This is something that I've been thinking about today as I reflect on some of the ways that religions evolved differently. When I think about Christianity, I think of two very different worlds. I was raised Greek Orthodox, and that is a very ceremonial Christian religion. There's a lot of things about it that are carried over directly from our pagan ancestors. Catholicism too maintains these ceremonial expectations, as does Judaism and Islam.

Whereas, most people that practice Christianity in the United States are practicing something that is coming out of a non-denominational, or otherwise Protestant, Puritan foundation. And those things are less ceremonial by design. They were a rejection of the ceremonial, in their rejection of the Catholic Church in Europe.

It's ironic because many people come to earth-based spiritual paths to reject their Abrahamic upbringings. And unpacking that baggage of programming can be lifelong.

Perhaps our disdain for ceremony, to paint our diverse community with a broad brush, is yet one more thing to deconstruct.

Ceremonial magic, or to use the outdated term, “high magic”, was all there was in the 19th and most of the 20th centuries. It is quietly disappearing from modern priest/ess/ex paths, and while all things ebb and flow, I find this interesting in light of where we do and do not see ceremony in mainstream religions.

Pageantry, matching robes, sensuous smells, beautiful adornments… these are all purposeful when done in sacred ceremony. Our ancestors in the ancient world held in high regard these sacred tools of connection. Ceremonial magic is sacred theater, an important part of all ancient mysteries.

And so I wonder, if you're a witch or a polytheist or a pagan and you have a magical practice or an altar that you show up at, do you find yourself resisting ceremonial aspects or even negging the idea of aesthetic-based witchcraft?

I know I definitely have in the past. In the Magick Kitchen Podcast, I know that Leandra and I have many episodes where we talk about the importance of doing the magic even though it's not beautiful and de-aestheticizing our craft.

I have championed and empowered people to remove the pressure of perfection and get on with doing the magic. I still stand by that: if you aren’t doing any rituals because it’s overwhelming to place these ceremonial aspects on it, or because it’s not “pretty enough” for the standard you’re seeing online, that’s bad. Get to the altar, get to the land, and reach out. Wear what’s comfortable, use what you have.

Getting out of your way to simply practice our practice is definitely important, but what do we really lose when we reject ceremony completely?

If have a regular practice and you’re consistently rejecting ceremony, ask yourself why.

I think part of the “why” in the decline in ceremonial magic is some of the associations with patriarchy - it recalls Crowley and illicit acts of those Victorian early occultists, or might make you feel a bit culty.

Ceremonial rituals are also harder, requiring planning.

and doing one alone is, well, lonely — it can definitely be argued that ceremonial magic’s biggest impact is in group ritual.

But when we return to the roots of ceremony, of intentionality of beauty?

We recognize ceremony is an extension of manifestation — it allows us to embody what we are calling in and honor those energies by making your ritual a beautiful offering to behold when the gods arrive.

I’d love your thoughts on this, please comment or share with your thoughts to join the conversation.

I realized the anxiety won’t help. The fear doesn’t end the flames. But grieving with the land, consulting the weather spirits, and participating in the moment will. The fire stopped that day, and the protections I leave on the land, I like to believe, to keep the fires from harming my home when I am away.

Although Lammas/Lughnasadh and the first harvest is a time of fire, it is not literal — it is a time of literal heat, when cicada wings beating remind us to stop and remember. Remember that these fires are not normal, neither are the floods on the east coast of the US I will be seeing soon as I prepare for the autumn festivals in the US.

These extremes are not acceptable, and if we are practitioners of earth based spiritual path we cannot look away or go on as we had.

In the age of Aquarius, we must come together in community with love and find new ways of honoring the flame as it seeks to consume the illness our species is causing on Our Mother’s body.

These fires are a fever. We can be the medicine.

Here are three ways to celebrate Lammas without live fire, while still working with the fire spirits:

1. Call in the rain (if that is part of your climate). If rain was called into Greece right now, in any real quantity, it would get in the way of efforts to lift waters from the sea and evacuations from affected fire zones and more importantly, cause flooding as we saw last year. Please know your climate when doing weather magic.

2. Ask the winds to calm, as this is what spreads the fires.

3. Ask the fire spirits to quell and release.

Listen to Nature's Wrath: Putting Nature First on the Magick Kitchen Podcast for more on this and solutions you can be a part of: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4BBT4YQ1KYJhPgVGBEQ9D4?si=ksbGrZjvRLu1sCRLUZmDHA&utm_source=copy-link

And most importantly: be aware of how your every day choices contribute or detract from the climate changes that are making these fires and floods a reality, worse every year.

1. Stop using paper towels as the default for drying your hands when washable towels are much more responsible.

2. Replace toilet paper with bamboo toilet paper or use a bidet when possible to minimize use.

3. Shop less, it minimizes mileage of fossil fuel usage every time we don't buy something because it tells companies to order less and less of that item. And the plastic waste alone...

If you are here to love the earth, especially if it is your foundational spiritual belief, please: be conscious. Pause before acting. Make space in your life to do the things the earth needs. And make your rituals to the earth conscious and with her health, in the grounded moments we live in, at the top of your priorities.

Join my newsletter at elysewelles.com where next Monday, you will receive a free ritual you can do for quelling and calming the wildfires, and information on how to help Greece as she heals from the burns once again scarring her body.

Personally I have a lot of mixed feelings about space travel. It is expensive, polluting, and quite frankly hubris in many ways. As a native Greek priestess devoted to the earth temple arts, it is the earth I will always call home. I do not condone colonizing our moon. She is autonomous, and more important than we may ever comprehend. And we do not need to comprehend in logic, for she gives us everything we need in ecstatic connection, quiet meditation, and everything in between.

Never forget: the moon is our guide. For our waters, and therefore, our lives. Today, a person who menstruates with the cycle so similar to that of the moon will, for the first time, be in contact with the Moon herself.

The divination I received at both temples?

“Be aware of what you shepherd.”

What do you tend with your time and energy? Who and what is in your flock?

And are you simply guiding them, or, as should always be the case, is their reciprocity?

What does reciprocity look like for you in the ways you’re giving of your time and energy?

Life on the moon, in space, on earth, will be the same for all humans, every time, until we stop giving away our agency. Until we choose to shepherd our own growth alongside that of those we love.

The goddesses of the moon have this message for you today: be your own shepherd. And demand reciprocity from those whom you are here to shepherd.

2014: When I was SA’d in college (USA), the real anger that took longest to heal was not at the perpetrator. It wasn’t the anger I had at myself for my reaction in the moment (I thought at the time this would be hardest to heal.) I even healed the sister wounds I had at my immature roommates who didn’t rise to support me.

What I will never forgive is the adults in authority at that school who, even after a:

• 22-victim-strong lawsuit

• going back six years (at least 8 of us would have been spared if they had successfully removed him when this all began btw)

• on a single serial predator who was “a student” in his late 20s taking half credit courses to allow him to be on campus

• We had the same law team who prosecuted Penn State horrors of SA

• Several of us were honors college students with perfect records (I graduated summa cum laude)

In the end our result was he “had to live off campus” — our campus was in a town and his apartment technically counted. He didn’t even have to move. He was not expelled.

I lost six months of my life to this case. I had to recount this story of what happened to 5 different men in suits and uniforms. Answer questions of what I was wearing and why I was there a million times. I did it all because I thought it would lead to justice. I thought I could spare more girls.

I knew nothing would happen with the files because the victims have been telling us for years, over a decade, and it hasn’t mattered.

Self-implication apparently doesn’t matter. And I knew the files would confirm vixtim stories, but even with all I’ve lived through and seen, I did not think they’d be this nonchalant about their inhumanity. “Sent from my iPhone”? The spacing and grammar? The direct names used? Gmail??? But then I remembered. They knew there was never a chance at prosecution because they are the men in suits and uniforms. They are the system, always have been.

My real anger is at the Dems who claim to be different. The court justices who claim to be above personal gains and disputes. The media who stay silent or spew lies. It is painful and angering at a soul level that the highest law of the land is apparently the uber wealthy/generationally powerful eating and SAing women and children.

The divine feminine is so, so wounded in western culture.

A culture built with patriarchal force. What folks are learning about is the ultimate expression of that energy; the egregore of patriarchy in final form. They are seeing the wizard behind the curtain for the first time.

This isn’t surprising. This IS patriarchy. Ask any person of color. Ask any SA survivor who has tried to get justice.

To my fellow SA survivors, I see you. I am lighting a candle for you as I press post. And under the full moon, I screamed feral across the frozen river for you. Remember that the Wild feminine within us is our power, that’s why they seek to control us, to belittle us, to shame us and ignore us. But Our Sacred Wild will show us the way through.

Medusa, goddess of SA survivors, and Nemesis, goddess of retribution who punishes hubris, are the guides of this moment.

Goddesses of change, anger made action.

anger is key in this fight.

Anger is the emotion of change.

Feel it. Use it.

I am also channeling the wisdom of my ancestors, the maenads of Arcadia. I encourage you to do the same. Feral. Loud. Gathering in sisterhood in the woods. Stripping naked to sob with abandon. And then getting dressed and walking calmly into rooms and conversations that will change the world.

Because we are changing the world. Like the dark goddesses that guide the oppressed, we are both Creatrix and Destroyer. It will get worse before it gets better. But it is going to get better. If we stay awake and fighting. And in that fight? We find sisterhood, strength, and personal empowerment.

If the thousands of victims teaches anything positive it’s that we are legion.

PS.

I have experienced and seen horrific things. For my safety I don’t share details publicly, but I’ll leave it at I grew up partially in the Middle East during the Arab spring. I am considering talking to a lawyer about my rights to share more because I think it could help a lot of people understand the moment we’re in if I do. But for now, suffice it to say why radicalized me WAS knowing it was people in power who enable these things.

PPS.

The girl a year ahead of me at school who spearheaded the lawsuit is now a conservative journalist. She was so broken by the system she is trying to hide within it. She was at Jan 6 and everything. I hope she will come back to the side of the victims now and use her press for good.

As a priestess of Inanna it was natural for her to direct me to be here more and more, and it has been a hard adjustment (especially the food… and advertising… and decision fatigue at the grocery store because of the advertising… but I digress).

In spending more than half the year in the US, I’ve had the good fortune to teach nearly half a million people. I’ve spent time with my community in person. And I’ve found chosen family I never knew I could have.

These big personal posts make my Pisces moon squirm. But the shadow work I’m doing keeps reminding me that I can’t just move on to the next thing without celebrating the incredible successes of this past year.

2025 is the year I became a bestselling author. A lifelong dream achieved. I’m still in shock every time I remember.

2025 has also been one of the most challenging years of my life — I crossed a threshold this year that I’m still feeling the shockwaves from. I’ll tell those stories someday. But in equal measure, my reward for staying true to my course despite obstacles of unforeseen pain and difficulty was an exponential soar in my clarity of purpose.

In 2025, my top 3 things I truly never thought would happen, happened:

- I became a bestselling author for ‘Sacred Wild: An Invitation to Connect with Land Spirits’, my debut with @llewellynbooks, an absolute dream come true publisher for me.

- I hit my goal measurements (I don’t own a scale but I hopped on a friend’s and estimates are in at 85 pounds lost since spring of 2023!)

- I started my coven, a 3 year journey beyond initiation to be in the right place

It has been painful to be here in the US so much of the year, but it is an honor to serve this country’s people in her greatest hour of need.

In 2026, I want to be a part of bringing more enchantment with the natural world to all people I encounter. I want everyone to wake up to the land spirits’ love of us, to the fact that we belong here on earth. May 2026 be the year more people than ever seek right relationship with land as our ancestors always did.

And in 2026, something I’ll be whistleblowing more on is how important it is to rise up and stand for what we love. Notice I didn’t say to stand up for “what we believe in”, because that might be fluid. I’m always ready to change my mind. But what will not change is the compass love guides me by. Love of chosen family, community, god and goddess, and land is forever. Let’s fight for it together this year, with joy and enchantment as our guides.

In gratitude,

Elyse

Rituals of simple connection with nature — with no goal of clarity or self improvement, but simply being present — cannot be understated.

Too often we get distracted by this world’s myth of progress on our spiritual journeys, feeling we must always be growing or changing to be doing it “right”. But connection is the goal of earth-based spirituality. Connection that reconnects us to oneness. This is the path of the oracles, of the priestesses who slept beneath the great oaks and in firelit caves. Of my ancestors, the Melissae and maenads. It is what I call the Path of the Sacred Wild: to be in nature, and remember we are of nature.

It is a Sunday afternoon and though it is winter, the weather is warm and sunny so I am logically wary to do the ritual on the main path. But I feel a steady resolve to answer the whim of this holly tree. She presents as perfect balance: two perfectly even trunks conjoined at the base, growing upward, completely vertical. I am resting now beneath her boughs, on a much decayed, moss covered log. This trail lies at the liminal point between the Susquehanna River at her end, and a protected forest. This is the hedge at which I find my deepest connection to inspiration — or as the Druid names it, the Awen. This inspiration is the voice of Gaia, the knowing of the priestess. It is how the oracles knew what to say. It is the gift of walking the Path of the Sacred Wild.

I was drawn down closer to the rivers edge where normally the river flows into a creek. But today, after snow and rain for many days prior, a new creek had formed flowing into the river. I marveled at this forward and backward motion of one river. How can we move both forward and back at the same time? 1,000,000 metaphors ran through my mind.

As I inspected this new formed temporary creek, soaking in its liminal magic as a place both there and not there, I saw a shiny white quartz, waiting for me at the bottom. The Susquehanna river carries lots of quartz, and here at her end point it is not uncommon to find beautiful specimens with ease. But this is one of the best pieces I have been given by the land in recent memory. I knew it was exactly the stone to use for my ritual.

I placed the stone in the gap between the trunk (see photo above) where it diverged, and this became the center of my sacred circle. The river flows due south and to the east of town, and as I called peace and healing in each direction, I really felt the river as nexus.

The river forms the land as it flows, reshaping her borders, transforming every day the world of countless insects, birds, animals, and plants.

I felt this deep connection to river as the earth’s circulatory system. When I drop in to connection with land spirits, as I did then in ritual, this is the presence I feel meeting me: this connection to all, to oneness.

All of the allies in the earth temple arts that I’ve come to dedicate my life to sought this oneness, too. The mountains formed the caves, the rivers form the land, the glaciers move the stones. Oneness is also stillness, solidity, and the extensions of these concepts: solidity reminds us to be dedicated. The Earth is constant, calling us into constancy. This causes us to lead with love. Recalling dedication again, it guides us towards loyalty, and this loyalty leads us to grounding. Back to stillness, and on towards silence. Silence gives us pause, and pause begets peace.

But even in this peace and stillness comes another kind of pause: death.

The Earth is also the cthonic, the underground, the underworld. Rivers do flow beneath the Earth and through it — she is not flat but round. Complete. Perfect. This cthonic realm, through which we are guided by psychopomps like the Morrigan, the heron, Hekate, or Hermes. This is the realm of earth in its dark depths where life first begins to seed. Winter’s restive darkness.

For the Earth is also abundance. It is fertility, prosperity, oneness. It reminds us that through oneness, we find abundance: we call the right people and opportunities towards us with ease when we live in the space of oneness. The space of love and constancy. The space with enough stillness to hear what comes next.

And the Earth in its oneness offers us even more connection to its direct energy. The land spirits live along these lines of power, these dragons of earth and water and air that flow around beneath above and through each of us. We can grid work places with one another by traveling to ancestral landscapes and sacred sites. We are one with all of it, and it’s you who needs to remember: the land already does.

Although I sit in the dead of winter at the edge of a North American river, I am reminded of the stillness in Greece of the springs gently flowing in the summer and flowing faster in winter and early spring.

I’ve done much grid working between these two places and I begin to feel the effects of it in contemplation of all that earth is. Of what it means to be an earth priestess. Of what it means to walk the Path of the Sacred Wild. To do so as a Druid, a witch, a native Greek priestess. Like the Earth, I am multitudes. Like all spirit, I suppose.

It is in this I find solidity. It is in these multitudes that I find strength and grounding. And from this place of deep connection within that, I send healing and love to the Holly, to Mama Susquehanna, and to all of you in this holiday season.

I wish you grounded connection and peace this Yule, and may your oneness with this earth guide you towards prosperity in the New Year.

We had an amazing turnout. The intention I set for this festival was to give everyone who came a clear direction for their path. For participants to shed grief through expression, for every person walking this festival to feel grounded and supported by the land spirits and the Beloved Dead we called in to be with us in this important season, and to wake up refreshed the next day — and hopefully many days after.

The activities were powerful. I opened the ceremony with a ritual consecrating the ancestor altar. I led everyone in a guided ancestor journey, and in the evening I hosted dumb suppers, a silent meal shared with our loved ones.

Spiral Sojourn Sanctuary, one of our sponsors, is led by my High Priestess in the eclectic Faery Tradition, who invited participants to tie clooties to a clootie tree she then ritually added to our covenstead’s sanctuary clootie.

One of my coven members, Lesli Corbin of Quantum Journeys, also sponsored the event, and led a group past life regression that yielded mindblowing connections and depth for participants. We also had coven members volunteering and making this festival run smoothly on the day of. One of the highlights for me was meeting new volunteers, and we even had a proposal!! Between two of our volunteers who drove up from DC!

Megan Plummer of Mystic Fox Productions gave a talk on ethical ghost hunting, and Leandra Witchwood, my cohost for the Magick Kitchen Podcast, was there with a Witchwood Teahouse pop-up hosting a tea ceremony circle. Our other sponsor was KarmaFest, a local community spearheaded by Patti Hawse who has been a staple in Harford County, Maryland for KarmaFest festivals for over 20 years. And we had vendors from as far north as Canada driving and flying in to be a part of this magical day.

Vendors, live music, food trucks — it was a magical day of expansion for all. I had so much positive feedback from attendees and community members who said this was exactly what they needed. That they felt rejuvenated knowing so much community is out there. I even had two different people echo back to me my original intention for this festival: “I know exactly what I need to do to move forward in my path.”

An event with this much presence, publicity, and magick drew attention: including the attention of the local Christian community.

From the moment we began set up at 10am, people in “Make America Pray Again” hats began organizing at the entrances. Megan and I dispelled this first group, who to their credit backed off and didn’t return that we saw. Megan was gracious enough to pray with them, and I think they left with their minds open just a little bit more to the importance of remembering our Beloved Dead.

But three more times that day we would have protestors trying to sneak into the venue. Some were young kids with Jesus sweatshirts on, sporting patriarchal language I have to say, I don’t think Jesus wouldn’t love: “Jesus is King”. One of our vendors sprang into action, and actually left his canopy to go spend time with those young men in the parking lot. His big smile kept them from getting anywhere near nasty; I think they started to question why they were mad in the first place. They left with their minds open — or at least chastised enough to not return.

It bears saying that both Megan and myself have worked diligently and consistently with the land spirits at Harmer’s Town for many months to bring in the peace and grounding needed for this festival to be successful, and the land spirits showed up!

The final protestors seemed not to be able to find our venue, which wasn’t an accident. a few of our volunteers who were at the entrances lowered a protective shield around the whole venue, a glamor of “chaos” magic that would rebound or simply appear invisible to people who came with ill intent. I actually believe that the protestors might not have realized they were so far from the venue! The shield was extremely effective. They ended up at a corner so far from the festival, I didn’t even know they were still there without a volunteer walking up to check.

The best part? The participants were unfazed. The workshops and presentations continued unerringly. Lifelong friendships were formed. And the festival could only have gone better if even more people could have shared in the magick. I was so humbled by this beauty, this perfect love and perfect trust that are rthe foundations of my own spiritual path really rose to protect us.

Some people who noticed the protestors were understandably worried. We live in dangerous times to be on the margins of social convention. But remember that margins are liminal spaces, and our magick is strongest there. I had rage at the first group. Annoyance at the second. And by the third, I was too happy and fulfilled at the power and magick of this festival to feel anything at all.

The protestors failed. They will always fail, because like a certain New York Mayor said this week, “to get to us, you’ll have to get through all of us.” And at Samhainfest, there were many, many more witches than protestors. The strength in community is real.

To those protestors, I would say this: you have your community and I am happy for you. Let us have ours. And ok, maybe I’d add this too: I’ve studied Jesus in my masters degree coursework, and I grew up with his teachings in the Orthodox Church. He was a mystic. He brought Lazarus back from the dead, he channeled wisdom from god to the people. And in the Orthodox Church, important memorial services with roots much older than Christian times are still held.

Christians in America have forgotten so many of the core tenants of their own religion are so much older and more magical than they’re presented. This is by design: all the parts that empower you to find your own peace have been deleted and replaced with tithing and outsourcing your healing to pastors who tell you, “you can’t do that without this church.” Your spiritual path, regardless of what it is, should empower you to remember your dead, and through that remembering of where you came from, remember your power, too. That is the core of Samhain’s message (All Hallows is a Christian holiday, after all.)

And I’m an optimist. Maybe next year they’ll choose to join us as active participants instead.

So I thought to move to the center of the yard where we ended up putting our firepit, but it doesn’t feel like my own space since that’s where we socialize with our friends.

But tonight, without planning it myself, I found myself doing ritual in the dead center of our property. It’s an exposed place, even with the 4 sides of walled fence around me. It’s not somewhere I would expect myself to want to do ritual, and yet it was where I knew I was meant to stand.

Last night, I had a rare thing happen for me: I remembered a dream. It was a really important dream because although I knew I was on the astral plane, I was at my own house outside with Inanna. She’s my patron goddess, and she guides me often. But this was the first time I was given a direct ritual in clear instructions. She guided me to that watery area behind the shed, where I had sought to put my land Spirit altar originally, and showed me quartz stones. I recognized them as stones we found on the property since moving in. We selected four of them, one for each border corner of our home, which happened to fall at the cross quarters of each element.

We gathered them in the center, blessed them, and then buried them in each of the four corners. When I woke up, I knew I was meant to do it, and as a second confirmation, a Coven member asked about ways to subtly protect your home. I shared the spell, and now, although our Coven doesn’t meet for full moons in person, we can each be warding our spaces together.

So tonight when it was time to do this ritual, I realized I had to do it where I had to do it. It wasn’t about where I wanted to do it or where I thought was the most comfortable place. It was where it needed to happen that it happened. And don’t worry, I was still within the redbud grove.

I selected the stones and aligned them with my husband, one in each cardinal direction. For an altar plate, I used a grey, round steppingstone adorned with carvings of dolphins that was on the property before we purchased it. A stone that has absorbed so much of life energy in this home and on this land, and a stone that has the symbol of Apollo Delphinos, the dolphin. This is the Apollo for which Delphi is named. Delphi, the sacred place where I spend so much of my time.

Dolphins are a omen of guidance, self-love, creativity, and healing.

I could never have planned this - this stone was the nearest thing to me when I needed to place my candle on something flat. The land speaks in a direct yet unexpected manner.

I called the quarters and read the charge of the goddess aloud, and particularly noticed which lines stood out to me as the message I needed to hear today.

I blessed the stones and placed them in their corners to bathe in full moon light before being buried in the morning.

I sit outside watching the last of the candle burn down, basking in the moonlight as crickets hold vigil around me. I can feel the land holding me up.

To feel the allyship with moon and land, fire, water and air... to know the love of a goddess... it is a gift of being that makes me understand why we incarnate in the first place. To learn oneness with all of it. To live by making our dreams reality.

I remember reading an article in 2020 about how every person on the planet would have it by the end of the decade, and I never fathomed how true that could be. This is my third time with this vicious disease, and each time it seems to last longer. I have friends with long COVID, and I've seen what it does, and so each time I get scared: will that be me?

This fear aside though, there is a dark quality to the mindset COVID brings with it that I don't think people talk about often enough. For this whole past week, I was flattened. Only through banal sitcom humor could I find distraction, and in simple, light reading.

As an industrious person (writers, I feel like we all get this...) it is hard to feel useless. Productivity has become so tied to my sense of self. Writing an article, letting my hands soar across my keyboard, is how I imagine many people feel about drugs -- electrifying, activating. I find myself in the words that flow out of me.

I feel the power of my purpose on this earth when I'm teaching, leading circles, facilitating pathworkings... this is the only high that matches writing, and often surpasses it.

And podcast recording: conversations with friends, elders, respected authors, and all the new friends I've made along the way is the same feeling. So inspiring for every cell in my body. It is everything to me to do these things.

To be unable to do any of the above without severe exhaustion was a blow to my sense of self. I don't think we often talk about how painful it is to have our abilities ripped away. My heart always goes out to the disabled and chronically ill (my best friend has been all but claimed by chronic illness) and those with long COVID and other onset chronic illnesses. In times like these I particularly feel the acuteness of what it must be like for you, reader, if you suffer from chronic illness. I see you, and I send love and healing to you.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman comes to mind. All she wanted was to write, and the doctors and her husband (symbols for the patriarchy at large) took all of her creativity away in the name of "her health" being more important. COVID feels this way to me: it's an expression of the patriarchy, a disease of mysterious power that only mutates, never going away but simply changing form.

The first fews days of the sickness, I had a fever of 104.

My mind was literally not right - I barely remember what I was doing. Crawling out of my nest on the couch to climb up to my attic office to teach my online class was one of the physically hardest experiences of my life.

The class itself went well, my energy temporarily lifted by the love I have for my students and the meditations and exercises I was teaching, but the shakiness, the back pain, the brain fog... it was a little harrowing to feel so weak and out of control of my body's health.

I'm a witch: I am experienced in feeling energy and knowing how to manipulate it. Halfway through that first horrible day, I mustered up the strength to go outside, sit in the sun, and pull in healing. My fever made my skin ache, so I couldn't drum; but my hands could rest palmside up in the sun. Turning my palms down to the earth, barefeet on the soft grass, I let the earth connect to my spirit. Turning my palms back up, I drew in the golden, healing light of the sun.

The magick didn't help. My skin still hurt, the sun, though warm and reminding me that there is a world beyond this sickness, didn't remove my pain. I had no energy for a bigger healing spell - crawling back up to the attic, where my ritual space and supplies are, felt impossible.

The next day, I tried another tack. At my kitchen altar, usually reserved for community workings and kitchen magic, I do have a candle I send healing to others through. I had my husband bring it to me, my arms literally too weak to reach it on the fireplace mantle, and laid on the couch. I placed the candle on the table, lighting it to summon healing towards me. Focusing on the visual of the illness leaving with every rattling exhale, and inviting golden healing within on each inhale.

But it still didn't help. Let me add that I was on all the meds -- Dayquil, Sudafed, ibuprofen, even Tylenol as well in the worst of it. I'm a believer in mind, body, and spirit all together: I was doing everything in my power, magically and medically.

And then, I started to give up. I took two days off from trying any ritual, just focusing on setting timers to take the next dose of medicine (although my body told me instantly when they ran their course, as my fever would spike and my pain would flood back.)

I tried it again a few days ago, pulling in the light of the earth from the open window by my place on the couch. The biggest respite came from a catch up Zoom call with a friend who I do body doubling writing sessions with each week. I got some writing done before crashing. But my body reminded me it is still rest that I need the most.

Now on day 10, I'm still not actually in my redbud grove. I couldn't make it that far back into the yard. This morning, from the front porch, I called on the gods - on Inanna, my patron goddess whose sassy strength is always spurring me towards my highest potential. I called my spirit guide, asking her to watch over me and keep me from overdoing it. And my intuition wanted me to call on Hermes, for health and swift recovery. I think it also had to do with the fact that this weekend, I travel to TempleFest for the first time, and as the god who oversees safe travel, I wanted him to see me through to this important destination.

After I called in the gods, it was time to pull up healing energy from the earth itself. I had no candles or fancy ritual tools, not even incense: just me, my drive to heal, and the atmosphere of our street.

I was starting to feel fake doing this, to no avail, even 10 days later. Why do I keep showing up? I found myself questioning magic this week. Is it real? Is it really something that's supporting me? Is it in my head?

I've been a witch with deep, conscious study for 13 years. I studied witchcraft for my masters degree. My animist practices go back to early childhood. I made tarot cards with my "imaginary friend", my spirit guide, when my mom didn't even know what they were. I told the adults "I want to pull my medicine cart around like I used to" when they asked me what I want to be when I grow up. The ghosts in my bedroom grew to be a comfort as I grew up, never a threat. My grandmother still guides me from the other side.

But I still question magic. I still have moments of doubt. They are fewer and further between: their roots are always shallow. But the doubts still get planted.

When the magic doesn't work (or at least, we can't perceive it working) it is a blow to our psyche: the mind can't process it. I've felt like a child this whole ten days, screaming "this isn't fair" after each spell for healing went no where.

8/29/26 - TempleFest begins

I barely slept last night. Although the fever is gone, even without medication, my voice is gone, too. I had to cancel a podcast interview for the first time in my career this week. But I am not positive for COVID, and my cough is kept at bay by Dayquil and cough drops. Did the rituals finally work? Or is my body doing all the work?

Leandra Witchwood, my cohost for the Magick Kitchen Podcast, drove us up to TempleFest. She was preparing to share two workshops at the festival, and I was doing my healing work with my palms and the earth at every rest stop. This time, something felt different. As we drew nearer and nearer to the festival grounds, a 6 hour drive, I felt better and better.

We arrived, due to traffic, just as the opening ritual was ending. I felt like I was in a twilight sleep - saying hi to friends old and new, moving in our bags. I could barely load my bags into the car when we set off, and yet now I was comfortably helping others with their bags. I didn't need a cough drop, and the next day, I would forget my afternoon Dayquil to no side effects. I felt renewed. My voice, still a bit less clear than usual, was mostly back.

What was different?

I choose to believe it was magic. The magic of the sisterhood Leandra and I shared on the drive. The spell that is a sacred container created by the Temple of Witchcraft at TempleFest. The ritual that is choosing magick over the mundane.

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Because through all of this illness, I had one real magickal goal: make it to TempleFest. Be healed by TempleFest.

When I signed up for TempleFest back in April, it was the first thing I did when I learned I'd be in the US in August. Leandra had the time of her life last year at that festival, and I wanted so badly to be able to go. I didn't submit talks as I wasn't sure I could commit back when those deadlines originally went out; so I was eager and excited to participate fully at this new environment with many of my friends and favorite teachers.

I smirked to myself in the mirror as I energetically put on my Aphrodite-blessed lip balm, a glamour magick practice I began with her almost five years ago.

I think the magick was working all along.

You see, I wanted to heal, to feel better. But my goals were bigger than healing just for the sake of it. I needed to be healed by TempleFest.

And to that, the goddess said: so mote it be. I was fully healed and energized by TempleFest - because of it, and, I believe, because of the two weeks of work I did to be healed and healthy.

Sometimes the magick is working just fine, even when we forgot the real intention behind the spell. The healing was so much bigger than just my momentary needs: the deeper, more important need for healing - getting to participate in this incredible festival - is where the magick went.

And the healing, of course, was only aided by the pure magic of connection, ritual, and workshops of TempleFest.

Magick is intelligent. It sometimes knows more clearly what we need than we do - it hears the underlying truths in our intention before we even realize them. The land, my guides, my goddesses and gods did not let me down. They facilitated the healing I truly needed to show up 100% at TempleFest, a weekend that would prove formative, necessary, and a timeline-shifting masterpiece of perfect love and perfect trust (more to come on TempleFest for sure.)

Magick is partnership. It is reciprocity with our guides and the energy we manipulate. As witches, there is such a deep need for perfect love and perfect trust - not "perfect" as in flawless, but perfect as in complete. That level of "complete" will be different every day, but if you show up in your fullness, whatever that may be, it will always be perfect.

So next time you're afraid the magick isn't working, let the doubt come in. But be ready to smirk it off again when you see the way it works out in your favor later.

Today I sit beside the labyrinth at camp Ramblewood, where the birds are singing joyfully, and the crickets are still creaking in the shadows of the forest behind me.

In 30 minutes time, I will lead a ritual for the land spirits here. I arrived early to community with the spirits and invite their permission to connect. I offered oats, and drummed the path of the labyrinth in channel communication with the land.

As I came to the end of the labyrinth where I would then stand for the workshop to guide participants in a meditation to feel her energy, I asked for a sign that these wishes were received.

When I sat down to have a spot of carbs and sugar before beginning (cherry pomegranate pastry I brought, oddly fitting as I type this), a red spider began crawling the perimeter of my drum. It felt like it was cleansing it, blessing it. As it finished its circle, I began to feel droplets of water.

But it wasn't raining.

The trees were offering their water, stored on their branches and leaves from the night before, as a reminder that all the elements are present here. Funnily enough, as I drummed through the labyrinth, even as I wrote the meditation back at home that I will read momentarily when folks arrive, I was struggling to include water. I wanted to honor all elements, but we are in a landscape that is, on the surface, waterless. But I forgot that the water is held in the heavens, that it is cradled by the trees and their leaves. And of course, it flows deep beneath us in the watershed, the watershed fed by Mama Susquehanna, who flows not 2 miles from here.

As I write these words, black walnuts are falling loudly and violently along the entrance of the labyrinth. As if to say, let's get started!

That's the funny thing about land spirits, and why I think so many people are afraid of fairies: they are very playful, and yet very powerful. So while they just wanna play, sometimes they play rougher than our frail human frames can manage to keep up with.

The rain is dropping down from the leaves once again, if I didn't know better I'd believe it was truly raining! The land is impatient for connection.

This is the truth everywhere I've been, on all four continents. I've traveled to: the land is hungry for connection. All land wants is acknowledgment — it wants to be part of the conversation.

When I consider the witches pyramid, the four tenants that form the foundation of a witch’s framework for life, they are:

To Know

To Will

To Dare

And lastly, To Keep Silent.

This is the directive of the land: to simply be. To listen. And that is when connection comes.

Land spirits are not flashy: they are not bold in the way that a day it is to come into your dreams or appear in your crying bowl. But they are there in every breeze of the wind, in every falling leaf that lands on your hands and face, on every bug and insect that lives in its tiny reality far different than ours.

When my group arrives, when we connect to the land, it will be in silence, punctuated only by the guided meditation I will voice and the beats of my drum.

It will be the voice of land that meets them first, and loudest: calling birds and creaking crickets, a symphony, a caucaphony… a labyrinth of sound.

On July's full moon in Capricorn, my husband joined me in a ritual of dedication for our very own Druid grove. And that evening, as the sun set and the fireflies danced, I self-initiated into the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids.

The story of this grove is the most Druidic story I've lived so far.

At Litha, I joined my High Priestess (HPS) and several of our covenmates to do our Green Man rites of passage at my HPS' covenstead, Spiral Sojourn Sanctuary. We are a Faery Tradition coven I lovingly caveat as eclectic Faery because we aren’t so strict on some of the deity requirements in other Faery covens.

We 'croned' our coven, meaning retired it, back in 2022, the same year I was elevated into our tradition's second and final degree. Someday I'll share more on degrees and initiations, we are a tradition of witchcraft going back over 50 years, but for now, it's important to know that Spiral Sojourn is now a nature preserve in York, PA, but the old gang gets together for Sabbats still when we can.

Being a nature preserve, many a sapling is planted each year. In their planting this year, 3 redbuds were overlooked: there were no spots left on the land for them to healthily flourish.

As I type this I realize how on brand this is for me: it is one of my most prized gifts, my proudest lights I offer the world, that I help those who feel they've been overlooked, feel seen. It is no wonder Goddess and land led these little saplings to me.

So, after a complete moon cycle on the property, drinking in the waters of the creek, basking in the sunlight, and participating in our Summer Solstice magic, I was gifted them to plant my own grove at my own covenstead.

At Spiral Sojourn Sanctuary, on the day I recieved these beautiful saplings, we made Litha flower essences, having the solstice sun bake its goodness into the water. After we had each collected the water for ourselves, we poured the rest out onto these saplings. I drove with them in my cupholders all the way home, telling them how big they'll grow and how this will be their final journey before they can set their roots in their new homes.

Where is home? If you only know me from Instagram, you've probably wondered several times where I'm actually at. I keep my physical location vague on the public facing internet, but between friends I'll tell you the truth.

After five years of living in Greece full time, my husband and I decided to make the US our homebase. I'll still spend many months a year in Greece, but for many reasons I'll share at other times, Greece isn't a place where we can fully flourish. The community is few and far between, and you'll probably know that witchcraft is illegal in Greece from my videos and articles.

I've been called to start my own coven and put down my roots somewhere safe. Maryland, particularly Havre de Grace, is that place. It called me here for years, and divine timing saw to it that we closed on our house the exact day my Saturn return began its transit home. It was truly fated.

Back to the redbuds.

I brought them home, and my husband, Brooks, in all his wisdom, planted them with me that night. Later that week he added mulch, and diligently waters them every morning while I drum, sing, chant, and light incense with them. I placed my land spirits altar in the corner, and was called to add a little hedgehog. We have them in Greece, so I think my guides have plans for hedgehogs and me. Stay tuned. He feels like a wee guardian of the grove.

The Bardic Grade ritual was simple. Short. I'm learning that Druidry is quite to the point, and the rituals so far simply create space for you to be alone and quiet with nature. They're very concerned with peace, a concept that feels distant in our world and empty at times. Beautiful notion, but practical? I hope so.

I will say, if there is a place peace exists, its sitting with my drum, lighting a beeswax candle, and watching my tiny little saplings soak in their waters of life.

As I continue my meditations in this redbud grove, I'll dive deeper into the ancestral traumas this grove is healing. The generations of refugees I am descended from finally finding root. I'll share my reflections on seeking roots in this time of turmoil for America. I'll share more on why HdG called me home - Mama Susquehanna, I am here for you. And in addition to my personal journey with Druidiry, I’ll aslo share the reflections on stepping into my leadership as a High Priestess of a coven.

There is so much just beginning to bud alongside these saplings. Thank you for watering the grove of this Substack with your presence.

Until then, as the Druids say, peace to you.

Brightest Blessings,

Elyse

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