5 spring intentions I’m setting as a green witch

Good morning, my lovely.

I hope the INSANE weather of this past week has not distracted you from the fact that we are finally in spring! Hurray, huzzah – that’s enough hail and snow now, please.

There is a lot of discourse out there about when the actual “new year” begins.

• For some, it is 1^st January, in the depths of winter.

• The lunar new year falls in February.

• The Witch’s New Year is 31^st October, on the Pagan festival of Samhain.

• Or corporate girlies may see 1^st April as when everything restarts!

But I think most of us can see the reasoning behind celebrating the dawn of the year on the Spring Equinox.

This year’s equinox fell last Friday on 20^th March at 14:46 GMT. This is the start of the new zodiac cycle (bye bye, Pisces season!), the tipping point of the year into longer days, and – this year – it actually fell on a new moon. Talk about renewal and starting again.

To this green witch, with my love of the fresh verdancy of March and the way the sunlight falls through the willow catkins over my garden fence, it is the ideal point of the year to be making spring resolutions and setting intentions for the year ahead.

This feels so much better than making resolutions on 1st January in a mince-pie coma.

Below, I talk about intention setting as part of your springtime ritual practice and the exact intentions I’ll be setting as a witch who’s had a quiet winter in terms of magick.

And if you’re looking to get your teeth into spring awakenings and the magick of Ostara, I talk about this more in my book, The Wheel: A Witch’s Path Back to the Ancient Self. If you want ways to reconnect with the Earth this spring, this might be a read for you.

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Resolution setting as a ritual practice

Also known as intention setting.

If you have been practising witchcraft for any length of time at all, you’ll know that having an intention behind a spell or ritual is what adds power to the direction of your magick.

If you want to cast a protection spell, the intent to protect a particular person or thing is there.

If you want to attract luck, an intent to embody abundance is there.

The more specific the intent, the better.

But we can also use intention setting to guide and shape our year by outlining exactly what we want and showing the Goddess (or the Divine) what we are willing to do to achieve these goals.

Within witchcraft, an intention isn’t just something you cross your fingers over and hope will happen; it is something you completely embody and manifest into being. Intention setting is a practice I used ahead of getting my first book deal and for success when I very first became a freelance writer, to lay the path ahead with a sort of golden energy. I see intention setting as reaching out to that invisible string of a possible future and giving it a knowing tug, reminding it that it’s about to happen.

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Your own intentions will be very personal to you and may be tied to where you’re at in your journey right now. Only you know how you want your year to unfurl, but intentions are usually positive and things that will help you grow within yourself and your craft.

Spring is a good time to set intentions as it is the season of new beginnings and is ruled by the Air Element, meaning that whatever your intention, it has a fair wind behind it.

To perform an intention-setting ritual as part of your witchcraft practice:

1. Have a clear idea of the intentions you want to set before you go into the ritual. I would typically choose 1-3 intentions.

2. Ground yourself in your preferred way – meditation, barefoot walking outside or lighting a candle with essential oils associated with the Earth Element (I might go with patchouli or vetiver, if you can handle that deeply earthy smell).

3. Sit in front of your Pagan altar or a cleansed sacred spot in nature or your home.

4. If you want to go the whole magickal hog, now is the time to cast a circle to enhance and protect your workings. Ask the Goddess for her help and guidance in your intention setting.

5. Once you’re settled, state your intention aloud as a positive, affirmative statement in the present tense, such as, “My body and mind are healthy and filled with positivity” or “I am embarking on an exciting new career in [area of choice].” Say your intentions out loud one at a time, writing each one down on a small scrap of paper (folding it into quarters by folding the paper towards you, turning clockwise 90 degrees and folding again), and visualising each intention happening viscerally and clearly in your mind. Take your time with this. Imagine all the events leading up to your intention becoming a reality, and feel exactly how you will feel when it does manifest into being. Really embody these thoughts and emotions, as if you can imagine the scene playing out in front of you in real time.

6. After each visualisation, burn the scrap of paper in a candle flame, releasing it to the Universe, allowing the Goddess to take it in hand.

7. Afterwards, sit calmly in your ritual space and feel at peace. Your intentions are now out there in the world.

Last week, I shared my Ostara spell for infusing seeds with extra growth (both physical and magickal). This spell can be incorporated into an intention-setting ritual: as you press each seed into the soil, you might assign it an intention, nurturing both the plant and the part of yourself you wish to grow.

What are your intentions for the coming year? Drop what you’re willing to share in the comments below! But now for some of mine…

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