Of those who shared their lives with me,

 of those who dared to see the beyond and climb tough hills,

Of those who believed in the unknown,

of those who dared to experience the unusual,

Of those who loved me, of those who crossed my path.

We have known each other for many years, We seem to share a special bond. We might have witnessed many seasons together, We might have gotten drenched in the same rain, or We might have witnessed many setting suns and rising moons. They say that those who once coexisted in the same space may find their paths intertwining again. Have we inhabited the same realm before? Those who become ensnared in the material trappings of the world often lose sight of their shared past as the world undergoes its inevitable transformations. Yet, those who live authentically, who are deeply connected to the essence of life itself, transcend the limitations of time. They are the ones who craft narratives that endure across epochs, the weavers of tales that span generations.

  As I always say, one cannot escape from destiny. There are moments in this sojourn when life brings in the mystical phenomena. We plan, we decide and live according to those plans, but sometimes the eternal flow of life, to which I call Existence, makes one experience a very baffling moment. Let me say this, once you have experienced it, you will never see the world with the same eyes, you may never experience the same enjoyment in the world because you have tasted the cosmic elixir. I have a story, the tale of how Bewitched Cauldron came into existence. I had been hesitant to share it for many years but recently as I was reading a book of Yogini, I felt inspired to share it before my memories begin to fade as I move to some other realms.

The Ostara has recently passed, and We will soon experience the light of Bealtaine Season, The season of Summer, The season in which I was born. May 1^st marks the beginning of bealtaine, an Old Irish festival loved by ancient beings. I call it the season of a thousand roses. I had a small garden when I lived back in India 3 years ago, I had wished to see a garden with a thousand roses. During the beginning of the Winter season of the previous year, I had started growing the rose climbers, and the next year, by Bealtaine, It manifested. I posted the pictures on the website. An old Irish pagan lady I used to listen to, once said, ‘Magick’ is very real, it must be felt with all our senses, It’s not an imagination, it’s a slow process of perpetuating the desires. These desires are rarely of our own. I say this because our personal desires are very fickle, True desires stay longer, these desires are part of destiny, These desires make one passionate. Forming a coven like Bewitched Cauldron was also the desire of this Esixtence, this universe, not of my own.

It was the year 2012, I used to live in Chandigarh. I was very actively practising the ancient art of divination. I would read Tarot, Crystals, and astrological charts at various events. I was a very young teenager. The event organizers would usually ask me not to reveal my age as I was the youngest among all the Astrologers. I had a zeal for being known by everyone. I wanted to be popular. Perhaps it was the Wiccan being blooming within me, I would read tarot, gaze into a Crystal ball and answer the questions for 9 hours tirelessly in those events. By then, I was convinced that there are beings like myself who can see beyond. I often wondered, Was that all to it? After a few months, I realized I had absorbed a lot of energy of this world, I wished to explore Wicca more deeply.

I am a skeptic, I wanted to know how it worked, and how the tarot cards I chose for the person resonated so well with their reality. I wondered if there was any source of this mystical phenomenon. I had built a very strong connection with my tarot. You need to be childlike to form a connection with any divining tool. I got my tarot deck when I was in grade 8. To this day, I carry the same deck along with me to work. I wondered if others could experience that mystical power as well that I had felt . Was I a fortune teller or some sort of trickster in my previous lives, if there are lives other than the one we are living? I started to connect with other people who claimed to be Psychics and readers. I wondered if one  can bring  changes in one’s present life by looking into the future. As a Wiccan, we are trained to be in the moment, to experience the flow of the present moment. Tarot, the word ,has come from ROTA, which one can see inscribed on the wheel of “Wheel of fortune” tarot. It means, rotation. The cycle, the eternal flow. Time is not linear, it’s cyclic, and so is the universe. Is it why one can experience the future in the present moment? Later when I was doing research on tarot, I had realized, that to look into the future or past using tarot is just its 5 percent use. It’s way beyond our imagination. It’s the tree of Kabalah, it’s the map of cosmic reality, Each card represents a reality of some other dimension. By the end of 2013, I had lost interest in entertaining people with Tarot., I no longer wanted to be a popular astrologer, who would come on television every morning telling about the zodiac. I would only accept Reading requests from those who really wanted healing or guidance from Wicca. I had felt the presence of a strange entity guiding me. I would rather stay at home, and read about occult and mysticism. I was not amused by the occult resources, as I felt that these books were nothing but the collection of mere stupidity. True magic’k’ comes to those who dare to experience the strange mystical phenomenon happening around.

I wanted a team, a group of seekers who would join this journey of Wicca. I had met a few in those two years (2012 and 2013), but I could not see the zeal in them. They did not have Wiccan spark. To experience magick one has to train oneself like a warrior, and then Wicca chooses one. Of late, I am convinced that Wicca puts you to go through many tests. When one becomes Wiccan, one can feel the forces working behind all the happenings around. One can read human intentions clearly. One becomes more skeptic. One becomes an empath, a person who can understand emotions very well. I often wonder if Wicca chose me in this life or if I had it within my previous lives as well. One of the reasons to share this story was to show the world the true Wiccan way, and how Wicca and a Wiccan works. I was very disappointed when I visited so-called “Wiccan shops” in Canada, that sold penis-shaped candles for love spells, wax skulls for revenge and many other items that had nothing to do with Wicca. And not to forget about the people running those shops, it’s funny to see them eating kale and arugula salad, promoting Queerness, selling weed with their heads coloured with tints of red, yellow and neon. I am not against any community, but this is not what Wicca is. It’s not a circus. Wicca is not about being Vegan, doing yogic postures, eating kale, collecting crystals, and convincing people to accept one’s gender and sexual orientation.

I say it again, I am not against any of these. I want to connect with those who wish to understand the true Wiccan way. If you need weed or any other psychedelic to experience the higher state which is merely an illusion though, you have not reached the state. You may take all these if you like to experience what all these things offer to you. But if you wish to experience a real trance state, you will have overcome all these cravings. When one goes through wiccan training, a point comes when all these hallucinating items do not work on one’s body amd mind. In the Wiccan training, one learns to connect with the elements use the elemental energies and direct those energies. It’s a slow process. One learns to understand the transforming light. Silver and golden, are the terms I use to describe the light. If you closely look at the Tarot Cards (the original rider Waite), you would see the background is usually in two colours, blue and Yellow. It represents the two shades of light we experience in one cycle of seasons. Lughnasadh marks the beginning of golden light and Ostara marks the beginning of Silver light. I once had a student who came to me to learn the divination. He wanted to learn my ways of reading tarot. I started teaching about the seasons and the light. He didn’t seem to be very happy after a few classes. He was expecting a quick mantra or a trick to understand the tarot. He wanted to impress people with accurate readings and make money. It comes with patience, not in a day or two. The magic’k’ is not in the cards. One has to develop that power within. It doesn’t matter what tool you use. I remember, when I first decided to teach Tarot to a group of students with potential, I did not allow them to get a tarot deck for a year. I wanted them to develop that power, and experience the subtle flavours of every card. I did not like it when one of my students surprised me with a tarot deck she bought for herself. But I also understood that at that age, one is over-exuberant. Had I been a strict teacher? Perhaps. I let them decide now, after they have experienced the cruelty of bitter worlds once they got out of the Wiccan school.

– [ ] In 2014 , I had to chose a university for the higher studies. Let me speak the truth, I wanted something easy. I felt exhausted after I had gone through the pressure of grade 11 and 12. It was overwhelming for me. I am not afraid of competitions, I have always had a very competitive nature. But what made me exhausted was the rat race for nothing. Who doesn’t wish to be rich? I saw no good options for my career. It was the era of doctors and engineers. I wonder if they make any money after all that circus. Osho used to say that he is a rich man’s God. Poverty makes one lifeless, it makes one animal. In Ram charit manas, Garud asks kaagbusundi seven questions. One of the questions was, what in this world is the greatest misery? The answer is Poverty. I agree with it. One of the lessons in Wicca is to experience royalty and richness.  In Wicca, one is taught to strengthen one’s Venus, it’s the planet of abundance. One learns to choose the best for oneself if one can. One is taught to love oneself, my teacher would call it Sacred selfishness. There are some rituals to embrace the Venus, that I will share in the next chapters.

I chose to move to Jalandhar and study biotechnology. It was the year 2014. Was it a coincidence that I went for admission to that university on Friday the 13^th, It was a full Moon. I felt like it was the plan of destiny. I felt calmer, I felt as if I was yet to begin a beautiful journey. The previous two years were very exhausting and overwhelming. I decided to live alone and explore Wicca which I felt was blooming within me. I could feel a strange energy within myself, I was becoming more sensitive to the energies around me. It might sound strange for those who have never felt it, but those who have been on this journey could relate to what I am willing to express. The summers were very relaxing which was very unusual, Or was I not connected to my body to feel the heat of summer? The classes were supposed to begin by the end of August. Unusually, I do not remember much about those days. My memories of after I moved to Jalandhar in August are very clear in my mind. I often wonder if we choose consciously what to keep within ourselves and what to forget. I had felt something very similar after coming to Canada as well. I do not possess the memories from the initial months when I came to Canada. I have forgotten completely. Those were the days when I felt a disconnect from the world and myself. The ancient pagans believed that the spirit can choose the realm where it wish to stay. It is free and has its own will. I wrote about this phenomenon in one of the articles I wrote in the year 2021. Had I been moving to different realms without being aware of it? Perhaps.

It was the first day in the university, It poured heavily. The weather was very warm and humid. August marks the time of Lughnasadh, some people, choose to call it Lammas, It’s the time when the Goddess rises. The ancients believed that it was the time When God was believed to be dead, they referred to the Sun. Different cultures have different stories. It’s the time when one can observe more colours in the sky at the time of dusk. They believed that the Sun moves to the lower realms, I wonder if they referred to the southern hemisphere. On the very first day, I met Hemant. He had come from Hyderabad as a student. I realized we were in the same group of students. He seemed to be very excited about everything around him. He had come to northern India for the first time. The first three days were the days of celebration, As part of orientation for all the students. I wished the skies were clearer for those three days. I had developed a good connection with Hemant in those three days. This was very unusual for a person like me. I usually avoided getting close to people and enjoyed my own company, especially in the year 2014. Was he a part of a plan that destiny was yet to bring into my life?