Hello everyone, welcome to episode 101! I am so ready to hit the ground running on the next hundred episodes of the Middle-Aged Witch podcast, and I’m getting ready to celebrate the two-year anniversary as well. That’s coming up in a couple weeks and we will probably have another giveaway. So keep an eye open on our social media pages for that. Find us at @middleagedwitch and I’ll make updates as we approach the beginning of another year of witchcraft and spellwork and exploring different magickal disciplines and modalities and I have to say, it never fails to astound me at how much information we have yet to explore.
After a hundred episodes and two years, we still have so much to talk about. This is what keeps me excited. This is why I can’t stop doing this. I love witchcraft for a lot of reasons; it’s made me a stronger person and a kinder person. It’s given me access to so much personal power and potential. It’s given me a sense of community and all of that is priceless and that’s why I love it. But what keeps me excited is the depth of knowledge that I have barely begun to scratch away at.
I’ve been doing the witch thing for more years than I could even say, and there’s so much yet for me to learn. It’s brilliant. Now I also wanted to mention a few things because there are some listeners who are newer to the podcast. I post transcripts of every episode of this podcast on the website, middleagedwitch.com, so if we ever talk about a concept or go through spellwork or whatever it may be, there is always a written transcript available.
There’s a search feature on the website too, so even if you can’t remember what the episode was called, you can search whatever it is you wanted to look up. So if it was a banishing spell, search for banishing, and it will pull up all the episodes where we spoke about banishings. Again, that’s middleagedwitch.com. I also want to take this opportunity to mention the Facebook group and the Discord server, both of which I will link in the episode description. These are really cool communities and the vibes are beautiful.
So if you’re looking to connect with some like-minded witches, if you have tips and spells you’d like to share, or if you have questions, the witches in these groups are the best. These are really welcoming spaces and I’m so proud to be a part of them. Again I will link to both of them in the episode description, and of course you can find links on the website as well, so if you’d like to meet some cool witches who are very chill and very knowledgeable, please head on over.
I also got a message from a witch who wanted to share an easy cleansing method that I thought was really cool:
Hi Eli, In response to your recent request for easy self-care tips to share with listeners, I have one that I kind of came up with myself but is probably an ancient ritual. At the end of every shower, I scrub the bottoms of my feet with Epsom salts. As I do it, I think about all of the energies that I want to be rid of. So easy!
Yeah, I loved this idea for a couple reasons. First of all, anything we do with intention is powerful. So scrubbing our feet in the shower is something we all do anyway, a mundane activity, but combining it with the intention of removing old, unwanted energies makes it magick.
Secondly, water is such a powerful element for cleansing and renewal, so using our daily shower in this way, with intention, is always a good idea. It’s low effort, high reward. We are already going to take a shower today, might as well cleanse our souls and our auras while we’re at it. If your shower is in the morning, it’s a perfect way to begin with a clean slate. If your shower is in the evening, it’s an excellent method for removing any unwanted energies that we’ve been exposed to throughout our day. In either case, combining that with a ritual epsom salt scrub to the soles of the feet is ugh, chef’s kiss. Perfection.
And thirdly, witches know that salts are powerful allies for cleansing and protection, and epsom salt isn’t the same as table salt, but it is a mineral salt and it carries the same magickal benefits for us. So this ritual it’s a total triple-threat. There’s the very fact of doing this with intention, the use of elemental water magick, and the use of a salt for purification and protection. It’s a simple little ritual, but it is an effective one. So thank you so much for sharing, and if you’ve got a tip you’d like to share, I am ready to hear about it. You can email me any time at eli@middleagedwitch.com, my inbox is always open.
And now on to the main event. We are in June now, and for those of us in the northern hemisphere, this means summer. The summer solstice is June 24th, and we will be talking about the solstice and Litha next week, but I wanted to speak this week about solar magick, sun magick. This topic was suggested by a witch in the Discord server and I’m just thrilled as hell to talk about it. The sun does not get the same kind of attention from witches as the moon does.
And that isn’t a criticism, it’s just an observation. And I really do understand why that is. We witches tend to spend a lot of our time in the metaphorical shadows. We lean on our intuition, we listen to our subconscious, we are attuned to our dreams and to symbolism and all of that is very moon-centric. We use the phases of the moon to support our spell work and to inform our magick and if you know me at all, and after two years I hope you do, you know that I am absolutely in love with the moon and all she has to teach us.
But witchcraft is about balance and we cannot spend so much time in the shadows that we forget that it is the light that creates those shadows. So with this in mind, I want to discuss how we can use the sun and the phases of the sun in our craft. Yes, the sun has phases just like the moon, and we can use them in much the same way.
And here I want to acknowledge that not all witches feel as attuned to the moon. I’ve gotten a lot of messages from witches who struggle to feel a particular connection to the moon, and even my daughter has had those same feelings. This is not a failing. And if you happen to be a witch who doesn’t feel as connected to the moon as you feel like you should, it’s entirely possible that you might feel more in tune with the sun. If that’s the case, you can use the sun in your work just as you would use the moon. And we will talk about how exactly to do that.
But first, let’s just talk a little about the sun and its magickal correspondences and the different issues and intentions that can benefit from solar magick. And I’m going to begin with its zodiac significance. The sun is obviously not a planet, but it is a pretty goddamn significant member of our solar system. Like, it’s what the solar system was named for. So yeah, it’s kind of a big deal. I’m a Libra, this is my sun sign. When I was born, the sun was in the sign of Libra. This placement has a whole lot to do with my personality and how I see myself, how others see me, how I aspire to be when I am the highest version of myself.
We know that the rest of our natal chart has a lot to do with it, but for the most part, we identify ourselves by our sun signs. Significant. It’s especially significant for Leos, who are ruled by the sun. My daughter is a Leo, which is why when she came to me and said she was having difficulty feeling that connection to the moon, I suggested that maybe she should try to connect with the sun and see if that felt more natural. And for anyone with Leo in their big three placements, either your sun, moon, or rising sign, you may also feel more attuned to the sun than to the moon, or at least, equally as attuned.
And then as far as the different intentions that we can bring to the sun, the first that comes to mind is healing. There is so much healing magick to be found in the sun. And another fairly obvious one is success and accomplishment. Think of the Sun card in tarot, this is an omen of happiness and of things coming into alignment. So using sun magick in work like this is going to be very effective.
I would also put enlightenment and truth firmly into the sun category as well. The sun in a very literal sense shines light in dark places, and so using the power of the sun or invoking the sun in matters of truth and honesty, you know, uncovering lies and deception, makes perfect sense. And in a similar sense, using it for workings related to enlightenment and divine knowledge is also going to be really successful.
We can use herbs and plants with sun correspondence, as well as crystals and stones with strong sun association to give those workings some extra sizzle. So plants and herbs with big sun energy include sunflower (obviously), but also rosemary, chamomile, angelica, Spanish broom, cedar, ash, clove, cinnamon (which should not surprise anyone who’s ever used cinnamon in a success spell), witch hazel, frankincense, marigold, lovage (which is also fantastic with attraction magick), saffron, and oh- uh, mistletoe is actually associated with the sun as well.
As for crystals and gems with sun correspondences, I always think of the yellow, red, and orange stones for sure, so like your citrine, your carnelian, amber, topaz, tiger’s eye, sunstone, and ruby. So any of these stones or herbs could be used in spellwork to help to impart that strong sun energy. That kind of very powerful, nurturing strength.
But we do not have to limit our sun magick to those specific intentions that I mentioned already, the healing, the enlightenment, the success. Those are just issues for which the sun will be a particularly strong ally. We can absolutely use the sun for all kinds of work, and we can use its phases in the same way that we use the moon’s phases.
So where we might use the power of the full moon for spells having to do with abundance and manifestation and empowerment and so on, we would conduct this kind of work at high noon, when the sun is at its fullest strength. New moon work which often includes work for new beginnings, and baneful work, rebirth and renewal and divination or psychic work, we would perform this kind of work at midnight.
Waxing moon work, which frequently includes new endeavors, business opportunities, attraction magick, increase and money magick, could be supported by performing this work right at dawn, just at sunrise. And work that we would typically perform at the waning moon, which includes banishing work, bindings, spirit work, shadow work, and transformational magick, would be well-supported by using dusk and performing the work right at sundown.
And for big, huge, lasting sun magick, we can also use those chief solar events, the summer solstice at Litha which would correspond with the ultimate high noon of the entire year, the winter solstice at Yule, the vernal or spring equinox which is a great time for that sunrise magick, and the autumnal or the fall equinox which is going to be the best time of year for that sundown or sunset work.
So it’s just something to keep in mind if you’ve got some spellwork in mind that would really align nicely with a full moon, but maybe that’s still three weeks away. If it’s not something you want to wait to put into motion, then just use the power of the high noon sun. There’s so much to love about sun magick, not the least of which is that the sun cycle is 24 hours rather than 28 days.
And we can charge our crystals and amulets and spell jars in the sun, just as we can in the moonlight, and it’s not going to diminish the return on our intentions. It just isn’t. The sun is a vibrant source of energy and optimism and there’s no reason at all not to avail ourselves of its power, especially now as we are cresting into summer and these days are going to be nice and long.
Let us not forget that a lot of ancients were literal sun worshippers. They depended on the warmth of the sun, on the food that it helps to grow, on the animal life that it supports which in turn, supported the people themselves. This is why sun festivals were so important to these people. They knew exactly when the longest and shortest days of the year were, they knew when to expect the equinoxes, because they were so devoted to the sun. It was imperative to their survival.
This is also why solar eclipses would freak everyone the hell out. Imagine being one of these ancients, I mean, the fear I would have if suddenly there was some silent shroud covering the sun, my god, I would hit my knees praying. So I just, my point is simply that the sun is important and we can and should, not only use it in our craft, but also use our craft to honor it. And this is a really great time of year for that. So, we will be back again next week to talk about the solstice and Litha and we will have some cool rituals to discuss and I’m looking forward to it. Until then, have a lovely day. My name is Eli Ro, and this has been the Middle-Aged Witch podcast.
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