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Magic is a Practice

Magic is a Practice

Last updated on: September 8, 2025 at 7:04 am by Laura Tempest Zakroff

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Magic is a Practice 2025-09-08T07:04:56-08:00 Laura Tempest Zakroff

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About a month ago I posted on threads “I’ve been a practicing Witch for over 30 years now – and the wonder and will of magic can still make me catch my breath in amazement.”

I had been going about my daily life, which at that time was trying to prep for a busy August while recovering from jetlag, when a pattern of events unfolded in front of me. I knew something was coming, but the way it was revealed and its timing was remarkable. It’s not the first time magic has worked this way and it won’t be the last. Yet it never gets old.

Then someone replied to the post that they stopped believing in magic after the 2024 elections. And while I understand their frustration, anger, and disappointment – there’s an underlying issue outside of the results. In fact, several of them.

Magic As Foundation

photo by Austin Ban

Having been involved with magical resistance work for over 10 years now, I have watched the waves of popularity come and go and come again. And being a member of the larger magical community since the 90’s, I’m quite familiar with the variety of reasons that draw people to these paths.

Magic is often what people turn to when they’ve exhausted all other options and/or have been marginalized in some way. But it’s also an attractive lure for those who want a quick or easy fix. A lot of people use magic as triage for the symptoms of what’s wrong in their lives versus working to get at the cause. Again, understandable, but it’s not a sustainable practice.

Magic can accomplish a lot – and you can definitely get lucky with some one-off experiments. But it’s hard to get really good at something and get fairly reliable results when you rarely engage with it. You have to have a practice where it becomes part of you. And there’s no time like the present to start that practice.

The sustainable shift comes when you embrace magic as part of your daily life. I’m not talking about a spell-a-day, but by developing a relationship of understanding – with yourself, your environment, the seen and unseen worlds, the universe itself. Magic is more than candles, incense, herbs, and incantations at specific and special moments – it’s a way of seeing, knowing, and feeling every day.

Magic for the Little Moments

Photo by Meritt Thomas

I know some people get hives at the mention of “daily practice” – but I find that it’s because they have an overly elaborate idea of what a daily practice is “supposed” to look like. Something steeped in stuff and obligation. People ask me about my daily practice, expecting it to look something like “2 hours of movement meditation followed by an oracle reading, lighting 6 candles, talking to 8 gods, burning 2 kinds of incense, and then I start my day.” The reality is it’s typically just this: I haul my arse out of bed, I become one with my tea, I check in the residents of our home (my partner, the cats, the spirits), take a look at the back yard through the window, and then go to my studio, sit at my desk and began to check email, messages, go over my to-do list and get to work.

And that whole relatively short process is magical AF. I’m not saying that any practice (6 candles, 8 gods, or not) is wrong, but taking some moments to orient myself in my surroundings is what works for me. It’s about connection and magic in those little moments. Being more connected to myself and what’s happening around me is foundational. The little rituals and little magics create a rhythm and a pattern that add meaning and potency to my work.

Magic for the Big Moments & the Sphere of Influence

Which means when I do need to “break out the big guns”, I have a better understanding of what it is I can do and how I can do it. But that doesn’t mean I can pull anything off I want. Being a sovereign and connected being doesn’t mean I’m all-powerful or without limitations. Rather, it reminds me of my sphere of influence: what things I can directly and indirectly affect – at least on my own or with assistance.

If there’s some work that involves just me, it’s highly likely that the odds are in my favor. As I move beyond my own being, out into my environment and involve other beings, there’s more to contend with. The more people, places, and moving pieces are involved, the lesser the influence (generally). The more people and energies that are aligned with something, the greater the influence – and when you have multiple groups all trying to shift that influence in very different ways, the outcome can be unpredictable and often multi-faceted. Nothing is rarely “one and done” with magic. There are layers and layers to contend with and we can rarely see all of the patterns weaving at once.

Rarely do magical workings completely “fail” – the nature of magic is change. What’s really going on is often that we didn’t get the exact results we expected because there’s more happening than just us. The longer you do magic, the more it will surprise you. There’s the things we can predict and perceive, and there’s the things we didn’t account for. But hopefully, every time we learn something – if we keep moving forward.

Photo by Aditya Saxena

Magic Happens When We Engage

This past weekend I went with a friend to hear a talk by costume designer Debra Mcguire. There were a lot of excellent points about focus, work-life balance, creativity, community, and the future. But the thing she said that I had to pull out my phone to write down was, “Magic only happens when we engage.”

Now, despite Debra mentioning magic and ritual in her talk, I get that we’re likely coming out this from slightly different angles – but the point is the same. Magic isn’t about other forces doing things for us only when we feel we need or want it with little effort or work – magic IS us, our engagement and focus. We become and are magic when we’re engaged. We have to be present in our work, we need to have focus and devote energy to the changes we wish to see in the world.

To change the consciousness of the world, we have to start with ourselves and work out from there. We need to see the very evident magic in the little moments and continue to revel when it happens in the big moments.

How do you make magic your practice?

It’s not the amount of books you’ve read (or are sitting in the TBR pile). Nor is it the amount of herbs, crystals, oils, or TikTok videos. Also not the number of degrees that makes a practice effective or powerful.

Magic begins with just you – and starting to see you. Begin with a breath, with being in your body, and knowing yourself. Work your way slowly out and begin to notice the world around you. Observe, perceive, and become aware of the patterns. It’s as simple – and as complex- as that.

Metaphysics

Modern Practice

laura tempest zakroff

About Laura Tempest Zakroff

Laura Tempest Zakroff is a professional artist, author, performer, and Modern Traditional Witch based in New England. She holds a BFA from RISD (the Rhode Island School of Design), and her artwork has received awards and honors worldwide. Her work embodies myth and the esoteric through her drawings and paintings, jewelry, talismans, and other designs. Laura is the author of the bestselling Llewellyn books Weave the Liminal, Sigil Witchery, and Anatomy of a Witch, as well as the Liminal Spirits Oracle (artist/author), The Witch’s Cauldron, and co-author of The Witch’s Altar with Jason Mankey. Laura edited The New Aradia: A Witch’s Handbook to Magical Resistance (Revelore Press). She is the creative force behind several community events and teaches workshops online and worldwide. You can read more about the author here.

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