March 29, 2024
Ask Astrology

As the New Year approaches, it is a wonderful time to take account of what you accomplished in the past year, and also what did not come to be. Both our successes and our loose ends are valuable in helping us to become conscious of what we desire now.

Every day is a new day and every year is a new year; to help you turn your thoughts to the future, here are three witchy rituals to step into your creative power in 2024.

Create a Vision Board

A vision board is a carefully compiled collection of images, phrases, words and qualities related to your goals and aspirations. Every time you look at it, you will be reminded of your priorities, and re-oriented to stay on track.

First, identify your goals for the coming year. This may include desired outcomes, like the acquisition of a new house, car, lover, job or object. In addition to finite outcomes, you may also contemplate desired qualities of life. Ask yourself questions like: “How do I want to feel in 2024? What activities do I want to spend my time doing?” Try to capture the essence of how you want your state of mind to be on a day-to-day basis.

Next, search for images which match your desired outcomes and emotional qualities. You may print images that you find online, cut out snippets from magazines and newspapers, or create your own images. You may also include quotes and affirmations which evoke the qualities with which you are wishing to imbue your year.

Collect these images and style them as a collage on a cork, foam or paper board. Make it visually pleasing and enjoyable to look at, using colors and textures that delight and inspire you. Take care to style this board well, as though you are creating a sacred altar— for it is an altar for your mind. Hang your vision board somewhere you will see it every day.

The vision board helps you stay motivated and focused on your goals, even at subconscious levels. It is very important—magically speaking— to keep your goals at the forefront of your consciousness, even on days when you are not actively working on them, as this awareness of what is wanted sets certain forces in the Universe in motion to work on your behalf.

You may spend a few minutes in meditation on your board each morning, or place incense, crystals and other sacred items around it to magnify its attracting power. Regular meditation on your vision board will summon epiphanies, inspiration and collaborators to you.

Your board can be added to or changed over time. Although vision boards are usually a collection of many goals you can also make smaller and more focused ones, separating each intention out into its own organized space.

witchy-ritual-wish-2024-visionboard

Crystal Color Breathing

This method of breathwork may seem gentle yet it is an extremely powerful tool for healing and manifesting. Magic moves upon light, and crystals are ‘frozen’ pieces of light radiating at different frequencies, indicated by color. We may involve the colors of our crystalline friends in meditation or visualization to amplify our manifestation practices with magical, high-frequency light.

Select a crystal of the color that matches your intention, or use one of your favorites.

Red: Security, safety, stability, grounding

Yellow: Healthy boundaries, self-esteem, self-worth, healing grief

Orange: Motivation, releasing anger, harmonious relationships

Green: Acceptance, love, tranquility, non-resistance

Blue: Self-expression, clarity of thought, education, study, honesty

Indigo: clear perception, visions, insight, courage

Violet: spiritual connection, revelation, unity

Choose the appropriate crystal and a candle of the same color (or a white one). Place the candle so that the light of the flame shines through your crystal.

Gaze into the crystal. Feel the energy of this color emanate all around it.

Slowly and mindfully inhale the colored light into your field through your nose. Do this for six counts. Visualize the air that you are breathing in is the color of the crystal. Allow the colored light to permeate your whole being.

Hold the breath in for three counts. In your mind’s eye, visualize the outcome you wish to bring into being, or mentally state an affirmation.  Slowly exhale for six counts and infuse this intention with the colored light. Hold out for three counts, in neutrality.

Continue this cycle of breath, filling your aura with more and more celestially colored light. Once you and your visualization are filled with light, you may wish to spread this color around your aura, your room, your house, to other people, and even to the whole world.

Close by resuming normal breath, gazing into the crystal. Make a note of any illuminations or intuitions that occur to you.

witchy-ritual-wish-2024-crystal

Let Go Into Sacred Time

Witchy rituals, manifestation practices and visualizations do not create the outcomes that we want. In fact, those outcomes already exist in complete form. When we spend time in rituals becoming clear about what we want, lining up our thoughts, words and actions with a desired outcome, and using magical implements to magnify our intentions, it is not in order to indicate to the Universe what we want— for the Universe already knows.

These rituals help us to align our present moment with a timeline of a potential future that is already complete, merging our now-selves with our future-selves and accelerating the transfiguration from what-is into what-will-be. The point of these rituals is to unify ourselves in the present moment with what we want through a very pure and joyful awareness of it.

What you want is already done. You don’t have to make it, force it into being, or create it. It is important to remember this, and to simply let go of your intention by taking sacred relaxation time where you don’t think about it. This may sound counter-intuitive, but taking time to NOT work diligently upon your intention communicates to the Universe your faith, trust and confidence in the reality of your desired outcome. Your relaxed awareness of its completed reality is, in fact, the most powerful manifestation ritual you could engage in.

Think about it this way: manifestation is all about living the reality of your desired outcome, conjuring the feeling that it is already so. if your intention were already physically manifested right now, how would you be thinking, acting and feeling in your free time? If you already had your dream job, for instance, would you spend your evening reciting nervous affirmations about getting a job? Would you be visualizing a job interview going well? Would you be working diligently with crystals to correct your lack of confidence or self-limiting beliefs about employment? No!

If you already had the job of your dreams, you would spend your free time in some way that pleased you, and none of these concerns would be on your mind, because they would already have been resolved. Therefore, if having this dream job is your intention, you should step into the mindset of this reality and start living it now. Remember that it is done, that there is nothing you need to do, and that you can and should let go into sacred time. Take a walk, draw a relaxing bath or spend time with friends and family— and do so with the conscious intention of letting go. Let this choice to spend time relaxing be a gesture to the Universe of your total and complete trust that your wish has already been fulfilled.