Practical Magic: Cleansing at 2am under the new moon
And why you should always listen to your familiar
Welcome to a new series and kind of a vulnerable share for me(!!!).
I am slowly accepting the term witch as one of my gifts, especially since hearing Stephanie of Energia’s description for the modern day witch. No joke, since hearing that on her pod and IG, I have been looking at myself in a different light. Claiming my gifts in a deeper, excited, powerful way. It’s pretty fucking cool, and very good timing.
witch: a powerful, spiritual woman who is capable and strong. She is tapped into her spiritual and psychic gifts and is unapologetic about co-creating with spirit. She understands that her gifts don’t need a certificate… — Stephanie Lianos
There’s a lot I want to talk about in the realm of that journey and awakening (it involves making a huge life decision whilst driving to visit my friend — love that for me) but right now I want to talk about what I experienced tonight while it’s still fresh.
And it’s still fresh because it’s 4:45am, and I have been awake since 2am — because my sweet little puppy freaked out.
Now, some background context: Pippy is nearly 3, and is a feisty, protective bitch during the day and will bark down anyone remotely anywhere near our house. At night time, when James (my partner) and I are home, she mostly relaxes and sleeps like a log. We rarely ever get woken up by her unless she’s sick.
So, it was pretty fucking weird when early this morning our bedroom smoke alarm went off. This has happened before (multiple times over the last year of living here) and it’s always one random BEEP that scares the shit out of Pip and I. It must be extremely high pitched for her because she always freaks out and wants to leave the house as soon as it goes off.
It happened twice before James and I did anything about it. Pip became really frantic and was pacing around the bed and whining (very unusual behaviour for her) and James let her out thinking she had to pee. But she didn’t, and James took the alarm down so it would stop randomly beeping and checked to make sure the oven was off, which I THOUGHT would be the end of it.
Oh no.
Usually by this point, Pippy would calm down and go back to sleep, but my girl was frantic. She was walking up and down our bed, laying for a second but not relaxing, panting, sitting on our pillows, moving so she could be near my head, and just having all round spooked af energy.
It was at this point that I knew something else was going on. My intuition quickly thought “cleanse the house” which I was supposed to do yesterday but didn’t prioritise, and like a classic person who has to get up in 3 hours, I ignored it for a bit hoping Pip would settle.
But babes refused to settle (love that for her), so I sat up in bed with her and watched the spot at our doorway (also the end of our bed), waiting to see if I saw anything. Now, so far my primary sense is claircognizance, so I didn’t see, hear or feel anything, but I had a sense that something was there.
So here I am at 2-something-am, throwing on clothes and my glasses on and turning on all the lights in the house. Pip was very happy to have the backdoor open and I threw the front one open too for good measure.
I still didn’t feel any weird or bad energies, but I trusted something was lingering, especially as I had only done an energy cleanse on our bedroom on Sunday night after James experienced a sleep paralysis demon for the first time (wtf right?!).
If you’ve never done a cleanse before, here’s three things you need to know:
Make it intuitive and tailored to you. There is no set process as long as the intention is clear.
Use smoke if you can, because it’s satisfying to see it visually cleansing the space. Not necessary, but I get an extra level of strength from it.
If you’re cleansing at night, use light! I find it really comforting and that it brings a balance to the darkness you are likely trying to remove.
The house cleanse was pretty simple. I started by going around to each room and smoke cleansing each corner, intending for the smoke to clear out any negative or unwanted energies. While I was doing that, I used my other hand to send reiki into the rooms, with the intention of cleansing too. I made sure that each space had an open window or one nearby, and swept all of the energy out with my hands and mind.
Once the whole house was done, I went back around and drew a reiki protection symbol over all the doors and windows using my incense smoke, along with Pip, our cat Newt, James (asleep during the entire cleanse, lol), and myself in the mirror. Yes, I felt like I was at dang Hogwarts casting spells with my wooden stick of dried herbs. I loved it.
[It’s fascinating to note that Pip’s entire demeanour and energy changed as soon as I started cleansing the house. She followed me into some rooms, but otherwise she sat on her bed in the lounge room and was completely chill. She curled up and started sleeping before I was even done. Proof that the cleanse was working!]
Afterwards, I put the incense next to an open window and sat with Pip until it burnt out. This isn’t necessary but it felt right for me to do, like a completion of the ritual. At this point, it was around 2:40am so I decided to journal out my experience and debate whether to go back to sleep or stay up.
During the cleanse, I was fully awake and alert, like my full energy was snapped on and my body was on board, despite having 3 hours of sleep at best. Afterwards, it waned a little (I swear as soon as the incense went out I felt my energy drop, like it was safe to relax), but I decided to make the most of it with yoga, a kriya and meditation, because that always gives me energy.
I found it quite interesting to witness how I felt taking on this unknown dark entity mostly solo. James isn’t really into all this stuff, but is also happy for me to do it (his soul knows, even if his logical boy brain doesn’t), so I didn’t see any point in waking him up.
I felt strong, powerful, supported. I would cleanse and protect our house, no worries at all. (Of course, if I actually saw something I would’ve shit myself, but I didn’t, so that’s good.)
So yes, fuck. That’s my witchy dispatch and I still don’t know what to make of it.
So far, I think it was leftover energy from the gunk that was attached to James on Saturday. We are both taking an Australian Bush Flower Essence blend called Purifying, and my genius best mate pointed out that James could be clearing old, hidden negative entities and frequencies from his energy field. Which explains the randomness of all this.
Truthfully, I hope I don’t have to do this again anytime soon, but I like knowing that if I have to, I know what to do. I am divinely guided and protected by my ancestors, guides and angels. And my puppy!
An added synchronicity to all this is me calling her my familiar just last night. And not 4 hours later, girlie was acting like all the badass cats in witchy films and tv shows, alerting us of negative shit hanging around.
Okay, I think that’s it for now. Let me know what you think of this kind of story. Tbh, I will keep sharing it even if it’s not your style, because I know it’s great for me to release and own this stuff AND there will be someone else out there who can really benefit from it.
That’s the beauty of art and creativity — when we are prompted to share our stories, it’s always because there’s other souls out there needing to hear them.
If you have any questions or tips for me, share them below. I am all ears! I don’t have a specific craft yet per se, most of my work is in the energy realm, but I am looking forward to bringing more earth magic into my life.
Thank you for reading this download — it very much wanted to come through NOW, and it was fun to write for us.
I’ll chat to ya again soon.
Keep your energy clear,
Viv + Pippy
Oh I love this witchy stuff! How interesting! Lucky that Pip has a witch for a mum to protect her ☺️