kitchen – Wicca Now – Everything You Need To Know About Wicca

Hi, my loves and welcome to WiccaNow. Recently I’ve been talking about a range of different things, from common altar decorations to a protection jar spell, to a love spell without ingredients to a post on mirror magick and most recently I talked about Wiccan altar cloths. Today I want to talk about something close to my heart, which I get asked about really often, namely, kitchen witchery! Kitchen Witchery Explained Kitchen witchery has seen a huge rise in popularity lately, maybe because more people have been staying home and as such have had more time to research and experiment in the kitchen. While this resurgence is wonderful, did you know that kitchen witchcraft is actually one of the oldest forms of witchcraft out there? The hearth has been considered the heart of the home for a very long time. A kitchen witch uses this magickal energy and works with it to hone her craft. The use of herbs and spices as healing tools have a long history; and who do you think would be the one preparing the remedies and herbal offerings? A kitchen witch of course! Imagine an ancient tribe, who’s medicine woman (or man) is the central part of the community. Definitely kitchen witchery. Or the woman (let’s be real, a lot of kitchen witches tend to be women) who lives on the outskirts of an old town and uses foraged herbs to help heal the sick? Maybe she uses salt to keep the spirits away and says a blessing when she lights the fire. She’s definitely a kitchen witch. I bet everyone can think of at least one historical example of this form of witchery if they put their minds to it. As odd as it may seem, Hildegard von Bingen, a Catholic nun, could be considered a kitchen witch. Kitchen Witchery is a fascinating path to go down, and one that I love dearly. While I would consider myself more of an eclectic witch, kitchen witchery is probably what I lean most heavily towards in most of my practices. I mean, the kitchen is always at the heart of everything we do. How many parties have you been to where everyone ends up standing in the kitchen? Most people feel comfortable there and food is something that brings everyone together (if you ask me anyway). This is what makes kitchen witchery such a joy to practise. Now, without further ado, let's get into what it means to be a kitchen witch along with other vital questions. What does it mean to be a Kitchen Witch? A kitchen witch uses the home and the kitchen as their main tools for magickal practices. A kitchen witch might set up an altar on a shelf in the kitchen, or might consider the whole kitchen to be their altar. Magickal tools would come in the form of a favourite kitchen knife, an inherited wooden spoon, a chopping board out of a specially chosen piece of wood or anything that the witch in question loves and considers a magickal tool. This could extend to literally anything and everything that might be used in the home or kitchen. A kitchen witch will often have a strong connection to nature and as such has a good understanding of plants and ingredients. Many kitchen witches have a lot of knowledge about herbs and their properties, both magickal and health-wise. A kitchen witch tends to be more practical than ceremonial and will usually have no problem substituting one ingredient for another if they don’t have the called for ingredient on hand. A kitchen witch will have a lot of respect for the ingredients they use. They will generally have a good understanding of how things grow and where they come from so that they are able to appropriately use these ingredients in their craft. A kitchen witch will use cooking, baking and ingredients as a tool to infuse their magickal intent with. Most things they do in the kitchen will have some form of magickal element involved. This might mean that they simply infuse love into their dishes or it might be more complicated in the form of a healing spell for a friend. They tend to be very aware of the magick of the every day and will tend to appreciate the smaller things in life just as much as the bigger things. I love the freedom that comes with this form of witchcraft. I’m notorious for substituting when I cook and this naturally trickles down into my craft. I’d be a terrible ceremonial witch because I’m just not that good at following exact instructions! Being a kitchen witch means appreciating the things that are happening right now, rather than waiting for a particular day or date on which to perform a ceremony or ritual. Where did the Kitchen Witch come from? As mentioned before, the kitchen witch is one of the oldest forms of witchcraft out there! People have been practising this form of witchcraft for centuries, even if they did it without calling it kitchen witchcraft. You could probably say the kitchen witch is as old as civilisation itself, given that most ancient tribes would have performed healing and ritual magick by using native herbs and plants. What is the Purpose of a Kitchen Witch? A kitchen witch takes pleasure is all the small things in life that might go unnoticed by other people. It isn’t a particularly ceremonial practice, with many witches who practise this form of magick being very practical and pragmatic. Most believe in the beauty and magick of the more mundane and everday parts of life. They believe in making the most of every day and infusing everything that they do with magick rather than performing bigger, showier spells and rituals. The kitchen witch might take the smallest of moments to hone their craft. Making a cup of tea might turn into a simple sweetening spell, using the ritual stirring in of honey of sugar to sweeten someones attention towards them. They might make a loaf of bread and knead intentions of strength into the dough so that anyone who eats the bread feels a little courageous boost. A kitchen witch might make a strawberry and rose cupcake as a way of casting a love spell. You see where I’m going with this... What is Kitchen Magick? Kitchen magick is a way of turning the “everyday” into something magickal. Using the utensils you find in a common kitchen you can use kitchen magick to turn the small mundane tasks of the day into something through which you reap magickal benefits. For example; maybe you’re making soup for dinner. Using kitchen magick you would turn the process of making the soup into a magickal ritual where you would infuse the soup with your intention as you stir and cook it so that your needs can manifest themselves. Harness the magical powers of the universe in your cooking. What do Witches cook in a cauldron? Witches use a cauldron in all sorts of magickal rituals and spells. It can be a decoration on an altar where it might represent the female Goddess or it might hold the water element of a traditional altar. A cauldron can be used to make potions or to mix herbs and spices for spells. It can be used to burn petitions or to hold a candle during a spell using candle magick. A cauldron is often used to make banishing salt and may also hold burning incense during spellwork. A Kitchen Witches Simple Love Spell Try this simple love spell next time you bake for a potential flame. Can men be Kitchen Witches? Of course they can! As always, I never use witch to denote female as it’s actually a gender-neutral word that can be applied to both males and females. While kitchen witchery has tended to be a female-dominated (gender stereotypes are hard to break down) there's nothing to say that this can’t change. If you’re a man and you want to be a kitchen witch, there’s absolutely nothing stopping you so go for it! What is a European Kitchen Witch? Funnily enough, there is some confusion about this which is why I'm going to answer it now. A European kitchen witch isn't referring to a witch with European descent. A European Kitchen Witch also known as a German Kitchen Witch or Scandinavian Kitchen Witch is a small doll, which looks like the traditional portrayal of a witch. This small doll is hung in the kitchen window or placed on a window sill and it's thought that it will protect your home and hearth and bring good luck to your cooking. It's an old tradition which says that the kitchen witch will: Stop your pots boiling over.Keeps you from over-salting food.Prevents things from burning. Ensures spices are mixed well. Keep milk from going bad. Drives away negative influences.Brings kitchen luck. This is a traditional kitchen witch doll. Image via Wikimedia.org by Malcolm Lidbury (aka Pinkpasty). 4 Reasons why being a Kitchen Witch is Awesome! You get to cook, eat and make recipes as part of your magickal practice. People love to eat, and sharing your craft through your cooking is a really great way to get people interested and on board with what you're doing. Lots of people are weird about witchcraft (in my experience anyway) and being able to give them a slice of cake and explain why it's part of your practice is a great, and delicious, icebreaker for the sceptics. Who doesn't love spending time in the kitchen? Your altar can be your kitchen bench, your favourite knife your boline and your best pot can be your cauldron. Not having to buy special tools is awesome and I love that I can use some of my favourite things (Le Creuset pot, looking at you) as part of my magickal work. Being a kitchen witch is really flexible. You can incorporate other types of witchcraft into your practice and the best thing is that your ritual and spell work involves something you love and you can easily incorporate your craft and your love of cooking in one go. How to become a Kitchen Witch Notice your appreciation for the food you create and consume.Turn small tasks into something infused with meaning. Match your intention to your ingredients and dish choice. By this I mean start thinking about what meals carry what feelings. Chicken soup or bone broth are both incredibly healing foods, if you want to cast a healing spell, cook one of those. The same goes for providing strength and courage; a sponge cake which requires careful handling and a gentle touch might not be the best choice here. Instead, make a water crust pie or a spicy curry. It’s really interesting to start taking notice of what foods convey what energies (and remember my associations might be completely different to yours) and then using those energies to further your own magick.Learn more about the ingredients you’re using. What might the magickal properties of each food be? Start with some basics like cinnamon and rosemary and learn more as you go along. Create spells (and recipes) using these ingredients. Cinnamon and sugar bring luck and prosperity. Make some cinnamon buns to draw abundance into your life. Eat with intention and with thanks. Don’t sling down your food in a hurry. Take it slow, chew each mouthful while thinking about how magickal it is that the food your eating will provide your body with so much nourishment while also (hopefully) being super delicious. If you want to have an altar, create a small kitchen altar. This might be a small shelf with a candle and your favourite spices. It could be as small as a beautiful teacup with your favourite herb mixture in it or a thyme plant in a beautiful pot. Start your own Book of Shadows in the form of your recipes and what magickal intentions you imbued each recipe with. Don’t put pressure on yourself! Learn as you go and appreciate the process because it’s meant to bring you joy not stress you out. Make magick whenever you create food. How can you tell if you’re a Witch? It took me a while to know that I was a witch. I was always interested in gardening and cooking, and I loved to make “potions” as a kid (who doesn’t?) but the idea of actual witchcraft wasn’t something I really grasped until much more recently. For me, it was a slow dawning of a realization that there’s a power in me that I barely ever touch on. Wanting to learn to be more in touch with that inner current of self-assurance and belief that what I needed would manifest made me want to learn more about witchcraft. The more I learned about it, the more I realised that I identified strongly with many of the things I was reading about and that made me decide to start the journey down this path. For many people I know, they didn’t really have an “Ah ha!” moment where they knew they were a witch. Like for me, it’s often a slowly dawning feeling which just gets stronger and stronger until one day you realise that you’ve been a witch for a long time and just haven’t fully acknowledged it. There are small clues that you might be interested in this path. Remember that you don’t have to have a “Harry Potter” moment where magick just leaps out of you and you start levitating an aunt. Every single person can practice magick, you just have to want to do it. Maybe you’re interested in learning more about the herbal world? Maybe you’ve discovered a love for foraging and nature. Maybe that book you read recently sparked an intense interest in learning more about witches (maybe that’s why you landed on this blog) or maybe you really really wanted something and then you got it and you realised that there's more at play in life that what you realised. The universe has got your back, if you let it! Becoming a witch is a slow process and isn’t something that just happens overnight for most people. Learn as much as you want before you decide anything. Also, this isn’t permanent! You might love this life right now and 5 years later decide that maybe it’s not for you after all. Totally ok! Being a witch is about your own fulfilment, not anyone else's so do what makes you the happiest and learn about what you love and enjoy. Is Magick hereditary? This is a hotly debated question. There are some witches who believe that to be a “proper” witch you have to have a witch somewhere in your family tree. I’m definitely not in that boat, my friends! I believe that anyone who wants to call themselves a witch is a witch, so you absolutely don’t have to have hereditary witch bloodlines. Magick is something that everybody has and some people are able to access. I guess you could say that makes it hereditary because you’re born with it, but so is everyone else. You don't need anything other than your own fabulous self to be a witch, you've got all the magick you need already! What does it mean to practice Witchcraft? This is an interesting question that I’m including here because I often get asked this when talking to people about being a witch or kitchen witchery. Practising witchcraft means different things to different people but to me, it’s about being mindful and open to accepting that we aren’t the only thing at work in the universe. It’s about reconnecting with the natural world and tuning into its cycles. It’s about respecting other people and their path while holding firm in your own self and your beliefs. Ultimately, It’s about learning to tap into your own ability to manifest and create the life that you want. You hold the world in the palm of your hand. Witchcraft is about learning to appreciate and harness that to create the life that you want. Other Types of Witchcraft Commonly Associated With Witchcraft What is Cottage Witchcraft? Cottage Witchcraft and Kitchen witchcraft are two things that go hand in hand. For some people, there is no distinction at all and they consider them one and the same thing. A cottage witch is someone who loves the sanctuary of their home. They’ll do everything they can to create the best home environment they can think of. They’ll often also have a love of turning the more “mundane” tasks into a magickal ritual infused with intentions. They often have an interest in gardening and herbs and will practice a bit of kitchen witchery as well. Infuse the everyday chores of life with magickal intention and care. Make every moment special and enjoy the little things like ritual bathing and self-care. A cottage witch will often perform small rituals with daily routines; sweeping the floor turns into a ritual to remove bad energy from the home by sweeping it out the door. A cottage witch may use their time doing laundry to infuse whatever garments they’re folding with love and tenderness. It sounds like I’m saying a cottage witch is like a traditional housewife, but that’s really not the case at all. In a similar vein to kitchen witchery, it’s about turning even the most mundane things (like folding washing) into something which is infused with magickal intent and care. It’s a beautiful concept really and plays a lot into the ideas of mindfulness... What does it mean to be a Green Witch? Because cottage, green and kitchen witches often overlap, I’m going to give you a quick rundown of a green witch! A green witch uses nature to perform their craft. A green witch will often be found outdoors and feels a very strong connection with the natural world. They will centre their magick around working with the elements and the seasons. Many green witches will try to create a witches garden (even in an apartment) and may have a small altar somewhere outside. In comparison to a kitchen witch or a cottage witch, a green witch won’t place as much emphasis on the home and will focus on tuning themselves into the natural world more than the other two might. Green witches tend to have extensive knowledge of plants, herbs and seeds and are constantly interested in learning more about their magickal properties and uses. They will use their gardens or connection to the natural world to practice their craft. A green witch will usually work a lot with moon phases and plants and herbs. So my loves, I hope that answers all your questions about kitchen witchery! Let your joy of food, cooking and the natural world be unconfined. Until next time, Blessed Be, Amaria xx Shop My Favourite Kitchen Witch Resources Start your Kitchen Witch's Book of Shadows with this gorgeous printable page. Click here to check it out on Etsy. Start using the magickal properties of crystals in your kitchen magick with this beautifully illustrated recipe for crystal infused water. Click here to shop it on Etsy.