Do you ever find yourself taking your witchery too seriously?
I do, especially when it comes to cleansing my space.
I still use incense to clear my space, but it's more practical magick than ceremonial, now.
When I first started dabbling in spellwork, I took cleansing SUPER seriously. I told myself the house needed to be cleaned and organized from top to bottom and then cleansed with a complex ritual that involved asperging every room with moon water, wafting incense smoke into every corner, and sprinkling salt and lighting candles in each room.
Oh, and I ALSO had to have just the right witchy music playing the whole time.
If this sounds exhausting, that’s because it is.
I found myself avoiding performing cleansings because I didn’t have the time or energy to spend several hours cleaning my home, cleaning myself, and then performing a convoluted ritual that left me physically and spiritually drained.
I had convinced myself that if I didn’t do things perfectly, they wouldn’t be effective...so I didn’t do them at all. I felt shame at being a “bad witch” because I couldn’t prioritize practicing magick “correctly.”
Making Magick My Own
As I dived deeper into studying and practicing witchcraft, I was lucky enough to meet and learn from several pragmatic, down-to-earth magickal practitioners. A few were shop owners who talked openly and casually about blending intention into daily routines and enchanting everyday items to better direct their energy and enact their will.
Others were absolutely fabulous YouTube witches I may never meet in real life, but who bluntly and unapologetically spoke (and still speak!) about how life is inherently magickal. We can’t separate our magickal practice from our daily lives because being alive in the world is its own kind of magick.
Expanded further, if being alive in the world is inherently magickal, it follows that every action we take, no matter how mundane it seems, is also an act of magick.
This realization completely upended the way I craft spells and work my practice. Suddenly, my reality was full of nothing but possibility.
The ordinary no longer existed, and the extraordinary reigned supreme.
Magick in the Mundane
Knowing every action and object held the potential for magick wasn’t just empowering, it was a huge relief. I was no longer obligated to feel shame about being a “bad witch” because I wasn’t one.
It also motivated me to start cleansing my space again. Much like mundane cleaning and tidying, I learned cleansings could be done in stages or cycles, blended into routines, and eventually made into habits.
Sometimes I still take the time to do a big, complex ritual, but routine cleansing looks very different for me, now.
Here are some examples:
1. Vacuuming
I vacuum every single week (cat hair + wall-to-wall carpeting = necessity) and I try to use the baseboard extension to get into corners and clear dust and cobwebs as often as I can.
I dislike vacuuming but love having vacuumed. The house always feels super clean, and the energy feels lighter, too. Dust, as it turns out, isn’t the only thing that gathers in dark corners. Like witches of old with their practical besoms, I was unknowingly casting out icky energy along with all the other icky things.
Not long ago, I decided to take advantage of this natural process by casting small-but-powerful intention on my vacuum to suck up and banish negative energy.
I picture high-vibration sound radiating through the space, eradicating anything the machine itself fails to pick up. Afterward, I like to play my favorite music to welcome positive, abundant energy to flow into the cleared space.
2. Puttering in the buff
This is kind of a favorite.
I’m something of a naturalist when I’m at home. It feels nice to simply exist without restriction or additional sensory input. Since I only live with my cat and my wife, I have the freedom to enjoy my natural state quite a bit.
I view this as a way to cleanse my space because, practically speaking, humans wear clothing for warmth and protection. If I’m in the buff, this sends a signal to my consciousness that I’m in a warm, safe place where I can be vulnerable without risk.
I find this is an effective way to cleanse my space without a lot of effort. Since my mind, body, emotions, and spirit are all aligned in a state of well-being, that energy naturally radiates out from me and sweeps away any lingering negativity.
3. Preparing food
Entering a home filled with lovely cooking smells never fails to make me feel relaxed, safe, and loved. Whether it was my grandparents’ home during a celebration or just coming home to chat with my mom after a long day at school, subconsciously knowing I’d soon be sharing a meal with people I loved soothed away any wrinkles or oil spots in my energy.
Now, I’m the one doing the cooking, and it’s probably the most powerful method I use to cleanse my space.
As I’ve mentioned before, kitchen witchery is one of the oldest forms of spellwork. For our ancestors, the hearth was the heart of the home where family groups gathered for everything from sharing meals to celebrating holy days, tending ill family members, sharing stories, learning, and laughing.
This is still true for me and mine. None of my loved ones have ever had a dedicated dining room. Rather, we gathered in the kitchen at a long table full of food, usually with dessert still baking in the oven. I recreate this as best I can in my own kitchen, reveling in the joyful energy of my loved ones sharing pre-dinner drinks while I put the finishing touches on the meal.
The best thing about this form of cleansing is the layers of spellwork I can weave into it. Enchanted cooking meets healing magick when I’m at my hearth, blending ingredients with just the right magickal and medicinal properties to uplift the spirit and satisfy the body.
Then, there’s the storytelling. Put a group of people who love each other around a table, and soon stories begin to flow. Funny, nostalgic, cathartic—it all has a place at the table. Those stories become part of the energy in the home, filling it and leaving no room for strange and malicious energies.
Even if the loved ones gathered at the table are just my wife and me, this cleansing is incredibly effective.
A New Perspective on Magick
Magick in the mundane is such a beautiful way to practice. Certainly, it made it easier to cleanse and maintain the energies in my home, but it also made me more creative. By viewing the world as inherently magickal rather than an environment with finite magickal spaces, I was able to deftly weave magickal practice into the simplest daily tasks.
Affirmations and intention setting in the mirror. Coffee magick. Charging my water bottle with healing. Choosing my snacks and foods based on the chakra that needs some TLC.
These things help ground me in my power and remind me that I’m not a woman who sometimes does witchy things. I am a witch.
I embody magick.
And I live in a magickal world.