Or, spells and intention. Or, what does it really mean when I say I’m becoming a crone?
Hi Galaxy, welcome to November! I hope the shift out of Daylight Saving provided you with an extra hour that you used exactly as you wished. I used mine for sleeping, and no regrets on that.
This past Friday, I got to host one of my favorite classes: a yoga class with a Dark Wave playlist. I paired it with a little celebration of Samhain, which is a part of the pagan wheel of the year, and matches up with Halloween/All Saints Day. Over the years, I’ve started to lean more heavily into marking the year via these wheel of the year observances, and to be blunt, I’ve been leaning into my witchy side.
As someone whose ancestors hailed from Scandinavia, England, and of course, the Black Forest of Germany, it’s always felt very appropriate to ground into the cycles of nature, folk wisdom and story-telling, and to be intentional about how I connect to the natural world around me. It makes sense to me, sometimes more so than getting deep into the rituals and observances of yoga, which come from a part of the world where I don’t have any ancestors. Obviously, I can still appreciate and honor yoga philosophy and the Hinduism and Buddhism that accompanies it, but as I’ve shared before, I find the pull of Baba Yaga’s chicken-legged hut in the woods very strong.
Underpinning this longing to intentionally connect to the natural world, the seasonal shifts, and the tradition, legend and lore of my ancestors is one powerful word: intention. To me, this is the heart of what we might call witchcraft. It’s simply taking time out to notice, connect, feel, and mark one’s life and relationships with intention. On Friday night, as we gathered, we observed a few traditional Samhain customs: the dumb feast (reworked for a yoga class), placing a lit candle in the window, a few traditional altar talismans of the season, like apples and root vegetables, black candles and herbs of protection like rosemary, dirt and cider to welcome the presence of our ancestors, and a black bowl of water, to represent the black mirror that helps in divination, or scrying.
And underneath all of these talismans, the intention is clear: connecting to the wisdom of our loved ones who have passed, creating a space in our observances to allow them to be present in some way, honoring the fruits of this last harvest, embracing the coming darkness, and allowing that coming darkness to create opportunities for clear sight.
I stayed in the space after everyone left to work a few spells on my own, and enjoyed the opportunity to fill my beloved sacred Galaxy space with the energy that I was inviting in (it was all cultivating greater intuition and communication with the subtle realms). As I was scraping the last of the black wax off of the floor and tidying the space, a thought occurred to me: If you don’t take the time for it, it won’t happen.
Or, in motivational pop-speak: where the focus goes, the energy flows. It shows up in how I run the business of my yoga studio, in how I pursue my relationships, my creative goals, even my physical goals (maybe one more half marathon before the end of the year….???).
So here we are, arrived in November, and we’re actually just a few days away from the “birthday” of the studio: 11/4/22. In the past, we’ve used this month for gratitude practice, and wrapped the idea of prayer into it. I wavered as my teachers and I worked through our monthly themes for 2026, wondering whether it was boring to keep doing the same theme, year after year. For a moment, we were going to make November Cave Month (which I still sort of love, and don’t 100% understand, and got very nervous about planning an entire month of classes around… but I still included it up on our boards).
(that’s me literally the day before I opened the studio… ^^^)
The thing I want to remember and feel as I continue to shepherd this sparkly little studio through its life are those two things: gratitude and intention. And that is really what a prayer, or a spell, or a focusing mechanism is: it’s about moving through the world with a little more meaning, a little more care, with the eyes a little more open.
I don’t think I’ll ever regret expressing gratitude for “the people, animals, plants, insects, creatures of the sky and sea, air and water, fire and earth, all whose joyful exertion blesses my life every day.” (see above for the full quote from Jack Kornfield and his gratitude meditation).
And I don’t think I’ll ever regret taking time to mark the seasonal shifts, my own desires, spaces where I need help or illumination, how I am connected to spirit and nature, or all the things I want to say thank you for, with some witchy stuff, or prayer, or gratitude practice - whatever name you want to use for it.
From saying thank you to my sauna and its little sauna sprite that tends it every time I use it, to saying thank you to my brilliant and funny teaching staff who love to use the “salute” emoji when I drop a message in the group chat and help me figure out monthly themes like Cave Month, to all of you, who fill up our studio with the best, most real examples of community, care, and devotion to practice. As someone said to me yesterday after our Maha Practice together, “I love it here.” I do, too. Thank you, Galaxy. Thank you.
And speaking of witchcraft and spells, and riding on the coattails of a very triumphant Milwaukee baseball moment, might I suggest watching some vintage footage of iconic Tigers pitcher Mark “The Bird” Fidrych? He talks to the baseball, paces, and hand grooms the pitching mound in a way that kind of looks like casting a spell to me. Magic is everywhere - especially in 70’s baseball.
