Being a Green Witch is more than just using herbs and natural ingredients. It’s a lifestyle that sees us as co-creator of the world with Mother Earth. A Green Witch works on building a relationship with Mother Nature through awareness, connection, learning and practice.

Here are some advanced practices for green witches.

Connecting with Plants

Many green witches know a lot about plants, especially herbs and their properties. We know which herbs to use in spells and what the likely effects will be. However, one of the most powerful Green Witch practices I know is connecting directly with the plant and learning their wisdom. This is something that many indigenous peoples do, but which many of us have lost in our rational age.

Connecting with plants is a simple way to really deepen your Green Witchcraft practice. Once you can do this, you can add to your knowledge of a plant by asking it directly how it can help you. You can also ask it what it needs to thrive or what wisdom it would like to share with humanity.

This deep connection to the natural world is also awesome to experience. When you feel deeply connected to the world around you, you no longer feel separate and lonely, but deeply allied with all that is. In my view it’s one of the deepest experiences you can have as a witch.

The beauty of this practice is that while it is advanced and highly spiritual, it is easy to do and requires nothing more than you attention. It’s a practice that is available to everyone from city dwellers to those living in wild landscapes. You can connect with a majestic old tree in a National park or a pot of basil on your windowsill!

To connect with your plant you simply need to sit with it and try to keep your mind open and listening. It’s like meditating. At first, your mind will probably wander a lot and you might struggle to connect. But persistence is key. Each time your mind wanders, bring it back to focusing on your chosen plant and try to stay open and listening for communication. Communication may come in the form of words, images or sensations.

Don’t forget to make a not of any communications or sensations you feel in your journal.

Connecting with Animals

Connecting with animals is another wonderful Green Witch practice. You can connect with pets if you have them which can really build an incredible bond. However, to commune with the wild wisdom of nature I suggest connecting with wild animals, birds or insects if you can.

Connecting with animals can be a bit ire tricky than connecting with plants in practical terms. Finding wildlife to connect with is not easy, especially for those of us that live in towns and cities. Animals and birds tend to be flighty around humans, too so it can be quite frustrating trying to connect with them.

However, I have found simple practices like feeding birds in the garden or spending a quiet fifteen minutes sitting in the woods or a local park can bring many connections. I have managed to connect with crows and robins in this way as well as the foxes that play in my garden. Younger animals tend to be a little easier to connect with and they have a lovely curious, playful energy, too.

I am by no means an expert on connecting with animals, I find plants much easier – but that may be just me. You may find it easier to commune with animals than plants. I do find it very rewarding when I make even the slightest connection, such as when a bee buzzes around to investigate me or I say hello to my neighbourhood crows and they caw right back at me.

Connecting with Land Spirits

Connecting with land spirits is a deeply grounding experience and can be particularly reassuring when you are going through periods of change. Land spirits live on a completely different timeline form us, being as ancient as the land itself. Land spirits occupy rivers and mountains, fields and deserts, but also parks, cities, reservoirs and church grounds. You have a land spirit in the area you live in and even a house spirit that watches over your home.

Connecting with land spirits, including city spirits is simplicity itself. You just sit quietly in a particular environment and stay open and listen. Again it can take a while to tune into land spirits. Their energy is slow and steady and deep so you might not notice much at first. However, you will almost certainly feel more stable, grounded and safe after sitting in nature for a while and staying open to any messages the land wants to offer.

Learning about Nature

In my experience, the more you learn about nature, the easier it is to connect. This can mean spending time observing nature through different seasons, but you can also learn about nature through the many wonderful books and documentaries available. I often use books or apps to identify plant and bird species when I am out in nature and then I research these creatures when I get home.

It isn’t essential to study the wild world in this way to be a Green Witch, you can just connect intuitively if you prefer. However, I find that knowing a little bit about the creatures I share my world with helps me to understand them and commune with them more easily.

Nature Stewardship

One of the benefits of connecting with Mother Earth is that we feel better. We feel more alive and connected, more secure and less anxious. However, the more we learn about nature the more we discover how much threat the natural world is under. This in itself can make us sad and worried for her future. However, this knowledge also empowers us.

With the knowledge we have, we can make better decisions about how we use nature’s bounty and we can advocate for her in a world that disregards her needs. When we feel deeply connected with nature we realise that we don’t need a lot of stuff to be happy. A patch of earth to sit on, a tree trunk to lean on – these things offer us more long term happiness than buying gadgets and gizmos that we don’t really need.

Of course, for many of us, our financial stability is precarious and we do not have the access to natural resources that we would need to survive. But nature does teach us how to make the most of what we do have and it guides us to think about what really matters. No one teaches you better how to make the most of what you have than a tree which had no choice about where it grew and has had to make the best of it.

Small acts of natural stewardship can also make us feel like we have value in the natural world – that we contribute rather than always taking from nature. Planting a tree, choosing recycled paper or picking up litter can be an acts of natural stewardship. Choosing meat free meals, cutting back on dairy and buying less can also ensure we are less of a burden on the mother who sustains us all.

I hope you have found this post helpful. For more on green witchcraft check out my post on sustainable witchcraft below.