The witch’s path

It all began with a falling snowflake. A small, bright snowflake drifting slowly down from the sky, falling yet seeming to slow more and more until, at last, it almost stood still in the air. It was calling me.

Every one of us who walks, or feels drawn to walk, the path of a witch has heard the call at some point in life. Perhaps it came in a moment of stillness beneath a dark, starry sky, in a storm-tossed sea roaring at you, in the depths of a dense and shadowy forest, or simply in a breeze that seemed to guide you in the right direction. Those of us who have heard it know what I mean.

The witch’s path is the path through the forest, real and physical or imagined only in the depths of your mind, leading through colourful autumn woods towards your calling. You may find it difficult to say what that call is, where it came from, or why it was meant for you. Yet one thing you know: the call is yours. Nature is calling you.

Every true witch on this blue planet has one thing in common, regardless of their path, beliefs, books, or methods: nature has called each of us onto this path, and it is a path we want to walk.

What, then, is a witch? A witch is a person, regardless of gender, who feels a connection to the universe and nature around them, and believes that connection allows us to work with it. Whether that means honouring nature, making wishes and casting spells to bring about change, or knowing things before they happen, it all comes under one word: witch.

For thousands of years, people have tried to confine witches within particular genders, labels, backgrounds, words, or books, but we have always been here. We are a remnant of humanity’s earliest spiritual paths, from a time when the animal now called human lived more closely connected to its surroundings and the universe.

There have always been witches. We have been the village healers, the tribal shamans, the eccentric old women and men who were feared but still sought out for advice. We are among the last village eccentrics who can see through the endless rush of this world to the stillness that so many have forgotten.

We have not disappeared. We are still here. Challenge us. Laugh us away, burn us at your stakes, deny our beliefs with science and facts, and still we are here, because we have always been here. We change our names, ages, places, and ways, but we will always be here. We are witches.

Human beings love nothing more than putting things into categories, because apparently it is almost criminally difficult to let things simply be. So here is the common practical definition of a witch: one that says a great deal and very little indeed.

A witch is a person believed to possess magical powers who practises magic, divination, and the summoning of spirits. Historically, witches have been associated with folklore, mythology, and religious traditions. Today, the term can also refer to people who practise modern paganism and other nature-based spiritual paths.

Rather dull, isn’t it? The Finnish songwriter Juice Leskinen sang in his song Kylähullu about a world where everyone is made alike, people are sorted into boxes, and anything that fails to meet a standard is forced into a ready-made category. Witchcraft and paganism have been treated this way for centuries.

We can measure the exact distance between anyone’s eyes, but it tells us nothing about what they see through those eyes. We can classify the visual information travelling between the eye and the object before it, but it tells us nothing about how the viewer feels about what they see. We can scan a human brain and build artificial intelligence models that simulate emotion, and still learn nothing certain about what that person’s experiences mean to them.

Neither witchcraft nor witches, nor nature and its energy, can be reduced to categories. Neither we nor our paths can be defined that way, and we should not even try. We are witches. We practise witchcraft. That should be enough.

The greatest journeys always begin with small steps. Do you feel the call of nature? Do you feel something in the universe calling you away from a world of ceaselessly turning wheels of concrete and towards the peace and connection you find in nature? Congratulations. You are one step closer to a truth about the world.

Feeling the powerful call of nature and the world does not necessarily mean you are a witch, or that you should call yourself one. It means you have a little more sense, and are a little closer to nature, than many who rush through this hectic world without even seeing their true selves in the mirror.

What distinguishes witches and those who practise witchcraft from other wanderers in nature is the way they work with nature and the universe: they accept that they are part of it, and that our world is more than the sum of its electrons. We witches seek to meet the universe through our hearts and souls.

The starting point of witchcraft is accepting your infinitely small place in the universe and understanding that you are only a tiny, almost insignificant drop. Not merely among people, technology, concrete, and steel, but in the midst of everything. The next step is accepting that you are part of nature and the universe, just as the mosquito, the leaf, and the wind are. No greater. No lesser.

When someone accepts their place and understands they are only one ash leaf among countless others, the journey has begun.

This journey includes learning to listen through the heart and soul. You must discover, along your own path and in your own way, how to hear the whispers of nature and spirits, how to feel the touch of time and place, and how to accept that nature and the universe will treat you as you treat them. Show respect, and you may be met with respect.

There are no instruction manuals, rigid patterns, or prescribed methods in genuine witchcraft. You learn by doing and exploring. You can draw inspiration from old ways and from the paths of others, but a true witch discovers their own path and practices, whether by following other footsteps until their own steps grow steady and brave, or by gathering pieces from here and there to form their own witchcraft.

Where, then, can a hesitant foot find tracks to follow? Take your first step here: go out into nature and listen. Accept that you are part of the universe. When you feel its touch, do not be afraid to speak to nature, or to ask for things nature itself can do. Remember: your wish may blow a falling snowflake towards a particular place, but it cannot force the snowflake to land where you choose.

I practise, therefore I am. This is the deepest definition of witchcraft. Practising witchcraft makes me a witch, but what does that actually involve? Put plainly, the practice can be divided into three parts that need not be balanced equally: Näkijä, Kokija, Tekijä — seeing, living, and doing.

Näkijä

A Näkijä, or seer, is someone who, in some way, senses or knows things beyond ordinary perception. It may be through physical sight, interpreting omens and future events, knowing things without direct contact, or sensing what most people cannot see, smell, hear, or experience.

The seer may sense the energy of people or places, see the future, know events before they happen, encounter spirits or supernatural beings of nature, or possess other senses and skills beyond ordinary reach. My grandmother called such things etijäiset, forewarnings of what lies ahead. I call it seeing.

Kokija

A Kokija, the one who lives and experiences, knows how to meet nature and the universe as they meet themselves. Nearly every witch is an experiencer before anything else: they feel the pulse of the universe, the breath of nature, and the touch of the energy all around us.

Depending on the individual, this may mean little more than brushing the surface of the universe or sinking completely into it. One person may be a shaman shouting in trance; another may sit quietly in a corner; another may lie naked in the grass, laughing. Every experience is individual, and every person lives it in their own way.

Tekijä

A Tekijä is the one who acts: the active practice of witchcraft. They may write a wish as a spell on paper, fold it, and burn it in the hearth. They may draw runes in the earth with a knife to bring about an outcome or offer protection. They may speak wishes to spirits, the folk of the earth, or gods of nature, or cast spells alone by candlelight in a dark room.

The most important thing about doing is that the witch is not bound to one particular method or pattern. Each of us finds the way of making spells, expressing wishes, and carrying out our work that feels most fitting and natural. Do not limit yourself. Be free.