What Do We Owe Each Other: Witchcraft and Community Care
Do You Want to Do Some Witchcraft?
Being a witch is a job.
I spend a lot of time thinking about this as both a small business owner that specializes in esoteric supplies and services, and an author in the New Age space (Spells for Success: 40 Spells to Set Intentions and Manifest Everyday Wins, out 2025 from Simon Element). I’m not knocking people whose witch status largely lives with aesthetics, I own too many cauldron mugs to complain, but at the end of the day witch is a public service. Historically, the people that occupy the space dowsed for water and lost things, were midwives, banished boils, healed burns, and gelded horses by the cycle of the moon.
And those ghosts aren’t going to banish themselves.
I’ve been studying magic for the better part of two decades, collecting every spellbook, astrology manual, and tarot book you could get from a Borders $5 section, but I only really found my buy-in once I learned to take care of people. Practice and ritual only meant anything to me once I could feed people or make them something that would keep bad luck out of their houses.
I meet a lot of people who are interested in accessing their more esoteric self. Of learning divination, connecting with spirit, casting spells, or even just figuring out what to do with all this moon water they’ve collected. And all of them ask for books. There’s a lot of great works, but books are distant. Detached. It’s not where I recommend people start.
The best spellwork is taking a course on how to administer Narcan. The best manifestation is using your spare FSA dollars to buy your friends Theraflu. Fill your Little Free Library with jars of jam, introduce yourself to your local homeless encampment, add crucial items to your grocery list for the domestic violence shelter.
I’m a person who moved around a lot as a kid. I don’t really have a hometown. We didn’t live near family. Friends and community were proximity based and we didn’t form long-lasting ties because we’d move every couple years. My hometown is the back seat of a station wagon, a book in my lap, moving across an interstate to wherever we would live next. I didn’t really know how to take care of people or be taken care of. I come from a family of “not joiners” and joining is something I’m constantly learning how to do. I’ve been lucky that in the ten years I’ve lived in the Bay Area that I’ve been adopted and helped build good communities. I’ve gotten involved in organizing efforts both big and small, and I have a lot of good luck banked from caring about people.
Karma might be a bitch but not if you befriend her.
So I draw luck sigils on the corner of the dollar bills I hand out to people. I lend my car to people if I can. I offer to bring things to parties and celebrations, make sure everyone has a first aid kit, and I have learned which street corners get things to people that need them the fastest.
It’s not pointy hat shit, but it’s the real shit. And you can do it while sipping from a cauldron mug. Don’t let me stop you.
So this PRIDE month has been about considering my place as a practitioner and how that intersects with queerness. I’m journaling a lot about it, and maybe I’ll share in the future but maybe not. All I know is that everyone is lonely and scared and stressed, and if you’ve got a little magic to spare, could use a blessing or two.
Got questions? Topics your want to see me talk about? Want to book a reading? Email doyouwanttodosomewitchcraft@gmail.com and send me a note. Like the newsletter? Share with your friends!
Find me by sending a crow to the only streetlight in the smallest town you've ever heard of.
Or by checking out my website laureneparker.com