A long time ago in the ancient days of our ancestors, when human communities were more a less tribal and before the introduction of any religion, there were earth-centered practices.
Unlike religion, which surfaced much later, there were no dogmatic regulations, ceremonies or human make-believe figureheads as all that existed was nature.
The first spiritual impulses were born of a people who lived close to the land and who relied on it for survival.
They knew the ways of the seasons: the annual promise of the warming days, the long period of growth that followed, the importance of harvest, and the seasons of frost and death.
Women knew the ways of the moon, of healing and childbirth.
Men knew the movement of the herd animals and the secret ways of the hunter and the hunted.
There were no holy books or official spiritual doctrines.
The divine did not exist in some inaccessible realm.
It lived among and through the people.
It sang in bird songs, it formed the ocean’s waves, and it filled the human body, plants, and animals with life.
Spirituality had its birthplace right here—in the dirt, in the soil, in the struggles and triumphs of everyday life.
It emerged from human laughter and fear. It was something that pervaded one’s eating, sleeping, eliminating, and reproducing.
It governed family and community life, the coming of age, marriages, births, and deaths.
Spirituality had little to do with lofty philosophical notions—the things that emerge from thinking—it centered on the hard facts of life.
The soft facts of life must have played their part too. Love, tenderness, and compassion are universal human emotions that have long quickened the heart and informed the spirit.
These are the ancient, indigenous roots of the spiritual system that we today call Witchcraft.
In considering Witchcraft’s earthy spiritual roots, most likely it will come as no surprise that getting started on this path requires you to settle down into the metaphorical dirt—the experiences of the world itself—and get your hands and feet muddy.
You’ll need to taste, touch, smell, hear, see, and experience life and the spiritual energy that infuses all.
Go outside.
Find a green patch of grass, a dark, rich, root-buckled swath of earth, a stone formation, or a tree, and touch it.
Rub your hands across it
. Sit down and feel the weight of your body on the land.
Breathe deeply and allow the earth to hold you.
