The Green Witch: Your Complete Guide to the Natural Magic of Herbs, Flowers, Essential Oils, and More - Arin Murphy-Hiscock 2017

Celebrating the Solstices and Equinoxes
Manifest the Power of the Seasons
Discovering the Green Witch

In your personal practice, it is better to observe how you feel for a year and base your own festivals on those observations than it is to consult a book, find out that it is the fall equinox, read that it is associated with endings and harvests, and celebrate accordingly. What if you think of fall as a beginning? While celebrating the age-old associations can be positive, in that it nurtures a sense of unity with your ancestors and with the earth, it can also be counterintuitive if it does not coincide with the energies of your geographic locale. A green witch seeks to honor the energies to which she is seeking to attune herself.

Green witchcraft is about being hands-on, about nurturing and developing our relationship with the natural world around us. The green witch makes her own tools, and grows and harvests her own herbs. By directly interacting with the natural sequence of seasons, you create a larger practice. By understanding how the year ebbs and flows, you gain a deeper understanding of how life itself weaves, unravels, and reweaves the web of life.

So how do you celebrate a solstice or an equinox? There is no right or wrong way. There are no formal traditions that must be marked, no rituals that must be enacted. Every green witch creates her own tradition, her own expression of the seasons and how they change. That unique expression will reflect how the season affects her spirit, her heart, and her body.

The most basic way to celebrate the solstices and equinoxes involves allowing yourself to interact with the natural environment around you. Spend the day outdoors. Go for a walk through your neighborhood and look at how things are changing. If you prefer, you can celebrate indoors. Gather seasonal greenery and decorate your home. While some green witches believe that nature’s bounty should be left outdoors and appreciated in its place and not be harvested for something as minor as decorating, others advocate using flowers and greenery as they are available and always with a sense of harmony, responsibility, and fair use.