against something or other, which is fine if it is just a general feeling of wanting you to be safe, or to take care. However it is when these become overbearing and judgemental when it becomes an issue.

I cannot tell you the times I have been warned about appropriation, or told not to use flying ointments because they are dangerous, or warned to be careful I don’t violate the threefold law. And whilst such sentiments are offered with well-meaning intentions,  mostly anyway, what this really is, is someone projecting their fears, their limitations onto me. And whether they mean it to or not, such sentiments can end up taming you and your craft.


You know, I joined quite a well-known pagan group on FB, and they have thought of the day type posts. A while ago, the topic of stealing came up and how it was wrong to take things like magical items. Fair enough, you might think, and perhaps rightly so but what about the theft that occurs daily around the world. Is it not theft to pay people wages they cannot survive on?  Is it not theft to destroy forests and poison waterways for greed and profit? Is it not theft when people are displaced from the land. Are these thefts not more important? You don’t see these issues covered very often on mainstream pagan sites and when they are, people don’t really listen with an ear to truly listen to the other party and engage in meaningful debate and the sharing of ideas and opinion. Instead everybody wants to be right. We do listen, but not to understand, but instead to come back with a witty remark or some other fact or report that proves why the other is wrong.

We don’t find solutions but instead argue over the semantics. we do not take action but argue about taking action.

If we really are Pagans, as in the modern usage of the term, is not our spirituality based on nature, on the wild and acknowledging our place in that web? Of course we pagans can and do also fall into the trap of materialism, of becoming over reliant on tools and imagery and aesthetics. And it’s easy to do as our connection to what is real and truly meaningful is lessened over time.

Wild witchcraft to me speaks of the relationship between the witch and the land. The land comes before all else and everything else comes from that. You see, the land, well, everything comes from it doesn’t it? It does in my experience. It is through the land that connection with spirit begins. Hermeticism tells us that the land – earth comes before all else. The element of Earth relates to all matter, but what is it we have on our altars to represent it? Soil perhaps, or a plant, a memento from the land itself. It is through our connection to land that we build relationships with th spirits that reside there.

Find the wild where you live and honour it. Spend time in it. Just accept it for what it is. All too often in mainstream paganism the wild is tamed, made more ‘perfect’, pruned and primed. We buy crystals that, we are told, have energies that connect us to the all loving and all caring earth mother and yet where do those crystals come from? Where are they sourced? Who was it that mined them? We give honour to this god or that all the while forgetting that they are the forces of nature incarnate, that they are wild things too.

Accept nature, in all of her incarnations. When predators kill, we do not ask them not too, when the storms roll in we batten down and prepare, we don’t beg it to change course. We respect its power. And yet, we are asked to tame ourselves. Why? Why must we not use our craft in our protection, in our defence, in our attacks? Why must we polish it and groom it, make it presentable and palatable. Why must we not use it to protect nature?

We can and we will.

A witch ought never be afraid, not even in the darkest forest for she should be sure in her soul she is as wild as the forest.

Emma Kathryn


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3 thoughts on “Wild Witchcraft

  1. This inspires an interesting question” can it be theft if it is freely given, as in work for pay? One of the biggest problems with contractual ethics is that of the relative strengths of parties to enter into an agreement, It almost always favors the employer, but nevertheless, the employment contract is freely entered into by both sides, even ones that are exploitative. (I tend to look at taxes more as theft than I do wages.)


    1. It is interesting isn’t it? I don’t consider a fair days wages for a fair days work as theft, but all too often that always isn’t the case. Zero hours contracts are one way of exploiting labour, and there are many others. And yes, I too see tax as theft, especially when you consider how tax works. Our wages are taxed before we even get them, and then everything else is too, our shopping is taxed, vehicle tax, income tax etc and so on, and then even after all of that, if you do some how manage to save a bit of money, then that;s taxed too.

      Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.


  2. This. These very thoughts are at the heart and core of my every waking thought, as of late. I read this nodding in agreement the entire length of the blog. Yes, sister. So much yes.

    I’ve never been very good at putting my beliefs and practices in a neat and tidy box and slapping a label on it. It goes against my every fiber. I tried, early on, to call myself a particular singular adjective but I then soon realized, it’s just not me. I’m a mix of many paths and that’s how I thrive and stay alive. It’s just who I am and how I walk and I love every single minute of my witchy life!

    Bravo on this amazing blog. You have a new subscriber here 🙂


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