Tag Archives: Reclaiming Witchcraft

Coming Soon – Storytelling for Magic

02 Monday Dec 2024

Posted by in Druidry, Magic, Storytelling

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Have you ever wished you could tell a story and enchant your listeners?

Have you ever wanted to explore the magic of a myth?

Have you ever been curious about how to use your voice, and your words, effectively in ritual and spells?

Do you want to create and perform powerful rituals that change your life?

Then this book is for you.

MY NEW BOOK – STORYTELLING FOR MAGIC – IS OUT 28TH JANUARY 2025!

Cover: Storytelling For Magic by Halo Quin - Bardic Skills & Ritual Craft for Witches and Pagans - text over image of a cloaked figure in warm colours, moving through wintery trees with a bird flying overhead
Pre-Order Storytelling for Magic Today!

A few years ago I began dabbling with the title “Enchantress/Enchanter” alongside “witch” because one of my favourite ways to weave magic is through my voice, through words, and through storytelling.

In ancient times, and in many cultures, those who told stories and recited poetry were recognised as powerful magicians, capable of turning the tide of history, bringing good fortune or misery as they chose.

This power of storytelling connects us to our ancestors as in storytelling we use the language they passed us to shape a world, whether for a moment or a lifetime.

It connects us to those that come after us, for in the stories we keep alive we choose what to offer to them, what world and magic we are passing on.

We all tell stories to connect, to entertain, to teach, to inform, to persuade, and for many other reasons besides, even if we don’t think we are storytellers.

Yes, even you.

I love storytelling, and I often do it as a devotional act. I learn stories that connect to my gods and spirits, that remember the Fair Folk, or that carry wisdom from older times, and I share them to keep them alive. I craft new stories, such as the Goblin Circus, to bring that healing which comes from playfulness, so needed in today’s world.

One of my home traditions, Reclaiming Witchcraft, works deeply with stories in ritual and as teaching tools, and this has long inspired me. RJ Stewart’s work taught me how the folk and fairy tales can carry the keys to Faeryland. OBOD begins with the “Bardic Grade”, and encourages creativity as you work through learning the foundations of modern pagan magic. In these and many other modern traditions we have felt the importance of storytelling, and it is common to invite folk to tell tales… but very often there is no guidance on how to do so.

Often people say to me: “I wish I could do that, but I couldn’t remember a whole story!”

But storytelling is a natural human activity, so you already tell stories! And to tell a tale in a way that enchants is a set of skills which you can learn. To craft ritual and magic from stories is, too, another skill you can learn.

In a culture where we receive our stories from media it is easy to forget that storytelling is a natural expression of humanity. And if you have a longing to be part of that ancient lineage, then you can remember that, and recover those skills for storytelling as enchantment, whether you’re performing, bespelling your life, or sharing the tales with the trees.

I wrote this book to show you exactly how you can take each step. Some of the questions answered within are:

How can I connect with the magic of air, words, breath, voice?

How can I find a story? And make it my own?

How can I remember a whole story?

How can I tell a story in a way that is natural for me?

How can I use the magic of myth to empower my spells?

How can I create a ritual from a story, to bring me closer to the magic within?

And, while my focus is on the voice, there are many ways to tell a tale. I’ve included suggestions for how you can use the skills and exercises in this book without sound, and how you might adapt the magic within to your own practice, both solo and for groups.

Pre-Order Storytelling for Magic Today!
Cover: Storytelling For Magic by Halo Quin - Bardic Skills & Ritual Craft for Witches and Pagans - text over image of a cloaked figure in warm colours, moving through wintery trees with a bird flying overhead
Order Storytelling for Magic Here*

*Affiliate link for UK folk. Also available wherever you buy your books!

Storytelling for Magic

Learn the bardic art of storytelling to craft rituals, empower your magic, and enchant your life.

In this book are the keys to bringing the gifts of the ancient magic-weavers, the storytellers, into your life. The Bards of old wove magic with their words. Through myth and legend, history and inspiration, they shaped the world around them. Just like them, you can connect with the magic of storytelling to create powerful change.

Join professional performer, ritualist, bard, and witch Halo Quin, and discover how to use your voice in magic, how to unravel the secrets of stories, how to craft your own rituals to bring the power of myths and folk tales into your life, and how to find, learn, and tell stories to enchant the world inside and outside the circle.

Out 28th January 2025

Storytelling for Magic is from Moon Books, at Collective Ink Publishing – order direct here.

A Witches Skill: Shapeshifting

20 Saturday Jul 2024

Posted by in Magic, Witchcraft 101

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I’m settling back into life after an adventure weaving lunar magic in Italy and reflecting back on some of the powerful experiences and beautiful magic that was shared. One piece was on shapeshifting, a skill that has fascinated me since I first discovered, aged 11, that there were adults who also believed in magic and I wondered;

“If witches are real, are shapeshifters real too?”

I soon discovered that shapeshifting is one of the skills of the witch.

(Curious? Join The Enchanted Academy here for a free Masterclass on shapeshifting!)

Shapeshifting shows up throughout history, myth, legend, and even into modern practices today. The skill to shift ones shape, to take on a new perspective, new abilities, new understanding.

Today we think of it as an imaginative or energetic practice, and it is. But it is worth remembering that the world is more nuanced than we think, and the physical is not so far away from the spirit.

Historically shapeshifting was often described as being literal, and there are accounts of people flying to safety (1), or becoming bears, wolves, and hares.

Terry Pratchett (2) illustrates the traditional witchcraft practice of faring forth in animal form well, when Granny Weatherwax hangs a sign up saying “I ate’nt dead” and sends her spirit out to “borrow” an animal’s senses, but it was common in this practice that the spirit was sent out in animal form, as a physical presence itself . The witch-spirit-as-animal, running as a hare, could even be injured and that injury would appear on their body the next day. Scottish witch Isobel Gowdie describes a famous example of this. (3)

The line between physical and spiritual is more porous than we might believe.

I first experienced this practice in a group with the story of Ceridwen and Taliesin (4), where they shapeshift during a chase, travelling through the realms, but I’d spent years exploring it beforehand – in dreams, in meditations and journey, out walking, and even playing hide and seek!

Some of the ways you can work with shapeshifting include:

  • Shifting your energy body to be more inviting or to discourage advances
  • Changing colours to project different impressions or hide!
  • Borrowing the heightened sight of the red kite, or hearing of the hare
  • Exploring different perspectives and landscapes through journeys to learn, and to gain insight
  • Remembering your relationship to the other beings in the web of life
  • To be inspired
  • For fun!

So much in life shifts and changes that exploring deliberate shapeshifting is also a wonderful magical tool for reflecting on what stays the same. What is consistent in you when you become a hare? A cat? A bird? What is, deep down, the core of you?

And what is eternal when everything else changes too? If you feel unsettled and overwhelmed by the fast paced chaos of modern life, finding that thread can be a powerful way of anchoring yourself.

Shapeshifting is, then, perfect for exploring different perspectives and finding the deep truths, for knowing yourself as well as the other.

So I’m really excited to share that I’m offering a FREE “masterclass” on shapeshifting as a witches skill, on Monday 22nd July! You can come and find out more about Shapeshifting, and experience it for yourself, in The Enchanted Academy, which has itself shifted shape and has a new home!

Come deepen your magic and explore the witches skill of shapeshifting in The Enchanted Academy, and gain access to our free community of gorgeous magical folks.

Button with text: A FREE Masterclass at The Enchanted Academy, The Witches’ Power of Shapeshifting - Monday 22nd July, 8pm (UK) with Halo Quin - Experience the wisdom of animals, heighten your spirit senses, & learn to fly. Join TEA here : www.the-enchanted-academy.mn.co
I choose Magic ~ Enter TEA here

Masterclass FAQ

  • Will there be a replay?
    • Yes!
  • Does it cost anything?
    • The community is totally free, with monthly events including masterclasses, prompts, healing and oracle swaps. There are courses and such that you can choose to sign up to when you’re ready to dive in deeper!
  • Why should I listen to you?
    • I have almost three decades of experience in magic, and many years teaching. Magic is my life (I also have a PhD in philosophy so I have thought about this stuff thoroughly too). My goal is to give you the skills to enchant your life and the world, and I work hard at it. But you can come and see for yourself by joining The Enchanted Academy for free.
  • How do I access the class?
    • Sign up to TEA here and turn on your notifications, the details will be posted in the Common Room!

Notes for the curious:

  1. I heard a tale from Peter Stevenson about enslaved people in the Americas growing wings and flying across the sea to home, which he learned from their descendants. There are other examples of this but this was in the last 200 years, so really recent.
  2. This is in “Lords and Ladies” but the whole “Wyrd Sisters” arc in Terry Pratchett’s work has brilliant illustrations of witchcraft.
  3. Isobel Gowdie was a witch executed in Scotland in the 1600s who gave a huge amount of information in her testimony including a famous charm for becoming a hare. Emma Wilby has written extensively on this in her book “Visions of Isobel Gowdie”.
  4. You can read a version of this story in my book, “Gods and Goddesses of Wales”
Button with text: TEA - The Enchanted Academy - with Halo (on an orange, gold, & red patchwork background)

The Enchanted Academy

A home for real magic, real community, open now!

Come and deepen your practice with experiential classes, discussion prompts, oracle and healing swaps, and courses available to embody your magic.

Find out more here or click to join now:

I choose Magic ~ Enter TEA here

What Do Pagans Believe?

07 Thursday Dec 2023

Posted by in Druidry, Magic, Reflections, Witchcraft 101

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(and how does that look in the world?)

Today I flicked through a copy of “Cults and New Religions; A History” by Douglas E. Cowan and David G. Bromley, and I naturally went straight to the chapter on “Wicca and Modern Witchcraft”, to see what they were saying about my religion – Pagan Witchcraft (and yes, I consider myself religious, but not dogmatic!).

The bits I saw I thought were quite accurate – Modern Witchcraft and Wicca are both paths under the “Pagan” umbrella, alongside Heathenry (generally speaking) and Druidry… with a fair amount of overlap! Not every Witch will consider themselves Pagan, and that’s ok, but most seem to be happy to sit under that umbrella.

What I did really like was how they characterised “Pagan” paths as, for the most part, sharing three common beliefs (paraphrased!):

  1. The Earth is Sacred.
  2. The Divine is immanent (in the world, including us).
  3. We have the ability to interact with the divine/spiritual/magical forces of the world. (i.e. Magic is possible!)

There will be a few pagans who disagree, or want to elaborate, but I think that’s a pretty good description.

So if you believe these three things and don’t subscribe to another faith, and the vibe of Paganism appeals to you, you might be one of us! You don’t even have to pick a tradition or a specific Path, you can just be Pagan. Or you can be Pagan and… like me.

Picture of autumnal trees by a frosty patch of grass in the sunshine – the beauty of the world is all around us.

I do have some thoughts, of course, like recognising that just because we can “interact with the spiritual forces of the world”, doesn’t mean we all do, or that what we do always works out as we intend, but many of us do absolutey do things that we call magic based on this understanding of the world.

And this makes me wonder about “belief” vs “experience” – I don’t just “believe” these things, I experience Nature as Sacred, the world as Divine, and magic as possible.

Our understanding of the world shapes how we treat it and how we experience it.

The stories we tell change the world we live in.

Our experiences.

And our actions.

In my Crimson Craft teachings I often speak about how “love” is a verb, it isn’t just something we feel, it is also something we do.

And if nature is Sacred, the world is Divine, and we can effect it, then how does that understanding, those beliefs, shape how we act in the world?

Many of my friends are protestors, street-activists, and campaigners for change in policy.

Most people I know are trying to live more lightly upon this beautiful, sacred, earth.

In Reclaiming Witchcraft, we’re having conversations about how we can treat each other better, be better allies to indigenous folk, queer folk, disabled folk, BIPOC and folk disproportinately effected by the systems of power that would rather keep us apart. We’re working to remember and act from the understanding that we are each divine.

We each take the steps we can, and one piece of this is remembering that we are part of the world.

Remembering that, if the divine is in the world… it is in us too.

If the Earth is Sacred, then you too are Sacred.

So how will you choose to treat yourself as such? To treat others as such?

All while holding those essential boundaries and practicalities of life, of course, which can seem paradoxical!

(Which is why I love working with the Red Goddesses who hold both radical Love and strong boundaries, they are lovers and fighters… but that’s a story for the future… join my mailing list to make sure you don’t miss it!)

What do you think? Is that a good way of describing the fundamental beliefs/ethos of Paganism? And if you are Pagan, what ways do you treat yourself, others, and the world as holding the divine?

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