Non-Magical Skills to Enhance your Magical Practice
What sort of skills do you think of when you think about improve your magical practice? For most people, the answer to this question is likely a long list of magic-related skills and abilities. We might immediately think of divination, for example, as a skill we wish to improve. Visualization and protective magic may come to mind, along with any number of other skills. What we don’t often consider when we talk about improve our magical practices is how our mundane skills serve our magical lives.
Think about your non-magical skills. Perhaps, like me, you are an educator by day. You might have an aptitude for the culinary arts, fitness or writing. You may have hobby-based skills, such as embroidery, painting or woodburning. How do those skills serve you in your magical life?
Although we don’t often think of our everyday skills and hobbies as having the potential to be magical, almost any skill can be utilized within a magical practice. If you are looking to enhance your magical routines and practices, keep reading for a list of some seemingly everyday skills and ideas on how they can be utilized in magic.
Hearth & Home Skills
Cooking & Baking: Cooking, baking and witchcraft have a long-standing connection in folklore and popular culture—though not always for the best of reasons. (The cannibal witch from the fairy tale Hansel & Gretel comes to mind. Yikes.) And, although the connection between once-commonplace household items (like cauldrons and brooms) and activities (like cooking and baking) reeks of historical sexism, we have to admit that there is a lot of magic that can be worked in the kitchen. The meals and treats we whip up in our home kitchen can be enchanted for just about any kind of magical work. Plus, those kinds of skills can also be used to create special offerings for the entities we might choose to work with, or even non-edible goodies like charms.
Knife Skills: Knife skills are something we might associate more with chefs than with practitioners of magic. But chefs aren’t the only ones who can wield a knife in their art. If you are a kitchen witch or work often with herbs, understanding the best ways to use a knife can bring your herbal work to a whole new level. By understanding how to best cut, chop, and dice the plants we’re working with, practitioners of herbal and plant-based magic can bring out the best in the botanicals they use for oils, teas, and other brews by better utilizing their oils and essences.
Arts & Crafts Skills
Embroidery & Cross-stitch: Embroidery is a gorgeous artform as well as a relaxing hobby. (Unless you fuck up a stitch or can’t manage a French knot. Then it’s not so relaxing—but most of the time, it still turns out beautiful.) Cross-stitch is a kind of embroidery that falls into the category of “counted embroidery” which is named for the x-stitch that it uses in its designs. Embroidery and cross-stitch have countless applications in magic. Embroidery projects can be used as enchantments in the home. They can be empowered by sewing intentions or spells into every stitch, or by enchanting the designs themselves. Cross-stitch, in specific, can be a powerful addition to magical workings that rely on signs and symbols. In my own experience as a practitioner of European Black Book magic, cross-stitch is a fantastic way to put a modern spin on traditional practices which involve the painting or sewing of words and symbols onto leather or animal skins.
Knitting, Crochet & Macramé: Knot magic is a well-documented, widely practice type of magic, which often involves the creation of spells and charms by tying one’s magic or intentions into knots in various types of string, yarn, twine, and rope. If you have an aptitude for or interest in knitting, crochet, or macramé, you can also utilize this skill as a type of knot magic. Just as magic can be knotted into bits of rope and twine, it can be knotted into larger projects to be worn, carried, or hung in the home.
Weaving: There are many ways to weave. Designs and methods can be tradition or modern; they can be done on a loom or loomless. Like with the above examples, weaving can be used in magic by weaving spells and intentions into the craft as a charm to be worn or displayed. But the possible applications for weaving in magical practice go beyond that. Weaving has existed in all cultures, which makes it a powerful way to create offerings (whether they are for deities, spirits, ancestors, or some other type of entity), bring traditional elements into your day-to-day workings, and adorn your workspaces.
Candle Making: This one might be a little obvious. Let’s be honest, even if we don’t specialize in candle magic, witches and practitioners of magic love a good candle. Candle magic doesn’t have to be the whole of your practice to be useful. It is a straightforward way to build and release magical energy during spells or rituals. Being skilled at candle making gives the practitioner complete control over the candles they use. They can be made of any kind of wax and filled with any kind of botanical. They can be poured into jars, molded, dipped, carved, and customized in any way imaginable. And, if the practitioner is in control of the production of the candle, it is possible for them to imbue the candle with energies to support their magical working from the melting of the wax to the completion of the spell or ritual.
Outdoors Skills
Bushcraft: Bushcraft isn’t just one skill. The term actually refers to a set of skills, all of which are associated with one’s ability to survive in a natural environment, such as out in the woods. You may be wondering what bushcraft has to do with the practice of magic. The answer depends upon your personal practice. The many elements of bushcraft—which include foraging, firecraft, shelter-making, navigating, tracking, and many other skills—can be used in a practitioner’s craft as they find use for them. Foraging can be useful for practitioners who employ the use of herbs and locally growing plants in their work. Elements of shelter making can be applied to create storage and ritual areas. How these elements of bushcraft can be utilized in magic is (as with all things) up to the practitioner themselves.
Gardening: We all know how important herbs and botanicals can be to a practitioner’s craft. Many of the spells we encounter call for botanicals—ranging from the commonplace to the near-impossible-to-find. Learning to garden can be useful to practitioners at any level. A witch’s garden doesn’t have to be a sprawling project with rolling hills and winding paths. Your garden can be tailored to your practice and your interests. If you only need a few herbs or are just starting out, you can get just as much use out of an indoor/porch garden as another practitioner might get from a larger garden space.
There are countless other non-magical skills which can be incorporated into your magical practice—or even become the base of your own personal craft! Take some time to think about the seemingly mundane skills that you have and how you can use them in your magical routines.
Disclaimer: Each of the Crowsbone writers and guest bloggers has their own magical background, beliefs, traditions and practices. These post represent the opinions, research and beliefs of the individual writers. We do not believe that they represent beliefs and rules associated with all magical practice or witchcraft; nor do they represent the beliefs and opinions of all of the Crowsbone community.