3 Life Classes I’ve Discovered From Practising Yoga and Witchcraft

“], “filter”: { “nextExceptions”: “img, blockquote, div”, “nextContainsExceptions”: “img, blockquote, a.btn, a.o-button”} }”>

I started experimenting with witchcraft not lengthy after I started experimenting with yoga.

As a “flower little one,” I’d all the time felt a reference to the Earth. Later, as a college scholar and newly devoted practitioner of yoga, I started to hunt alternate methods of dwelling that have been extra attuned to nature. I studied yoga philosophy and Jap spirituality. I obsessed over sustainability and holistic drugs. I discovered in regards to the phases of the Moon and the Celtic wheel of the 12 months.

Being a practitioner of yoga and witchcraft, what’s more and more being known as a “yoga witch,” means combining the mindfulness and self-awareness cultivated in yoga with the reverence for nature and the magical power harnessed in witchcraft. It’s a apply of continually weaving each lineages into a life-style that honors the profound union of our interior and outer worlds.

At its essence, witchcraft is a celebration of strolling by way of life in a method that aligns intently with the rhythms of the Earth, the phases of the Moon, and the interconnectedness of all dwelling beings. I felt drawn to those approaches to life for numerous causes, notably the popularity of the divine female inside paganism and the redistribution of private energy inside yoga.

The examine of those practices expanded my sense of connection to the pure world, and every new layer I uncovered taught me extra about common power and the way its workings manifested not solely inside my physique however all through my expertise of life. Whereas their approaches are sometimes completely different, these paths contact on the identical truths and, to me, appear inextricably linked, serving as mysterious autos main me towards a extra pervasive sense of wellness and buoyed self-confidence as a yoga witch.

What I’ve Discovered By Being a “Yoga Witch”

After I started instructing yoga in 2018, I noticed limitless alternatives to marry my two worlds. As a witchy yoga trainer, I enterprise deep into the area the place I consider yogic knowledge intertwines with the eagerness of paganism. All through this journey, I’ve discovered quite a bit about myself, the Earth, and navigating what stability really appears to be like and looks like.

This fusion of practices profoundly influences my outer expression as a trainer. I infuse my lessons with reminders of the sacredness of the Earth, encouraging college students to attach with the pure world round them. My sequencing is crafted to resonate with the cycles of the Moon and the seasons, creating an atmosphere that encourages mindfulness, self-discovery, and alignment with the Earth’s energies. If I can cross on any insights as a yoga witch of almost 10 years, it’s outlined in the best way I facilitate the expertise for my college students and within the phrases beneath..

1. Be Impressed By Nature

Disenchanted by the normal faith I grew up with, I discover nature to be the final word supply of inspiration. It performs a central position in each my yoga apply and my spirituality as a training witch.

I’ll take a quick second right here for definitions. I exploit the phrases “Wicca” and “pagan” interchangeably to categorise the construction of my Earth-based non secular practices. “Pagan” is an umbrella time period that dates again to 300 AD. Throughout the Roman Empire, it referred to any polytheistic faith that wasn’t based mostly on Christ. Wicca is a newer and particular title ascribed to the syndication of historic pagan beliefs and ritual practices into one “faith” by writer and anthropologist Gerald Gardner within the Nineteen Fifties.

For me, Wicca has been an interesting exploration of historic practices for aware dwelling and seasonal celebrations. It’s a door that my yoga apply helped open, as that’s how I started to know myself in union with a better entire moderately than separate from it.

By attuning to the transitions of the seasons and the Moon, I started to nurture a connection to one thing better. Every shift in nature turned a potent mirror into my interior world, one which mirrored the fixed ebb and stream of life’s currents. This allowed me to information my college students towards a deeper understanding of the intricate interaction between their interior worlds and the continually fluctuating outer world round them.

The Earth turned my conduit for better presence and goal. I started creating my yoga sequences across the transitions of the seasons and the lunar phases, and drawing on nature to tell my dharma talks initially of and all through my lessons. I’d examine the non secular power of the present second and infuse that into my teachings, serving to college students take their apply from the micro expertise of being on their mats to a extra macro expertise of us being pure beings in deep reference to this huge, stunning planet. Anybody who is aware of the roots of Wicca is aware of that that is its very basis.

It’s a relationship that I’m nonetheless exploring and increasing.

How You Can Follow It: Select a facet of the pure world that fascinates you, whether or not astrology, plant drugs, the phases of the Moon, seasonal shifts, the weather, and so forth. Then throw your self into examine and exploration of that facet. Speak about it with others. Meditate and journal. Draw on the yogic precept of svadhyaya, or self-study, to see what insights your curiosity about nature may result in your interior patterns.

2. Domesticate Neighborhood

After I graduated from faculty, I moved to New Orleans, the place I shared a dilapidated duplex in Mid-Metropolis with three of my finest pals. It was chaotic and shambly, however it was probably the greatest chapters of my life.

Having all the time been a self-prescribed “outsider,” this was the primary time I felt like I actually belonged. New Orleans is a metropolis identified for its mysterious historical past and witchy attract, and I instantly had entry to communities and academics that my Midwestern upbringing didn’t present.

I started my yoga trainer coaching that fall, and often attended Moon circles and herbalism lessons on the native apothecary nestled alongside the Bayou. These thriving communities supplied a supportive atmosphere for me to discover and develop my apply. I used to be surrounded by circles of like-minded girls each weekend. We studied breathwork and divination. We made malas collectively. We listened. We supported one another. And at evening, my roommates and I’d come residence and swap holistic treatments or astrological insights from the day. Collectively, we proudly embraced our identities as wild girls, supporting one another by way of our non secular quests.

It was right here that I spotted yoga and spirituality aren’t simply solitary practices. They supply a possibility to be a part of one thing better—a collective of people who’re searching for that means, connection, and development. Sangha, a close-knit neighborhood of like-minded souls, turned an important facet of my yoga journey. It wasn’t nearly my private evolution as a yoga witch; it was in regards to the shared expertise of elevating our collective vibrations and, in flip, elevating the collective consciousness.

The idea of sangha started to affect my notion of instructing and training. My private sangha taught me to be assured and inquisitive. It taught me hearken to my interior voice, and ultimately share that with others. After a couple of years, together with a couple of girlfriends, I spearheaded Crescent Craft NOLA, a gaggle that led neighborhood occasions for magically-interested folks. Right here I started to hone my voice as a non secular information and trainer. I additionally started to steer full moon meditation circles at my yoga studio, fusing my two worlds into one stronger neighborhood. Our practices on the mat and within the woods transcended the bodily and have become a strategy to channel our power and intentions into a strong pressure for constructive change.

How You Can Follow It: Analysis area people occasions that align together with your non secular or cultural curiosities. Then take your self to them. The necessary factor is that you simply go, even when it feels scary to attend alone. The extra you apply your independence and private energy, the stronger it is going to turn into. And, on the identical time, the extra you can find neighborhood with like-minded others.

3. Search Steadiness

One fascinating, if barely conflicting, facet of my expertise has been navigating the fragile stability between yogic austerity and witchy indulgence.

Paganism, which I contemplate to be inherently sensual, embraces the importance of life’s pleasures and the understanding that issues “of the world” are vital for true presence and rapturous pleasure.

Conversely, yoga philosophy typically tells us that what we want is already inside us, and all the things else is a distraction. This lesson is considered so very important that it’s etched into the yamas, or moral precepts of yoga, by the idea referred to as brahmacharya.

As an alternative of shunning the bodily realm, paganism celebrates it as a pathway to enlightenment. On this method, I see plenty of parallels between witchcraft and tantra yoga, as each emphasize discovering presence and unity inside the materials world.

Throughout my early 20s, I typically discovered myself ricocheting between these extremes of indulgence and abstinence whereas I looked for a stability. Whether or not bouts of binge consuming or months of sobriety, this has taught me invaluable classes—most notably, to hearken to my physique and ritualize as a lot of life as doable. It’s alright to have a drink, order a steak, or give your self totally to a different individual.

As an alternative of telling myself that “I shouldn’t,” I began inquiring why I used to be doing one thing. I requested myself, is that this “vice” was going to assist me turn into extra current by way of celebratory ritual? Or is it senseless repetition, a weak grasp for that means that’s completely uninspired?

Indulgence is nice, so long as you don’t lose your respect for it and for your self.

How You Can Follow It: Check out the actions you already do or have been that means to do regularly. Ask your self how one can ritualize or romanticize the senseless stuff you are likely to “endure by way of” and convey celebration again to the stuff you’ve taken with no consideration. This may be easy and surface-level (like starting your work day by lighting candles and training breathwork) or grander in scale and deeper in that means (like migrating your day by day after-work drink towards a extra aware, weekly ritual of cocktails and dialog together with your accomplice or pals). You’re meant to take pleasure in your life, and doing so is a stability.

Finally, my journey as a yoga witch is a story of presence and goal. It has taught me to cherish the bodily world, to seek out magic within the strange, and to think about every second as a gateway to enlightenment. There isn’t a finish to the mysteries that await those that dare to enterprise into the realms of their truest self, and I invite others to embark on this romantic exploration.

RELATED: What Witches and Yoga Have in Common

About Our Contributor
Sierra Vandervort is a author and trendy witchy lady dwelling in Oregon. She’s been training yoga for almost a decade and accomplished her trainer coaching in 2018. She writes and teaches about connection—connection to the physique, to nature, and to the highly effective energies of the universe. In 2017, she based her media model, The Local Mystic, an academic hub dedicated to aware, mystical dwelling for ladies. Sierra likes to information folks to their witchy facet by serving to them deepen their non secular research and ritualize their lives. By The Native Mystic, she’s written books, plus hosted girls’s circles and wellness retreats worldwide. Without spending a dime yoga and witchy knowledge, discover Sierra on Instagram @thelocalmystic and on YouTube. And take a look at her e book, Your Year of Magic.