Maybe it is simply because I’m a New Englander and grew up in the nostalgia of mariner culture but it seems, to me, like more people want to be a Sea Witch than most other subtypes. And I get it. Very deeply. The Northern Atlantic is my first and truest love. I have been using her waters in my magic since I was eight years old and so, in a very real way, she is the reason that I am a witch.
But there’s a lot more to being a sea witch than going to the ocean and getting sandy and wet. And here’s, in my estimation, a good place to start.
Go to the ocean and get sandy and wet
Why yes, I do contradict myself. I said a lot more, remember?
Go to the ocean. Sit in the sand. Take your shoes off. Get wet. Tap into the primal childhood experience of stomping through tidal pools or play chicken with some waves.
Every beach is different and I suggest finding one that you like and getting to know it further. If you live close enough, distance may become a factor but I live hours from the beaches that I like (3 hours and 4 minutes from my favorite on the outer Cape) so at that point, I might as well drive that extra half an hour for it to be perfect.
Things to think about: do you want a beach that is heavily trafficked or one that is more wild? Do you want waves? Wildlife? Rocks instead of sand? How important is the view to you? Do you want to sunbathe? Do you like to collect shells?
I lean towards private/walking over sunbathing/and being a beach scavenger myself.
Cleanse thyself, Witch
The beach contains water, salt, and wind. Depending on where you are, you can bring the fire. What do you need to be rid of? Bring it with you and (metaphorically) give them to the void. That is the magic that I learned to perform when I was eight and it still works like a…charm.
The thing that I love about cleansings like this is that you can make them as simple or as complex as you need them to be. Though I had no idea what intention was yet, my eight-year-old witchling self understood instinctively that the ocean waves could wash away what was troubling me. I just thought about it and walked out into the waves. Add you magic from there.
A personal favorite among our coven is to find a solitary beach when we can scream our troubles into the wind or howl unabashedly at the moon. I have a cleansing chart that I’ve been saying to the ocean and to the moon since I was seventeen. Do what feels right to create release.
Connecting to the Streams of Sea Magic
How you connect is a very personal thing and I don’t mean to imply that any way that I would do so is better than any other. Which is to say that there are MANY ways to connect with sea magic: maybe you are into the waves, or the sea birds, or seashells, or you just really like wind. I’ve never met a sea turtle, but I’m told they are pretty great. What do you encounter at YOUR beaches?
My favorite beaches are out on Cape Cod. There we see a lot of seabirds and shellfish, as illustrated in this photo that I took of seagull catching a crab. Part of my devotion to the ocean (hey, I’m also a poet) is photographing the beautiful things that I find on the seashore.
When trying to determine if an energy of the ocean (or of anything really) is right for you – trust your instincts and look for signs. I tend to not start working with an animal that I’ve met on the beach until I’ve encountered it both living and dead within close proximity in time to one another. You’ll see a photo of my dead sea gull sighting later on in this article.
Gathering
I consider gathering to really be a secondary step to connecting. With connecting, you are observing. The depth of understanding that you can gain about something by spending time with it is beyond explanation. Even a recording of the waves does not encapsulate the spray on your face or the fishy smell that hangs in the air. When it is feasible, you can gather parts of your experience to bring them home and use their energy in your spellwork.
Here I’m speaking of objects: sand, water, drift wood, rocks, sea glass and shells – I’ll cover plant matter and bones later. (We can have the conversation of shells vs bones but I treat them differently so they are going in another category.)
There are an infinite way of using these objects in your home as decorations and in your spells as ingredients or as the structure of your spell itself (putting the craft into witchcraft if you know what I mean). You can harness the air currents of the beach with a seashell wind chime or make sea salt from the saltwater that you gathered. I like to make devotional candles out of the larger beach shells that we collect every year.
Harvesting
I separate out harvesting living plant matter from rocks or seashells because there are different considerations involved. We all need to be conscious about conservation and making sure that we don’t over-harvest wild resources that animals may need for survival. This would also apply if you wish to harvest living shellfish (something that I don’t do). Please don’t take more than your need or harvest in any other way that is unsustainable – it’s important that we as witches care for our environment.
That said, if you are kitchen witch like me, you’ll be tempted to bring home and treat or two.
That’s the rose hips made by the Beach Rose, aka Rosa Rugosa. Not only does its absolutely divine smell bring me back to all of the best beach memories of its childhood but I absolutely adore using its hips in the kitchen. I used rose hips that I wild harvested on Cape Cod to make my Winter Syrup to Beat the January Blahs. I’ve also made a yummy jam.
Vulture Culture
Beachcombing is probably the best vulture culture most of us will ever encounter. It’s not for the faint stomached! I personally find it quite beautiful to get to see beautiful creatures in a preserved state of decay.
Please be careful with animal remains, diseases absolutely can and do jump species – touching this guy would have been quite dangerous with some much stuff still on his bones. That’s how you get the bird flu! (I wish that I was kidding)
If you’re really looking to pick up clean(ish) bones of a particular animal to bring home with them – try finding a living one (or sometimes a corpse) and ask them for assistance. When I stopped to pay respects to a recently deceased seal last Autumn, I seem to have impressed Seal Spirit and I have been seeing living seal sightings and finding seal bones ever since.
These are just a few of the ways that I’ve incorporated sea magic into my practice – both at the ocean and at my home three hours away. I’d love to hear how you do ocean magic – maybe I’ll learn a trick or two!