<![CDATA[TWND - Our Random Writings]]>Sun, 28 Sep 2025 23:29:09 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Our New Years Ritual]]>Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:43:30 GMThttps://www.thewitchesnextdoor.net/our-random-writings/our-new-years-ritual
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For more than two decades, Gwion and I have done pretty much the same ritual to celebrate the New Year.

I need to sit down to compose myself because I can't believe I'm even old enough to have done the same ritual for more than twenty years. Gimme a minute.

Okay...I'm back.

The New Year

Honoring the New Year is a strange thing when you stop to think about it. Most people in the world have agreed that when an arbitrary box on a human made device known as a calendar gets ticked, we throw a party, wear cleverly crafted sparkly glasses shaped as numbers, quaff buckets of prosecco, and make some spectacularly bad decisions. (Remind me to tell you about Gwion laying in the front garden one of these days)

But, when you stop to think about it, it's pretty cool (not the laying in the front garden bit, the New Years bit). Once every twelve months, we wipe the proverbial slate clean, make all sorts of promises to change our behaviors, and occasionally actually do those things.

Our New Year's Ritual

Here's what we do. We head out to the coast. There's a beach with an overlook that's rarely ever visited by humans. In fact, we've only seen three people there in all the years we've gone there. We affectionally call this cliff top the "ultimate picnic spot". 

When I say cliff top, I really mean that. One misplaced step and you'll fall a couple hundred feet down into the rocks and crashing waves.

Once we're there, we pull out two pennies from the year that was. So, this year, we had two 2024 pennies. We stand as close to the edge as is safe, and recount all the wonderful, challenging, inspiring, terrible, hard, spectacular things that happened that year. We sort of rate the year by saying "on balance, this was a good year" or "This was a year that we survived but we'd rather not repeat please". Then, we thank the year and toss the pennies into the sea.

Then we head on to another spot on the cliff and, depending on the weather and our mood, we whip off our clothes and stand naked in front of the Pacific Ocean, the gods, the universe, and each other and say something like "Okay _____(fill in new year), we're ready and willing to take you on. Let's make this a great year". On occasion, we...um...seal our pledge with an adult act between two consenting adults (Ewwww!).

Many years, if it's cold, windy, and rainy, we just lift up our shirts and flash each other and then run back to the car as quickly as possible.

What it means to us

There's lots of ways to mark the shift in the calendar and you certainly don't need to go to the edge of a cliff and bare yourself, but for us it works and here's why.

We have to collect the pennies. That starts us thinking about the year. We have to reflect on what happened to us - All of it, the good and the bad. We thank each other, we thank the forces out there, we celebrate our good fortune and wish good riddance to any misfortune. We stop. Just for a little bit to notice the moment and to mark it in some way.

And that's really the point of it, isn't it?

One of the very best things about being a witch (or druid or eclectic whatever you are) is that there are multiple times throughout the year when we get to stop, reflect, and even start over. If you're someone who follows the "traditional" Wheel of the Year (don't get me started on that), for instance, there are eight opportunities to assess where you're at and start again with the energy of the season as your guide.

But New Years, secular New Years, that moment when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st, the whole world starts anew. 

And that's a pretty cool piece of magick to acknowledge.

A few years back, Gwion and I did a podcast on New Year's Magick. You can listen to it here in our Archive section.

Go do Witchy Things!

​Phoenix


]]><![CDATA[Winter Solstice Cabbage]]>Fri, 20 Dec 2024 08:00:00 GMThttps://www.thewitchesnextdoor.net/our-random-writings/winter-solstice-cabbage
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I love cabbage. I love braised red cabbage. I love a big old bowl of braised red cabbage with warm spices and hints of orange and I especially like it with my solstice dinner or Christmas dinner or Boxing day dinner or dinner on any random Tuesday.

Now if you’re a braised red cabbage skeptic (you know who you are), let me just encourage you to try this recipe.
The results are warm, wonderful, and reminiscent of those countless mulled wine packets or simmer pots you’ve faffed about with that end up on the stove top for days before being unceremoniously dumped in the waste bin.

What’s magical about this recipe? Well, for one, you can eat it!

This whole dish will take you about 90 minutes, an hour of which involves doing anything else you want to while the ingredients do their thing in a braising pot. 

This will serve six at dinner, unless you’re like me, and then it serves one because I could eat the whole thing myself over the course of a couple of days.

 INGREDIENTS
  • 1 head red cabbage, cored, and shredded
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • ⅓ cup vinegar
  • ⅓ cup red wine (if you’d prefer no alcohol, use ⅔ cup of vinegar)
  • Big pinch of salt and a few twists of fresh cracked pepper
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1 star anise
  • 6 whole cloves
  • 1 small orange, zested
  • 2 tablespoons butter
HOW TO MAKE IT
  • Grab your favourite braising pan or biggest skillet and put it over medium heat. Add the shredded cabbage, sugar, vinegar, wine (if using), salt and pepper. 
  • Wrap the cinnamon stick, star anise, and cloves in cheesecloth and tie with kitchen twine. Toss the tied bundle into the pot. You can just add the spices directly to the pan, but remember to discard them before serving
  • Bring the cabbage and spices to a simmer, cover, reduce the heat to medium low and cook for an hour. Once every 15 minutes, open the lid and give everything a nice stir. 
  • After an hour, remove the lid. The kitchen will smell glorious when you do this. Turn the heat back up to medium high and cook for about fifteen minutes more. Most of the liquid should be gone and what's left is pure syrupy deliciousness. 

    Scoop the braised cabbage into a serving bowl. Grate the orange zest over the top and dot the butter all about, just letting it melt into the cabbage in that particularly seductive way butter melts on just about anything. You can serve this right away with your roast dinner or reheat the next day. It’s perfect with hot or cold meats or lentil roast or on toast. Pop it in a resealable container and it will keep in the fridge for up to a week.

    Happy Winter Solstice eating and much love     from Gwion​
  • The recipe is mine, but the Photo credit belongs to - https://www.womanandhome.com/recipes/easy-red-cabbage-orange-zest/

]]><![CDATA[SOme Witchy Pics]]>Wed, 01 Jun 2022 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.thewitchesnextdoor.net/our-random-writings/trip-photosOh, the Places we went and the things we saw!

Truly, there is no great way to properly convey the amount of witchery we engaged in on this trip. I mean, literally, every day we visited pagan sites, met with witch-friends, signed our books at events, went to a pub moot or two, met an eminent professor of Pagan studies (Yes! That one), and cavorted about with the appropriate respect, reverence, with a dash of devil may careity (that's a word, right?).

What you'll see below is a smattering of places we saw, from the neolithic to the modern.

Feel free to ask us about your favourite pics if you're not sure what you're looking at.

You can hear all about our adventures on our podcast, which is pretty entertaining, and maybe easier to digest. 

Season Three - Episodes 4, 5, & 6 cover it all and then some.


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