Into the Witch Woods: Rewilding My Witchcraft with Ancestral Skills & Crafts
Author’s Note: The content of this blog reflects my personal experiences and perspectives on magic. Witchcraft is a deeply individual practice, and my approach may not align with everyone’s beliefs or traditions. I encourage readers to explore, question, and adapt what resonates with them. Nothing shared here is meant to serve as absolute truth or professional advice. Trust your intuition, do your own research, and walk your own path.
When I picked up my first books on ancestral and hearth skills, I wasn’t setting out to "rewild" my witchcraft. My goal was simple: to live more intentionally, to be more sustainable, to engage more deeply with the rhythms of my own life (a choice I made for my mental and emotional health). I wasn’t looking to strip my magic down to its bare bones—I just wanted to take the extra steps to be present instead of simply productive.
I have the privilege, as a homemaker who works part-time from home, to carve out time to build new skills and hone new crafts. What began simply as an effort to stretch meals further, learn to garden, swap store-bought cleaners for homemade alternatives, and occasionally enjoy a loaf of fresh bread gradually spilled over into my magical life. Little by little, the skills I was building in my kitchen began to replace my need for store-bought magical supplies—until every item I nearly added to my online shopping cart made me think: I can make that.
One day, I found myself pouring beeswax into molds and carving symbols into the cooling discs. Another, I was infusing oils, using only herbs from my own pantry, realizing I had everything I needed to craft my own candles in my own tiny kitchen. Before I knew it, my magical practice had taken root in this shift—less about acquisition, more about connection. These days, if I don’t make something myself, I obtain it from an artisan within the magical community.
Making Magic Within Reach
It started at the market, on a perfectly mundane grocery trip. Maybe it was the animist in me, but I wanted to live more sustainably, to bring my life into better alignment with the materials, land, and spirits around me. At first, I wasn’t trying to change my magical practice at all—I was just swapping out fabric softener sheets for wool dryer balls, trading in paper towels for flour sack cloths.
But the changes crept in, one at a time. One day, I was baking bread and thought, Why not make a small loaf as an offering to the household spirits? Another day, I was shopping for candles and caught myself thinking, I already have everything I need to make these myself.
I’ve always said I wanted a magical practice I could live and breathe—so it made sense that, when my lifestyle changed, my approach to magic followed. I didn’t just want to live more slowly and sustainably; I wanted to practice witchcraft at the pace of those who came before me, before pentacles and cauldrons were readily available in wholesale shops.
I decided to set limits for myself—guidelines that would shape my practice and bring it into alignment with this philosophy—and to stick to them for the year that followed. Moving forward, my magical curios would only be:
What is on hand – For example needle and thread, bones from cooking, kitchen herbs.
What I can make – Such as hand-poured candles, ritual garb, and oils.
What naturally accumulates – Candle wax, incense ash, dirt, seeds from gardening.
What I can repurpose – Bits of cloth, furnishings, jars, and bottles.
What I couldn’t make myself, I determined to obtain from within the magical community—hand-forged tools, self-published books—or secondhand.
Some of the shifts that followed were expected—the same kinds of changes I noticed when I slowed down my mundane life, making every meal for a week from a single chicken, opening the windows instead of immediately turning on the air conditioner. The process of crafting my own magic was slower, more deliberate.
That meant I had to plan ahead, to think more carefully about my workings, but it also meant I was spending more time doing magic, more time living my magic—just as baking my own bread forced me to spend more time living my life.
More than anything, I found myself growing deeply connected to my tools and materials. There was an intimacy in using objects with history, with utility, with a personal connection. It felt different to stitch a poppet from fabric scraps rather than buying one pre-made, to inscribe a candle I had poured myself rather than picking up a mass-produced alternative.
Magic took on a new texture—woven into my days, into the things I touched and shaped with my own hands. I found myself paying more attention to the materials in the grimoires I studied, considering what was regionally and culturally significant to me, what curios my spirits had a preference for. This wasn’t just about sustainability anymore—it was about authenticity.
There have been plenty of moments of resistance. Many times, I caught myself loading up an online cart with supplies, only to realize that all I needed to make them myself was oil and string. At first, there was frustration—the convenience of buying was hard to let go of. But over time, I began to see the deeper rewards.
Instead of impulse-buying items that simply looked witchy, I spent more time researching what had actual historical or spiritual significance to my practice. I thought more critically about my materials, choosing them with care rather than out of convenience.
Something else changed, too—the way I engaged with magical authors and their communities. Many of the practitioners whose work influenced me weren’t distant, untouchable figures. Their work was shared in online spaces, their voices accessible. I could join their Discord communities, ask questions, and participate in the conversations that shaped their practices.
And more than anything, my own practice started to feel more vibrant, more mine than it ever had before.
It’s been more than a year now and I wouldn’t take it back. Every week, I find myself swapping out more store-bought clutter for crafted magic. As I run out of something, I ask myself, Can I make this? And if I can, I do. The skills I am building aren’t just practical; they are deeply magical, connecting me to a lineage of witches and cunningfolk who worked with what they had, who made do, who knew that the heart of magic was never in the trappings but in the hands and spirit of the practitioner.
I can’t promise that I will give up buying the occasionally witchy bauble. But it is safe to say I will never go back to mindlessly buying my curios. This shift has brought so much more magic into my life—so much more spirit. And that is what I have always wanted. My practice now feels more aligned—not just with the cunningfolk in my ancestry, but with the practitioners whose work has shaped my understanding of magic.
Where does this path lead next? I don’t know yet. But I’ll walk it with open hands, ready to craft, to create, to weave magic from the bones of my everyday life.
