As a highly sensitive, introverted witch who lives in a city with a population of 7.1 million, there are days when I long to get out of the city for some peace and quiet, to really immerse myself in nature and feel nothing but the love between the land and me.
Like most of us living in Toronto, the usual things can be overwhelming- traffic, noise and air pollution, constant people everywhere and the workaholic culture can make it difficult to slow down and feel a rooted sense of belonging with the land.
I have been living here for the better part of 24 years and have learned how to thrive as an urban witch through connecting to the land and navigating the challenges and gifts of being a witch in a big city.
I wanted to identify some of these and give a few tips as well. These can also apply to anyone following an earth-based spiritual path, in any city you wish to connect more deeply to!
Why is connecting with the land we live on so important?
If you practice an earth-based form of spirituality, connecting with the land is central. Even if you don’t practice this form of spirituality, connecting with the land helps you feel more anchored in a sense of belonging where you live, it also helps undo and repair colonial ways of being and the damage it has done to our relationships with each other, the land and ourselves.
It is hard for me to talk about ‘the land’ as though it is separate from us. I use terms like ‘nature’ and ‘the earth’ because colonialism is woven into our language. But us earth based spirituality folks know that WE ARE NATURE too. We embody the land and are not separate from it. The trees, animals, plant beings and rocks are kin. When the land is out of balance, we are too. I feel language can be changed somehow to reflect this, yet I haven’t found the right words yet. So for now, I say ‘nature’ or ‘the land’ as though we are not all intertwined, but truthfully we are one. It is our birthright to remember this kinship and cultivate it- wherever you live and whomever you are!
There are many reasons why people don’t feel connected to the land they live on. Especially in a big city, it can be easy to get caught up in the colonial, industrial system imposed on us and lose our sense of the heartbeat of the earth beneath our feet. The land wants us to connect, interact, to harvest its medicines (in sustainable, reciprocal ways) and be in relationship. It wants us to rekindle our sacred original kinship and contract. All we have to do is pay attention. Once we make the effort to be in relationship with land, we feel a sense of greater belonging to place and to each other.
I highly recommend this short video by Robin Wall Kimmerer, discussing the importance of us connecting with the land from an Indigenous perspective, as it benefits us as well as the land itself to have an emotional and spiritual connection with one another.
Relationship with an urban landscape
Many spiritual, witchy, earth loving folks idealize living in a rural setting, in peace and quiet with the songs of the land bathing us in its love every day.
We may fantasize about living in a Victorian mansion with massive gardens and a greenhouse, like in the movie Practical Magic. Perhaps we dream of a little yurt in the woods, or a cottage on a secluded lake with loons serenading us under a night sky full of stars.
But the reality is, many folks need to live in cities for work, education, family, proximity to health and social services, spiritual reasons and more. Also, many folks thrive in cities. As much as I love being immersed in trees and quiet, my own guides keep bringing me here to Toronto because this is where my spiritual evolution and work needs to happen. This may change again in the future, but this is what it is for now.
So much of the witchy practices and rituals we are taught to do in books or see in media are done in a rural landscape, and yet so many witches live in cities. Here though, we may need to adapt our practice and work harder at it. This can make us feel like we are somehow ‘less than’ rural witches or lacking in resources, skills or spiritual vibrations necessary for magic- when this simply isn’t true!
Urban landscapes are FULL of life. Not just humans and cars, but animals and plants of many kinds. Also, remember, we humans are nature too! We are all one. Magick is just as powerful in the city as anywhere else. It may have even more magickal potential, because the city creates a complex nexus of energy. We are all very connected in this nexus, so if you are sending out healing, positive vibes, it has the potential to reach more people and beings in the environment. Likewise, we can receive a large variety of energies from this nexus, and this requires we develop skills to filter out some of the negative while cultivating the positive.
City energy moves faster than rural energy, which can mean that many of its inhabitants may be on a fast track of personal change and transformation. This can require a different approach to one’s earth-based practice, one that can help bring grounding and balance to the effects of such constant change.
The challenges that a larger city brings has the potential make us a more focused, adaptable, creative and tolerant witch, because we are forced to do things a bit differently.
If you can witch in the city, you can witch anywhere. It’s the difference between practicing meditation in a calm temple, vs practicing it in a stressful situation, when you need it most. Meditation is meant to be applied in our everyday lives, just as we are meant to weave our magical practice into our everyday lives, not wait until we are away on retreat to do so.
Witching in Toronto- Canada’s largest city
Many folks outside Toronto love to hate on Toronto. The big city can be challenging and bring up strong reactions, some of which are reflections of people’s shadow rather than the city itself. Large cities hold a bit of everything and can act as a mirror of one’s issues.
Granted, life can be hard in the city. Cost of living, for one. But there are perks, like not needing a car, diversity, job and education opportunities, health services and social opportunities.
I wasn’t born and raised here, neither were most of its residents. It is the most ethnically diverse city in the world, with the majority of folks coming from elsewhere. Overall, I’ve really enjoyed living here because I am never bored, always learning new things and meeting amazing people! I am also aware of its many challenges, including affordability. It is however a city that encourages constant evolution and personal growth. It doesn’t let you stagnate. It will bring up your shadow, and move you forward, ready or not. This is not everyone’s cup of tea. If you are on a spiritual path and want to evolve, Toronto can be a gold mine.
I just want to address a few common witchy challenges I have encountered and tips. Some are specific to my city but you will likely have your own where you find yourself. Feel free to share your own city’s gits/lessons and witchy tips in the comments!
Some Challenges of Being an Urban Witch:
Gardening: Herbs and plants are often eaten by squirrels, rabbits, bugs, trampled on or peed/pooped on by people’s dogs and cats.
Tip: Plant-growing needs extra attentiveness, openness to learning and patience. There is little we can control about others’ behavior or animals in the city. We just have to let go and keep learning. I get a pro gardener to check in with my garden once in a while. It can also be helpful to talk with neighbors about their gardening tips too as they have the same struggles!
Food offerings: Food for the land and/or other spirits put outside may immediately be eaten by raccoons, squirrels or rabbits. Should we even bother?
Tip: Offerings placed outside must be carefully considered for animal safety. Research what is harmful to local animals. Food offerings for spirits can be placed inside the home with intention, then outside later once the spirits have gotten the energy they need. Also, squirrels and raccoons are part of the land here, so their spirits strengthened by our offerings helps the land too! Alternatives to food offerings include– herbs, our energy, kind words, song, poetry, water, cleanup of the nearby area, creating something in their honor. If we haven’t brought anything physical with us, there is always our love, our touch, our breath, words and intentions! The land and spirits respond to all these things.
Apartments/condo living: This can make plant care challenging- Those lucky enough to have balconies are limited to container gardening or can’t grow many varieties due to lack of sun outside, and many live in dark basement apartments.
Tip: Relate to fewer plants more deeply, find low-light tolerant ones. Relate to herbs and local plants by getting out to visit them in other locations in the city in parks and gardens. Many varieties grow in the parks and valleys here.
There is also the issue of noise which can make some aspects of witchy practice tricky to do without disturbing others or being disturbed by others. Noise-cancelling headphones are helpful. Drumming and chanting can be done outdoors in a park if need be due to intolerant roommates or neighbors.
Roommate issues: It can be tricky to practice with roommates, such as dealing with allergies to herbal smoke or conflicting spiritual beliefs.
Tip: Our fellow humans offer us challenges to make us city witches stronger, more creative and adaptable. Use smoke outside only, create essential oil sprays for indoors. Find common ground between differing beliefs, yet stand your ground for your right to your practice. These can be very challenging lessons. Often the folks in our lives are meant to teach us by bringing up an aspect of ourselves we don’t like. Shadow work is part of the spiritual work of a witch. How can we stand our ground while also respecting others? How can we integrate our wholeness? Healing some of our fears of persecution and the shame from the Witch Wound can be helpful in navigating boundaries and compromise. You may wish to read my post: Healing the Witch Wound.
Moon Rituals & other outdoor rituals: Placing crystals or water outside to ‘bathe in moonlight’ may be more likely to be bathed in streetlamp light, car exhaust, and tons of traffic noise or collective emotional stress. Placing something outside can absorb very chaotic energies on any given day, depending on your location. This may not apply to you if you’re in a quiet neighborhood away from traffic.
Tip: Maximize the positive vibes of your indoor space. You can catch the moonlight indoors from a windowsill or spot in the room. Put things outside when the vibes are good, and then bring things inside again if the energies shift for the worse. If the full moon has really chaotic vibes outside, wait a night or two, or keep the crystal on a windowsill. Better to have absorbed more positive vibes overall than a chaotic full moon. I also feel it is ok to absorb both artificial light mixed with moonlight. We can’t have it all. There are also other ways to charge our crystals and water! Sunlight is a lovely option, as well as using our own positive energy with our hands and heart. You can sing a song or a spell and emanate energy through your hands. I do this with my water and crystals all the time. We are nature too.
Communing with the land in public spaces: Many trees and bodies of water often happen to be public spaces full of other people with little privacy or quiet, making tuning in challenging.When I lived more rurally, it was easy to just walk to a forest or a trail and not see another soul for an hour. That rarely happens in Toronto. I maybe go 30 seconds without people walking by in most nearby urban parks. There may be sirens and horns blaring, music blasting, kids yelling, or garbage trucks vrooming in the background. This teaches us to filter outside noise and activity and really deeply focus our attention and listen to the trees, water, or land we are connecting with. It takes practice.
Tips: I often do my walks at night or times when there are less people around. Winter and bad weather days are also easier for tuning in. I stick to parks and places that are safe in off-hours and invoke spiritual protection when need be. Cemeteries are another great option as they are usually quiet and full of spiritual energy! As city folks, we have to learn to filter and block out certain stimuli and tune into others. Practice blocking out the noise and tune into the water, tree or rock you are connecting with. You will eventually get really good at focusing and receiving energy very quickly and efficiently. I bring earbuds to plug in my ears while I commune with a tree in a noisy public spot.
Communing with nature in public can feel embarrassing or like you’re a weirdo: I understand. It’s taken me years to figure out how to commune with the land without being too obvious about it, especially if I am out with my teenage daughter who gets embarrassed by me easily.
Tip: I eventually had to accept that I simply AM a weirdo and that’s totally ok! Cities are full of weirdos, making it even easier to be one. Release shame. This is an opportunity to heal the Witch Wound. If I let my embarrassment stop me from connecting with the land in public, I would never have the chance to at all. I have no choice but to stop caring It’s so worth it! But if you’re still feeling limited by this, try just casually sitting by a tree and pretend you’re looking at your phone. Then, once you’ve tuned into the tree, you can easily type what the tree is saying to you in a notes app.
The stimulation and others’ energy can be overwhelming and stressful: Yes, I totally empathise, as a highly sensitive introvert.
Tips: Boundaries, cleansing and protection! This is probably the biggest difference between an urban witch’s practice and a rural witch. We have to have boundaries, cleansing and protection practices as part of daily life or we can suffer. You wouldn’t go out in January without a coat. Don’t leave your home in Toronto without your energetic protection suit. This may be why urbanites like to wear black. It helps protect our energy. This is why we don’t give our attention to every random person we see, that would be extremely exhausting. We need to be selective and clear about what we will and will not do with our precious energy. Keep strong cleansing practice and do this daily, such as smoke cleansing, showers, breathwork and other energetic techniques. Follow this with a protection practice. Practice your ‘resting Witch face’ and a very quick extra-protection practice if you find yourself in a sketchy situation. I work with animal allies and visualization for this. I may also wear protective crystals and carry herbs for protection in my purse or on me.
To sum up, challenges connecting with the land and practicing as an urban witch can teach us lessons in: Adaptability, patience, letting go of control, getting creative, getting along with others & doing our shadow work, dispelling shame, healing the Witch Wound, cleansing, boundaries, focus and protection. These are witch skills that when cultivated, make us much stronger! We are not only cultivating a relationship with the land, but the other humans inhabiting it with us. This is in and of itself a bundle full of gifts gleaned from our urban witch practice.
Now, onto some gifts of witching in the city…
The Gifts of Being an Urban Witch:
It’s easier to find other witches or witch-friendly events and spaces: In a big city, it’s just easier to be yourself. You can wear all the black and pentacles you want and no one will stare at you or judge you. You can even wear a witch hat and or sparkly cape on a normal day. You may find strangers who happen to be witches strike up a convo with you on the subway or grocery store. I have met witches and had interesting spiritual conversations with many random people just based on a piece of jewelry I was wearing or a witchy button on my bag.
Tip: We can find each other easily in big ponds, if we’re willing to express ourselves just the teeniest bit! Wear something that starts a conversation. Go to witchy gatherings and shops to meet some like-minded folks!
Some Toronto witchy shops: Ram & Rebirth, Old’s Cool General Store, Gifts from the Earth & Geologic, The Plant Mystic, Happy Soul, The Rock Store, Alternity, The Hermit’s Lamp, The Occult Shop.
It’s easier to cultivate a specific witchy interest: Because there are more diverse folks in the city, we are more likely to find others who share our specific interests. In a smaller town, you may have to be more broader in your interests to connect with others. All things spiritual can get lumped together like chakras, astrology, mediumship and spellwork. In a large city you can find someone who shares your obsession with Ancient Egypt, Sigils, Chaos Magic or Welsh Gods and share with others in-person through friendship, workshops or clubs. Online communities are great for this too, of course, but lack the in-person connection!.
Tip: Look for specific workshops or gatherings around your interest in your city. Or, just start your own club or Meetup group!
Great diversity and access to wildlife and parks: Did you know Toronto has one of the largest urban parks in North America? Yup, the Rouge National Urban Park in the east end is beautiful. We have many accessible urban parks by public transit such as High Park, the Beaches, Trinity Bellwoods, Sunnybrook, Dufferin Grove, the Toronto Islands, The Humber River, Scarborough Bluffs, Morningside Park, and many more. We also sit right on Lake Ontario, which is the 14th largest in the world. We also have a great ravine network that offers many opportunities to connect to the land and local wildlife.
I see more ‘wild’ animals on a daily basis in Toronto than I ever did living rural. On a given day, I will see at least several of these animals: Squirrels, racoons, opossums, foxes, coyotes, deer, beavers, turtles, muskrats, salmon, hawks, owls, bats, rabbits, mice, rats, ducks, pigeons, swans, ravens, crows, vultures, blue jays, cardinals, finches, and tons of other beautiful birds and mammals and fish! The wildlife here is used to living amongst humans and therefore less shy and more visible. The plant life is just as diverse.
Tip: Look up parks and trails in your city. Look for walking groups, plant-lovers, and bird watchers. There’s a whole world of non-human kin that are waiting to connect with you!
Toronto-based nature groups: NANPS, Protect Nature TO, High Park Nature Centre, Toronto Nature Lovers Meetup, Toronto Field Naturalists.
There’s a rich history to explore: Because cities grow over time, they have a very rich and interesting history, which adds to the well of energy coming from the land itself as well as all the man-made structures. One of the things that has transformed my sense of belonging in my neighborhood was learning about its history. I live in what was once its own town called East Toronto, which was a central station for the Grand Trunk Railway and used to have a large horse racing site. Knowing the history explained a lot about the energy I felt here. I learned from the local historical society that offers walking tours and now can feel the magic of the past emanating from the buildings and land that surround me. I also encourage you to learn the Indigenous history of the land you live on- this is key to understanding how we got here and the work still needed to repair these relationships with land and each other.
Tip: Learn the history of where you live. There are layers of energy emanating from the land as well as the man-made structures. Feel the magic of all the lives lived and the ghosts of the past offering us information and support for moving forward. Participate in local ghost tours and history tours of the city (ie: Haunted Walks Toronto has historical info as well as mystical). They are fascinating!
Toronto Historic Tours and info: Heritage Toronto, History of Toronto, Beach & East Toronto Historical Society, Haunted Walks, Toronto History Walks Meetup group.
Tkaronto Indigenous history & learning: First Story, Events at NCCT, Indigenous Studies @ York U, Indigenous Studies U of T, A collection of resources by U of T.
The city strengthens your weak spots: Perhaps the biggest gifts we can get from practicing in the city are from the challenges it offers. We are forced to be creative, adaptable, tolerant of humans, and sharpen our witchy skills to be more focused, practical and efficient. It is really nice to get out of the city to just rest and be open to the songs of a forest, or feel the beauty of a quiet lake. But, I realized over the years that what I really needed to cultivate was not my sensitivity, thoughtfulness or openness, I was already good at that. I needed to learn things like boundaries, cleansing, protection, efficiency, patience and focus.
Tip: Discover what your gifts are and what needs work. Use the city’s challenges to strengthen your weak spots.
You cannot be lonely if you are connecting with the land: I recently saw a news article stating that Toronto was ‘Canada’s loneliest city’. I find this very sad, as I have had the opposite experience living here, but it is also understandable. The pandemic changed how we socialize, and this is not specific to just Toronto. Folks are now going out less and staying at home more. People turn to social media instead of calling a friend and going out or trying out a new class or club. I think this loneliness however is also deeper than connecting with other people– it comes from a longing to feel connection with the land and a sense of belonging to place. My feeling is that this malaise has more to do with dominant culture becoming so removed from the land. This is more palpable in a large city than in a small town because there are more distractions.
Tip: My remedy for loneliness is first and foremost to connect to the land. Find a nearby tree in a local park and tell it your story. Make friends. Bring it an offering. Go to the lake’s edge and tell it your pain- the waters will listen and offer their love. Learn from local events or Indigenous centres about this land and its history. Join a nature group (see above for recommendations). Spend more time outside connecting with the land itself.
Greater appreciation for nature in all its forms: When I lived in a smaller city and in a rural setting, I could meditate in the woods for an hour and feel completely safe and just soak up the wisdom of the trees. I gathered a sizeable collection of raven and crow feathers with ease. Because this became so commonplace, I began to lose appreciation for it. When living in Toronto, I feel so blessed to find a bird feather, appreciate every little garden plant, and often say ‘thankyou for being here’ when I pass by the older trees especially. In the city, you never know when one of your tree friends will get cut down suddenly, so you savor every moment with them.
Getting outside of the city for a weekend or longer is a great way to remember how easy it can be to connect with the land, and help you stay inspired to keep at it in the city.
Tip: Appreciate every tree, every bird, every quiet moment. Appreciate the cacophony oh humans and land interacting, merging, blending, dancing together. All is nature. All is temporary. All is life.
We need the land and the land needs us. Let’s find ways of cultivating relationship with our fellow kin in the human and non-human world. Let’s open up to the possibility that we are not separate, but beautiful expressions of the same divine patterns. Let’s remember our original kinship and make our practice a reflection of that remembering.
Even the smallest action, such as picking up garbage in a park, offering a tree kind words of gratitude, or just slowing down enough to hear the birds’ singing brings us home to that belonging we all crave so deeply, that is a driving force behind our earth-based practice.
What gifts and challenges have you experienced connecting with the land in the city? What have you learned?
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