Non-Wiccan Ways to Witchcraft: September

The starting point for me is always to ask myself what is happening around me. What is Nature doing right now? What is the world doing? What is my community doing? What is my family doing?

Where you live will have different things happening than are happening where I live, so creating a framework for where to start your process will help tailor your non-Wiccan annual practices and observances to your specific circumstances.

GO APPLE PICKING

It's become a favorite family tradition of ours to visit the local orchards and pick apples in September near the Autumn Equinox.

Apples in magick symbolize abundance, love and health. They are often associated with the Underworld, especially as food for the Dead, and have a long history of being used for divination in folk magick.

Make a day of it!

PLANT AN APPLE TREE

If you get the opportunity to go apple picking this month, be sure to save as many seeds as you can. If you want to start a tradition of planting your own apple trees, you'll need plenty of seeds to start with. Apples have a fairly low germination rate, on average about 30%, but YMMV.

Apple seeds need cold stratification to wake up and start growing. The apple seeds can be kept in a moist paper towel tucked inside a ziploc (keep the bag cracked open so there is some air exchange) in the fridge for 6 weeks or longer. It won't hurt them to stay longer, through Winter and early Spring, for example. Some might sprout and that's OK. Keep it in the back of your fridge and check on the paper towel every week or so. You want to make sure it stays moist. If the paper towel gets dry you can mist it with more water or replace with a fresh one.

At the end of 6 weeks, if the weather isn't ready where you live for them to be planted outside yet, just keep 'em in the fridge a while longer (but don't forget about them!). Once the last Spring frost has gone, you can plant your seeds directly in the soil as soon as it's warm enough to be worked. They can also be planted in pots which can help with pests early on.

The newly planted seeds should pop up out of the soil in 1-2 weeks. It'll take several years before you see actual fruit, so be patient. This is an investment in the future.

As you care for the seeds in the fridge, you can use water you've charged with specific intentions to mist them, and chant, sing or speak words of intention and power over them every week when you check on them. One example of this is blessing all future apples it makes in a way that blesses current and future generations in your family who eat from this tree. Another might be to enchant the seeds to grow into a tree that always imparts knowledge and wisdom to those who ask. And yet another could be to energetically poison any enemy you feed these to or use against in a spell.

After the seeds are planted and sprouting, you can add garden stakes with words of power and intentions written or carved onto them, or cast a spell over the tree that connects its growth and prosperity with a goal you have. For example, every new leaf might represent a smaller goal that is part of a longer-term ambition or vision for your health, relationship or future, and as those leaves sprout and grow and eventually bear fruit, so do your goals. Get creative!

BREW YOUR OWN RAW APPLE CIDER VINEGAR

Making your own ACV is so effing Witchy. Good quality Apple Cider Vinegar makes a great base for banishing potions, baneful work and cleansing washes. I use it to make my Four Thieves conjure vinegar and my Fuck You Hag Bitch banishing potion. Keep in mind you wouldn't use your homemade vinegar for canning. Store-bought vinegar adheres to scientific standards that you can't readily achieve in a home kitchen and canning safely requires a more exactly crafted menstruum. But don't despair, there are tons of other uses for your homemade ACV including for food & cooking, deodorizing and cleaning. ACV also has countless medicinal benefits. Making your own is not only satisfying but you can enchant, charge or infuse it with the energies and intentions you want it to have.

To make your own, make an apple dish or snacks and save the apple cores and peels to use, or if you tossed or composted those, you can just take whole apples and chop them up in equal-ish chunks. Make sure you washed the apples beforehand and take out the seeds and stems.

TIP: You'll get a slightly richer ACV by using the whole apples IMO, but the scraps and cores will still give you a fabulous brew on their own, so don't get too precious about it or waste those if you have them.

You can use any kind of apples you want, but the ones that taste sweet and delicious to you will probably yield a better tasting vinegar when it's all said and done. If you've ever made apple butter, I find using a variety of different apples provides a depth of flavor you don't get when using just one type. You do you.

Start with a clean, freshly boiled quart jar. Anything you put into the jar from here on out will need to be as clean as possible so as not to introduce any more bacteria than absolutely necessary.

Fill the quart jar 1/2 - 2/3 of the way full with your scraps or apple pieces. This isn't an exact science so just eyeball it. I've overfilled mine before and it was fine. You want enough room for the apples to be able to move around inside the liquid so just don't jam pack them in there.

Now make up some sugar water by dissolving about two tablespoons of white sugar in a cup or two of distilled or filtered water. If you're worried about sugar, it gets fermented out for the most part, it's job is just to feed the yeast (yeast will be naturally present, not added by you) and eventually the good bacteria we are cultivating.

NOT HARD MATHS --> BTW, if you want to use a bigger jar, that's fine, you can easily scale this method to whatever size jar you have on hand. Just be sure to add more sugar for a larger jar, or reduce it for a smaller one. A 1/2 gallon jar (64 oz) would want about a 1/4 cup of sugar, for example. The 2T (about 1/8 cup) of sugar I list above works for the 32oz quart size. So just use those ratios for whatever size jar you're using and you should be just fine.

Pour the sugar water into the jar over the apples. Add as much distilled water as you need to cover all the apples and fill the jar until there is 3-4 inches or so of headroom. Don't be stingy with the headroom. Things may expand during the fermentation process and you don't want your vinegar spewing or overflowing out of your jar all over the place. So give it some space while still making sure all the apples are submerged fully.

Take a wooden spoon or sturdy chopstick and give everything a good stir. Now take some cheesecloth and fold it over so you have a few layers, or you can use a coffee filter instead, and rubberband it around the jar opening. We won't be adding a lid yet because it needs to breathe (fermentation = gasses that need to escape AND air is a key ingredient to making this work), but leaving it open isn't an option because gnats love ACV and you want to keep them out.

Every day open up your jar and give it a good stir, move everything around, getting any sediment at the bottom moving, too, and poke down any bobbing apples that might be sticking out of the liquid back down under the liquid. It's OK if some poke out of the liquid overnight, no biggie. Stirring it every day, even twice a day at first, helps prevent any mold from growing until the vinegar gets going. After that it's too acidic to be hospitable to mold.

After a few days you'll notice something happening. This is exciting times, Witches!! Bubbles and movement and LIFE is now (hopefully) happening inside your jar. As long as it continues to bubble and foam from here on it's good. Every time you stir your jar or interact with it speak some words over it, sing to it, chant, or just infuse it through your hands with the energies you want it to have. Keep the jar in a cool dark place like inside a cabinet or pantry between stirrings.

TIP: In the beginning, just after the first bubbles start appearing, if after a few days it goes dormant on you all of sudden, it just means there's no more food for the yeast and bacteria to eat and you are starving them you heartless monster. So add a little more sugar (about as much as you added the first time) and tell your jar how much you love it and what a good job its doing and keep going. The bubbles will soon forgive you and return.

Do all your daily stirring for about a month. You could easily time it to start or end at a Full Moon if you were so inclined. After about a month, or 30 days, you'll notice the bubblies and movement and such start slowing down. This means it's almost finished.

The first couple of weeks your brew will probably smell mostly like beer, but by the end of a month your brew is starting to smell like real actual serious vinegar. Pat yourself on the back because you NAILED IT. Give it a taste to see what you think. If it's not ready, to your liking or you wantit more acidic, just keep it going another few days or week. You might need to add a little more sugar if it's gone quiet on you.

I personally like a darker ACV so I use visuals as well as taste to help me decide when it's done. If you have pH strips on hand you can test it that way, too. You're looking for a pH anywhere between 2-3.5 or so for a home batch. The pH scale runs 1-14 with 7 being neutral. Less than 7 is acidic, more than 7 is alkaline. How acidic you like your vinegar will really be a personal preference from there.

When you're ready to finish it up, you can decant your vinegar by placing a mesh strainer over a bowl big enough to hold the liquid contents of your jar. On top of the mesh strainer you'll cover it with a few layers of cheesecloth or a flour sack towel.

Pour the contents of your jar into the covered strainer- you may have to work in smaller batches depending on what size your bowl and strainer are, and that's OK. Let the apples come through because you will want to smush and press them to squeeze out their remaining liquids. A few ways to do this is to use a kitchen mallet, masher stick or a bowl that fits inside the mesh sieve that you can press down over the apples. If the batch is small enough you can also pick the whole sack part up and cinch it closed with your hands and just squeeze out every last drop you can manage until your eyes bug out.

Pour your filtered vinegar into a jar with a non-metal lid and you're good to go! You can reuse a vinegar jar from the store, or use a mason jar with a plastic screw cap. Metal lids for mason jars will rust over time. Vinegar really keeps forever but you'll probably get through it faster than it could ever spoil.

Whatever you use it for, remember you can always add intentions, enchantments and other energies to it to fully align it with your goals.

Once you've crafted your vinegar, you can further Witchify it by adding additional herbs and things to infuse in your brew for spellcraft and other uses.

WITCHFEST AT GARDNER VILLAGE

As a purely fun mention, starting in September, the annual six-week long WitchFest kicks off in Gardner Village in Utah! It's like 'Halloweentown' but for Witches! The events schedule is jam packed with activities, events, and Witchy fun. Check it out!

GET EDUCATED ON WITCHCRAFT & HUMAN RIGHTS

Around the world in numerous countries, Witchcraft is still a crime and punishable by law. People engaging in Witchcraft related beliefs and practices are subjected to violence and serious human rights violations including, beatings, banishment, cutting of body parts, amputation of limbs, torture and murder.

In many cases, Witchcraft is feared and misunderstood, and people are often accused out of ignorance or retaliation. The most vulnerable populations include women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities, especially albinism.

The discrimination people face is largely due to an overall limited understanding of beliefs in Witchcraft, how it may be practiced in some cultures, and why.

Human rights abuses carried out due to beliefs in Witchcraft have not received adequate attention from human rights activists partly to the difficulty of defining ‘Witches’ and ‘Witchcraft’ across cultures. It is often those who are somehow different, feared or disliked who are accused of Witchcraft and singled out for arbitrary private acts of violence or for Government-sponsored or tolerated acts of violence.

The United Nations commissioned a special expert panel to discuss this issue, including identifying harmful practices, accusations of Witchcraft, ritual attacks and killings, faith-based perspectives, conclusions and recommendations.

You can read more about the latest United Nations report on this topic here or by downloading it below.

OBSERVE THE AUTUMN EQUINOX

The Autumn Equinox happens every year between September 20-23. It's an astronomical event when the Sun crosses into the Earth’s 'celestial equator' and kicks off the first day of Fall in the Northern hemisphere and the beginning of Spring in the Southern hemisphere. When the equinox happens, the length of day and night are approximately equal (12 hours each).

Since the Summer Solstice the days have been getting shorter, but they have still been longer than the nights. At this Quarter mark of our year, we now transition into nights that are longer than the days. It's noticeable, even now.

The days getting shorter adds pressure to hurry up and finish all those projects that you've been putting off. Harvest time is now and there's no time to waste. Use this time to tie up loose ends, tick off items from the to-do list, and start preparing for life to shift and slow down as Nature ebbs into darkness and dormancy.

The upside of September is that the temperatures are finally comfortable and moderate for most of the U.S. and that means getting to enjoy outside again. Pollen counts should be tapering off, wildfires quieting down, and a return of backyard marshmallow roasts to sit around and enjoy with family and friends.

This can be a busy time for Witches who are preparing for deep Ancestor and Spirit work as the Season of the Witch approaches. Time spent foraging and wildcrafting seeds, sticks, leaves, berries and dead things is both therapeutic and exciting.

Soon Rowan berries where I live will be turning deeper shades of oranges and red and will be ready to gather. String them together with a needle and thread while they are still fresh and hang them to dry for garlands, talismans and other magickal uses.

Use this month's Full Harvest Moon to work outside a little longer on your garden, potions or foraging, or to perform a sacred ritual or rite.

Every month is a new opportunity to freshen your altar and bring in the colors from outside. Try collecting leaves in every hue so you can display a rainbow on your altar!

I find it helpful to mark the passing of the seasons or Quarters and the Cross Quarters with a feast and a fire. Even if you just light a candle or some incense, you can make the day feel special.

This is a good time for Spiritual and spell works related to equilibrium, equality, justice, gratitude, balance, clarity, and honesty.

Personally I find this winding down energy of Autumn inspires me to want to start certain kinds of projects, such as embroidery, writing, wood work, sewing and other fiber arts. Slow work. Work that doesn't have a deadline. Work that can evolve and become on its own timetable. The pace for these kinds of projects and endeavors feels more in line with the Autumn energies for me, so I just go with it. What's calling to you right now?

CANNING

I can't explain it but canning is Witchy. Maybe it's the combination of alchemy + jars that make it so, but I don't question it too hard. What's being harvested now can be canned or preserved and it's a way for you to up your self-reliance game.

If it helps, you can fantasize that you're the Witch on the edge of the woods living off the land, making ointments and medicines, food stuffs and potions for the dormant months ahead and the occasional passerby.

You're industrious, resourceful, unafraid of the unknown, brave and capable, practical and smart. Nothing is wasted. You know how harsh the Winter can get, and you won't be caught unprepared. You spend your days foraging and drying things, canning, and preserving anything that can't be kept fresh.

Maybe you'll make some special blends or treats to trade with in town when you need something now and again, to offer as gifts to those who have shown kindness, to help out some who weren't able to prepare as well as you did, and for the familiars who find their way to you.

Yes, it's a lot of work, but you know rest will come as soon as the work is done, and you can spend more of your time through the Winter doing other things you enjoy because you worked so hard to prepare now.

It's always a little close, but you always get by. As you prepare and plan and store up for the Winter, you sing songs of gratitude and blessings for the Land and Earth, the Ancestors and the Spirits who have helped along the way. You infuse your pantry items, stews and herb bundles with love and good health, prosperity and luck, protection and fortitude.

While you're here, this is a good time for candle making to ensure you always have Light when you need it.

INCENSE

Gather together some cedar, apple peels, oak or ash leaves, orange peels, and lemon peels. Optional: add in some cinnamon, resin such as myrrh, and star anise if desired. Personally I like adding loose tobacco to my incense blends this time of the year just in general. Either way, don't overthink it too much.

Dry all your fresh ingredients well on a sheet pan at room temperature for a couple of days or in a low oven (170 F or lower) for a couple hours at a time until done. Then coarsely grind up and mix well. Add to a hot incense charcoal nested in a bed of sea salt in a heatproof dish. Go from room to room, wafting the smoke into every corner and nook to cleanse & remove stale energy and raise the vibration throughout the home.

Love,

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