Five-Minute Animism

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Emma Kathryn, author of the new Witch Life.

Okay, so the title of this post may be a little deceiving, but you’ll forgive me, or at least I hope you will, when you hear what I have to say. Regular readers of mine will know I bang on about animism…a lot, but that is only because it is something that is so important to my spiritual and magical practices. It adds so much more depth and meaning, and it can for you and your practice, too.

So what do I mean when I talk about animism? For me, it is that sense of connection between myself, the natural world, and everything in it. Trees, mountains, rivers, oceans, animals, and plants all have spirit, and we can work with these spirits to imbue our witchcraft and make them living and breathing traditions.

Seems a lot to fit into five minutes, right?

But here’s the thing: the five minutes is just the beginning.

In my book, Witch Life: A Practical Guide to Making Every Day Magical, I share a lot of practical ways in which people can bring their witchcraft practice into the fore, centering it in their everyday lives, and we can do the same with animism. All we have to do is make that start, but it can be the starting that is the biggest stumbling block.

One of the most common complaints I hear about witchcraft in general is that people just don’t have time to do all they would like to. When it comes to animism, wouldn’t it be great to go and lose yourself beneath the boughs of an ancient forest, or to sit on the beach and greet the sun each morning? The stuff of dreams! And for most of us, that is what these are. Dreams. Most of us have so many pressures and constraints on our time and energy that we just cannot fit everything into the hours we have already. All too often, it is our spiritual and magical selves that suffer as we push and squeeze our crafts, make them smaller to make way for all the other things life throws at us.

And to remedy this in a meaningful way, I believe we need to start small. And this leads us to our five minutes of animism.

Five minutes every day. That’s all you need to begin to build a connection to the land where you live and the spirits that reside there. You need not go far, and if you have a garden, perfect, but if not, then a park, doorstep, or even a window with a view is all you really need. And that’s it. Make yourself comfortable and just watch. Soon, you’ll see the world begin to come alive, not with people but with all the other creatures with which we share our space. You’ll soon be able to identify the birds and other critters you see, perhaps grow familiar with the birdsong and calls. You’ll begin to get used to the cycles of the season and recognise their effects upon the land. You’ll notice what grows where and when. By just sitting quietly and being at peace within yourself, you’ll slowly begin to realise that you are a part of this animism yourself, that you are a part of this tableau with which you have observed and interacted.

Before long, you’ll see that all those five minutes begin to add up. You’ll realise just how important those times are to you. More importantly, you will want to delve deeper into those budding relationships with spirit.

But to get there, we just need to start, and to do that, all you need is five minutes.

Our thanks to Emma for her guest post! For more from Emma Kathryn, read her article, “Magic in the Mundane: 5 Easy Ways to Make Every Day Magical.”