Weave the Liminal: Living Modern Traditional Witchcraft

by Laura Tempest Zakroff

This book is about learning limits and knowing when to bend, push, or stretch them.

We recognize the interconnectivity of all things: people, places, animals, and plants, past, present, and future. We are all just a few threads apart, residing in layers of space and time that are immensely vast yet also more intimate than we could ever imagine. We are simultaneously the weavers and the woven. We influence the weaving of our threads and those around us through both physical and metaphysical work.

The Witch is the walker between the worlds, the one who resides on the outskirts, the keeper of mysteries, the righter of ways. The Witch heals, banishes, cleanses, burns, divines, speaks, communes. The Witch is a practitioner, not a participant. The Witch is spiritual, but not necessarily of an organized religion.

My Witchcraft curates a collection of parts, bits, pieces, and ephemera. Yet its practice requires nothing of the physical to do its work.

You will not be a Witch by the time you’re done reading this book. Chances are you’re already one, and you’ll understand more about what that means to you by the end.

True wisdom is expressed not by seeing how complex you can make the material but by how well you are able to make it accessible for others to grasp.

I feel like I came to Witchcraft through the back door—but is there really any other way?

If our predecessors had the tools we have access to today, would they exchange the flint for the lighter? I think so.

Consider the traditional as a means of weaving in the past.

We often look outside of ourselves for guidance when much of what we need to know is already within us. To know yourself means to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses, mentally, spiritually, and physically.

Balance is a state of mind, not an exact location.

The Witch is genderless.

How you see and interact with the divine is important only to you and the divine—and

Authenticity is about doing what works best for you with what you have available.

Consider family stories a kind of folklore: the details may not always be correct, but what’s the spirit of the story?

The point of myth is to inspire us to find our own truths and craft our own stories, build our own myths and practices, and give us principles to use as a guide. And that, dear folks, is no fiction.

Witchcraft is dangerous because it is the tool of the subversive, the downtrodden, the disillusioned, and the disenfranchised.

Magick is like both the space between neurons and the message that is relayed through it. You could see magick as the friction of threads being woven as they pass by each other, and the pattern they create together. It is the metaphysical application of thought, focus, and the will to create a desired change.

Complexity does not equate to more success or power. Some of the most effective workings I have experienced involved no ingredients or ritual at all. How you approach spellcraft depends mainly on you and your personal preferences and background.

I challenge you to be part of what I refer to as the MacGyver School of Spellcraft: Only got a pen, a sticky note, and a tealight? Make it work and manifest!

Magick happens not so much because we say the right words in just the right way under the right conditions, but because behind those words is a desire to bring about change.

Ritual is done more to satisfy our own needs versus anyone or anything else’s.

Put things on your altar because they have meaning for you and your practice, not because you read somewhere that’s what you’re “supposed” to have. Your altar should inspire you, but it should be practical and functional as well. Most importantly, follow your intuition—because that’s the best direction to follow.

Sometimes we must put down the beakers and books, close our eyes, and see the divine within. Furthermore, there is something to be said for the emotional and poetic depth of myth that is lost in reducing everything to science.

If you unwind and lay out a DNA chain, suddenly there is the structure of a loom before you, containing the information of all of the patterns of the world.

And as we create the gods, as they create us, each experience is going to be different for every individual.

A psychopomp is a guide whose job it is to escort souls to the next world.

There's a word?!?!

I believe there is a difference between doing service and being a servant.

We are both the lock and the key. We are the illuminated and we are the shadow. We do not fear the dark of the wild or the light of the city. We know ourselves.

We are more than our parts and pieces—we can lose these things, but we don’t lose us.