What can witchcraft teach us about caring for our minds?
updated on Oct 24, 2026
What does it mean to be a modern-day green witch? And how can practising rituals that connect us to the natural world support our wellbeing? Here, author and Wiccan Priestess Rebecca Beattie invites us into her enchanting life
I often say to my students: ‘You need to give yourself permission to believe in magic’. Not the kind where a rabbit gets pulled from a stage magician’s hat, but where you see the world as enchanted and full of possibility.
I have been living as a Wiccan Priestess for more than a quarter of a century. This was a life choice I made when living in the city, and I was homesick for the rural place of my upbringing. I grew up on Dartmoor, surrounded by nature at every turn, but in my younger years, I believed that you had to live in London if you were to experience a life of excitement and adventure. How wrong I was! However, living in the city did give me some opportunities, and one of them was learning how to be magical.
What started as a life path that reconnected me to the natural world came with some fabulous side-effects. Green witches like me practise a series of seasonal celebrations known as the Wheel of the Year. You may have heard of some of our festivals (or Sabbats). From Beltane to Samhain, Midsummer Solstice to Midwinter Solstice – every six weeks, Pagans all over the world stop what we are doing and focus on what is happening in nature. Then we might get together with friends to celebrate, or we might hold a ritual to mark the occasion.
As well as helping us to see the everyday miracles in the world around us, this way of living also comes with a ‘glass half full’ mentality, as there is always something positive to see. For me, it has a really positive effect on my wellbeing, and it also gives us the opportunity to have a fresh start at things every six weeks. If you have had a tough time since the last Sabbat, great! You can start again at the next one, and give yourself a blank sheet of paper. The magic we live with doesn’t have to include bells and whistles, or a flourish of coloured handkerchiefs as it does on the stage, nor does it need to be driven by dark occult forces. It means making a conscious effort to allow for all the miraculous possibilities that life can bring, and trusting yourself to recognise what feels right for you.
Ritual is another one of the tools we can use to help us get to that point of inner quiet. For me, it serves multiple purposes in my life. It reminds us of what is sacred, helps us to find peace with aspects of our lives that we can’t control, and creates a sense of social solidarity when we do it with other people. A ritual can be something as simple as lighting a candle, or as complex as performing a more choreographed piece with friends that involves words and movement. Sometimes, in this world that is always so busy and filled with lists of ‘adulting’ tasks, we need to take a few minutes away to bewitch ourselves again.
I find that when I don’t participate in rituals on a regular basis, I feel quite destabilised and experience a loss of equilibrium. A life without ritual loses its magic for me; without enchantment the world feels dull and flat, lacking in colour and emotional depth. Reconnecting to the ritual or the sacred in your life can help you re-enchant yourself. To allow you to see what I mean, in the box on the left is one of my personal favourite ways of reminding myself that the world can be sacred: by creating a peace candle.
Whenever you feel a little discombobulated, or disconnected from yourself, take a few minutes from your routine to reconnect to your inner self. The world is full of enchantment and magic, but sometimes we can get caught in overwhelm and the busyness of modern life, and we forget to focus on the simple things that return us to a sense of wholeness and wellbeing. Just taking a few minutes out to ‘earth’ yourself can help. Try it and see! Go out into nature, plant your feet firmly on the ground, and feel the earth offering you support from beneath you. Take three deep breaths and allow your awareness to quest outwards to the magic that exists. The world of nature is always present and patiently waiting for us to return to it.
Take a plain pillar candle, in any colour of your choice. I quite like using navy blue, as it’s a colour associated with spiritual matters. If you want to go sparkly, look for a gold one, or you could just go plain if you prefer.
Hold the candle to your heart, close your eyes and really focus on connecting to a sense of magic in the world. What makes your heart sing when you go out into nature? Is it standing under a night sky full of stars, or sitting by the ocean and feeling the pull of the tides, and the smell of the salt water? Turn the intensity up on those feelings, so that they become as loud as you can make them, and focus on pouring all that lovely energy into that candle.
When you feel ready, state the intention for that candle out loud. For example: ‘I consecrate this candle for the purpose of connecting me to my sense of magic’. When you are done, finish with a simple: ‘and so it is’. Then keep the candle for those moments when you want to connect to your own magic. Light the candle, and as you do, remember that feeling that you poured into the candle, and let it re-ignite your sense of wellbeing.
Rbecca Beattie is the author of 'The Season of Frost and Fire: A Witch's Winter in 13 Rituals'(Elliott & Thompson), which is out now in hardback and ebook, £16.99.
Photography | Russell Sach
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