Why Meditation Is The Doorway To Real Magic

What if the most powerful spell you cast this week is listening? We lean into spring’s bright stretch of days with the King of Pentacles: steady, generous, and very Taurus-coded then trace how that grounded energy becomes a practical plan for real life. From equinox afterglow to the nuts and bolts of staying in flow, this conversation centers stability you can feel: clear rituals, calm nervous systems, and choices that honor attention as a sacred resource.

I open up about Divergent Witchcraft, my upcoming book with Weiser Books, and why I wrote it for witches who learn and sense differently ADHD, autism, anxiety, trauma, and the many ways our brains differ. We talk credentials, classrooms, and years of adapting tools for students with diverse needs, then map those adaptations onto meditation: shorter sits, guided options, bead counting, walking meditations, and realistic routines you can actually keep. We also go straight at the labels Wicca, new age, astrology, chakras and make peace with the blend most of us already practice. If a tool regulates you, clear your channel, and reduces harm, it earns its place.

If this resonates, preorder Divergent Witchcraft, join our coven or Witch School for supportive structure, and share this episode with a friend who needs a kinder path to power. Subscribe, rate, and leave a review—tell me how you enter flow.

Order the book here: https://www.jennycbell.com/divergent-witchcraft

Transcript

Join The Coven And Witch School

Alarms, Focus, And Mom Life

Card Of The Week: King Of Pentacles

Flow After Equinox And Retrogrades

Divergent Witchcraft Book Preorders

Why Jenny Wrote This Book

New Age, Wicca, And Clarifications

Meditation As First Principle

Many Ways To Meditate

Shadow Work Through Stillness

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Hi, and welcome back to Cozy Coven Chats. I am your host, Jenny C Bell, and this is for the week of March 22nd. Today is my husband's birthday. Happy birthday, Ben. Um, I have been celebrating his birthdays with him since he turned 20. Yeah. Twenty or twenty one. No, I think we were officially together by his 21st, but I celebrated his 20th birthday with him. And he's much older now. Um he is a wonderful partner. I love him, and uh he really is a a good balance for me. Um definitely, definitely helps balance me out. He's a great dad, and I'm grateful for him. So yeah, he's a little spring baby. I'm also a spring baby. Um, I'm born in April, and then my son is a spring baby, and then my daughter's a summer baby, so um lots of sunshine. And someone recently in our coven asked it was if um you preferred the season you were born in and why. And it was interesting. Most people were, yeah, they did. They preferred the the season they were born in. Um, so that's kind of an interesting question. Always fun questions in there. So um there's no new moon or full moon right now. We are still in the spring equinox energy, and we are moving into longer days, which is beautiful and exciting. Um, I personally really love spring and fall. So I'm a tourist, so I really love the spring and the headiness and the fertility and the flowers, and like such a Ferdinand in the in the flower fields. But then I love Scorpio season, I love fall, I love being a witch, and I love Sawan, and but I know I really like all the seasons. Having a summer baby made me love summer. Um, also being a school teacher made me love summer because I wasn't working. Um, so yeah, so got a little off track per usual. It's okay. Just a couple like little housekeeping things. If you're thinking about joining our coven, do that. We'd love to have you. You can go to my website, Jenny C Bell, learn about it. Um, there's a monthly option so you can kind of dip in, see for the month, and decide if you want to stay. And it's really a sweet community. Um, really loving, very supportive. We now have a witch school in there, so it's a four-week course on becoming a witch. So if you're beginner witch and you're like, I just need some structure, I've laid it out in a way that will only take you four weeks a month. Um, but you can obviously go slower. It's all online, it's all at your own pace. I'm there to ask questions too, try to get all questions answered within 48 hours. And if I don't tag me, it's always tell everybody, just tag me because sometimes I just don't see them, um, even though I'm in there every day. So, yeah, so it's a witch school, and you're able to ask me, a witch of over 30 years experience, questions and get answers, and then there's other people to lean on, and then there's way more information beyond the witch school. There's a whole like library of information. So it's really, really, really beautiful. So check it out if you're not already in there. Um, at the end of April, I will be in Portland for Spirit Northwest. So come see me there. Oh, it's my alarm. Hang on. Okay, that was just my reminder to get my son, but my husband's getting him today. So um, yeah, I'm that kind of mom. I have alarms for everything. Just because I definitely get focused and hyper-focused on things, and then I give my I need an alarm as like a transition period. Like, hey Queen, you're gonna need to stop what you're doing and get your kid because I don't want him to ever be forgotten, you know. That's rough. It happens all the time, like we just get busy, and then you know, so um, that's what that was. So back to what we were talking about. Let's talk about our card for the week. Last week's card was a little like intense, and so I was happy to see this card because um it's just so spring. So we're still using the Elemental North Tarot, and we have the King of Pentacles, and I love this because it's got one of those um shaggy uh cows with the horns, one of those bulls um from Scotland that's like got all like the pretty little hair, and he's wearing a crown and he has all these gold medals, and there's purple ties and like ribbons, and it's green. It's just giving so much Beltane energy. So we're like in Ostara energy, we're moving towards Beltane. It's like spring, it's Taurus, it's fertility, it's wealth, it's health, it's good stuff. So the book says the King of Pentacles is stable, mature, and caring. He has accumulated a lot of wealth through education and experience, and he is adept at maintaining it. He's also willing to share what he can and help others gain their own wealth. On the card, a highland bull, that was the word I was looking for, has been used to illustrate the king because of the great value cattle have had to us through his tree and cultures. Interesting. I never really thought of cattle like that as like valuable to humanity. I'm a vegetarian, but no, it's been valuable for people's like survival for lots of reasons. Um, I was just watching a documentary with my son about the move from uh nomadic to staying and farming and just human evolution. So the runes on the card are Thorazazz, it's a rune of protection. It connects with well to this card as the King of Pentacles' role is to ensure all of the subjects are well cared for and awful, indicates property and possessions. It represents the available resources the king has for the reign of his kingdom. So, and its element is connected with Earth. So whenever King of Pentacles comes up for me, it makes me feel good. It's like boss babe energy. I just like, okay, I'm good. I'm in the flow, I'm healthy, I'm wealthy, I'm in abundance. And so this is a week of flow. That's what I'm thinking. You know, we eclipse season is behind us, Mercury in retrograde is behind us, we hopefully renewed on the equinox, and now maybe we're gonna enter a bit of a flow state. Whatever we're manifesting, goal setting, attracting this year, we're flowing, we're flowing. So I really love that for us. Um, we are beginning to talk about Divergent Witchcraft. It's my um book is coming out June 1st from Wiser Books, but it's available now for pre-order, and it really helps if you pre-order it because then my publisher goes, Oh, she people buy her books. Maybe we'll have her do more. It's all about the dollars and cents, everybody, right? That's a radio head reference. Um, Divergent, Witchcraft, an inclusive approach to making magic by Wiser Books. If you go to the description, I want to read it too because I want to clarify some things. It says, so I don't write, you know, as an author, I don't write the description. Um, I just write the book. I just work here. No. Um, and I like their description, but I can already anticipate questions, so I want to go over them. Written with ADHT, autism, anxiety, and other forms of diversions in mind, this book offers easily digestible teachings designed for unique ways of learning. So I want to explain because I think sometimes I can already anticipate like what gives you the right. You know what I mean? I feel like in today's world, it's like, what gives you the right to write this book? Like, who are you? Um, who I am is I'm a person uh who has over 13 years of experience in education. So I was a school teacher and I taught kids with ADHD. And what I, you know, we now realize that autism is a much bigger spectrum than we knew. So I think I taught more kids with autism than anybody was saying at the time because I taught something called GAIT, which is gifted and talented education, and I went and got GAIT certified. And basically, looking back, it was like how to teach neurodivergent kids, but nobody was using those terms then. I'm also trained in like trauma response in education and you know how trauma affects education. I was a teaching tolerance grant winner, I was a teacher of the week, a teacher of the year award winner. I taught special education, I taught kids from all different ethnicities and backgrounds and socioeconomic status. I've taught um kids in foster programs. I have really just seen it all. I was certified in English language learning, so teaching kids whose first language is not English. I um yeah, oh yeah, I was also I can't remember what it stood for though, but the acronym was SAP, which is like the worst. Um, and it was basically I was trained in group therapy, and that was the trauma-informed teaching. Um, I've also was trained in understanding the poverty and poverty mindset and how poverty affects learning. So that's what makes me the right person to write the book, folks. It's yes, I have a neurodivergent child. Yes, I identify as neurodivergent, but that's not enough, in my opinion, because that would just be one point of view. I have studied highly sensitive people and highly sensitive person what that means, and I also was a teacher, and I taught every kind of person that you can think of, um, with modifications and this and that. And so that to me is why I'm the right person to write a book like this. I hope it's the first of many. I hope people write about ADHD and Audi HD and autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety and trauma-informed witchcraft. I like want to see it all. I want to just hope this book just opens the door and it sparks something in another witch. And it's like, I want to write about that too. And it'll have a different perspective and it'll be beautiful. So I'm really excited. The other thing it says on here, and this is just straight from the description, experience spiritual witchcraft, a modern blend of Wicca, new age practices, and self-healing that goes beyond tradition and into personal empowerment. Some people really don't like to see the word new age, and they also don't like to see Wicca. And I don't know what that's about, the Wicca part. The new age part I get. Um, you know, there's been a fall of some new age influencers, and some of them are grifters and snake oil salesmen. I get it, I get it. When I'm talking about new age, though, talking about things like the new moon. Because a lot of wick books on witchcraft say that the new moon is a dark moon, you don't do any magic. But astrologers and new age practitioners say it's time to manifest. So if you are in that train of thought, like, yeah, the new moon is something, time to magic, that's kind of more new age. Um, if you incorporate astrology into your witchcraft, that's considered more new age. Um, if you work with if you're Reiki practitioner, or you do yoga, or you do breath work, or you work with um you're an herbalist, a lot of that's considered, you know, new age or crossing over with new age. So when I say new age, it's because in here I talk about chakras. Chakras have nothing to do with witchcraft, and they have to more to do with yoga, and the way I have talked about them is in a more new age approach. So I'm not going straight off of the old texts from India, you know, I'm going more into that. And so that's the new age. Now the Wicca part is that I started my witchcraft journey in the 90s. And let me take you back to little Jen, going to the one mall in our town, going to the one bookstore, shout out to boarders, R.I.P. boarders, going to the witchcraft section with the seven books there. Library had nothing. What's all we got? And so it's like everyone read Silver, Raven Will, Wolf, and or Scott Cunningham. Like that's just like everybody I knew. And we would swap books and they were pretty similar. So I started with Wicca Guide for Solitary Practitioner, because I loved the cover of the lady with the incense, and she was like almost wearing like a toga. I was just like, yes, give me this. And then Living Wicca with the lady with our arms up, she's like all empowered and just loved it. Um, and so I started off that way. A lot of times in that time, we would use Wicca and Wiccan and Witch kind of synonymously, and Wiccans, pagans, and witches would all just hang out together because it's not like we had our pick. You know, this is in things in our culture. Side note, things in our culture have become very divisive, very polarized. Well, it's not like that in reality, and it wasn't like that then. You know, I'd go to a pagan meetup. There was Buddhists in that meetup, but they just didn't identify as like Christian in our small town, and so they're just looking for people, and we were like, sure, we'll take you. There's that a shaman in that group. It was just like whoever wanted to be, it's come all be all. And so Wicca gave me my foundation, and I honestly can't separate it from my practice. Since then, would I call myself a Wicca Wiccan? No, because it's more of a religion, and I'm anti-religion. Um, but it's not, I'm not, I don't do, I'm not exclusively Wiccan, so I can't say that I'm Wiccan. Do I have Wiccan practices or foundations? Yes. Do a lot of people? Yes. Are they all aware of it? No. I'm just saying. Just saying. You know, like the Sabbaths and stuff, those are pretty Wiccan. Um the format of ritual circles that a lot of people use is pretty Wiccan. Um, it's pretty Wiccan. Just sorry. I'm feeling a little silly. I was silly last episode, too. Something about talking to you just is giving me levity. Um, so anyway, so it's not a Wiccan book. I'm not Wiccan. It's not the Wiccan religion, but there are elements of it that are based from Wicca, and I, being who I am, neurodivergent, I have to tell you that. Sometimes I'm honest to a fault, okay? So don't let that turn you off. And then um the last part says, learn tools for healing and protection, including spellcasting, manifesting. So manifesting is a new age term, chakra work, new age term, and new moon rituals, also new age, made easy and adaptable for every type of practitioner. So I just wanted to clarify that because I can already anticipate getting questions like, are you Wiccan? No, am I do I think Wiccans are not cool? No, I don't. I'm not like the rest of TikTok. Like, it's cool, man. It's cool to be you. I'm just happy that you're a witch. I digress. Okay, so this week we're gonna dive into the book. There's nine chapters. The first chapter is called Meditation, Transcending and Receiving. And so, yeah, I started with meditation. That's pretty new age. Um, that's also pretty bold for someone whose audience is primarily neurodivergent people. I know it's kind of crazy. However, I feel like if we're gonna really dive into ritual, spell work, ceremony, everything, you gotta have a meditation practice or at least a basic understanding of meditation. So we had to start there. And it's because that's how we get to know ourselves. It's because that's how we hone and lean into and amplify our intuition. That's how we find our own magic. That's how we empower ourselves, that's how we heal ourselves, and that's how we listen, that's how we transcend, that's how we receive. So when you say prayers, when you do a spell, when you journal, when you write something down, when you tell somebody something, you're talking. When you're doing a spell, you're telling whomever you believe in, this is what I want, or this is what I don't want. But when you're meditating, you're listening. And so many people will say to me, I want to know my spirit guides. I want to connect with a deity, I want to work with a crystal. You can only do that if you can have a relationship. And how can you have a relationship if you can't sit and receive and listen? I'm gonna drop my mic. Just kidding, it costs too much for me to do that. Um, but that's that's what I'm saying. That's why meditation is important. And I will die on that damn hill. I will, I'll die on the damn hill because I wouldn't be here if I didn't commit to a year of meditation. No if, ands, or buts. Like I'm sick, my kids are crying, I'm meditating. Like I had a toddler when I committed to that year of meditation, and I did it. And I'm neurodivergent, and I had intrusive thoughts, and I had weird thoughts, and I, you know, and I did it. And you can too. I promise you. And so if you are um at all familiar with me and my body of work, um, you might know that I'm on Insight Timer. This is not a plug because they really don't pay me much at all, to be honest with you. I hardly make any money from Insight Timer. Don't worry, like, here's your$12 for the last three months. Like, thank you so much, Insight Timer. Okay, so anyway, Insight Timer, it's a free meditation app. It's a good one. And if you're familiar with it, I have quite a few meditations on there. I actually have one for every one of the Sabbaths and some other talks and this kind of thing and that. And what I tried to do is give a variety of meditations. I actually have a course on there for families who are new to meditation. So if like you want to meditate, but you also have a five-year-old and a partner who's like, mm, on the fence, it's for all of you. If you want to meditate, be your you want your teen to meditate or your twin, and they're like, well, why don't you do it? Then it's for you two to do together. And in that course, I teach all the different types of meditation because the thing is, it's not just about sitting there with a blank mind. Okay, it's not, because not everybody can do that. There's options, there's mantras, there's or mantras, there's affirmations, there's guided meditations, there's walking meditations, there are meditations where you move, right? You use the mala beads and your hands are moving so you can fidget. It's not about being still, and it's not about being silent, and it's not about clearing your mind. It's more about regulating your nervous system. It's more about receiving, it's more about slowing down for a moment, it's more about taking time for you, it's more about unplugging yourself, you know, it's about sitting in the quiet, sitting in the silence, opening up, seeing what's there. And sometimes what's there is like, oh shoot, this is there. That's shadow work. When people are like, How do you do shadow work? How do you get that all the time on TikTok? How do you do shadow work? You you have to sit and listen, or whatever. And people they don't want to do that. And I get it, it's scary, but it's necessary. And so that's why we start with meditation. And I say it's transcending because it is. That's how we find transcendence. I know who my guides are for the most part. Sometimes they get a little rambunctious, and sometimes I have to be like, not you right now. But I know them because of meditation. Because I sat in meditation, laid in meditation, walked in meditation for a year, and then my brain shifted, and I was like, I can do this, like this is possible. You know, that's how you get to know your spirit guides, that's how you get to hear the tree talk to you. That's how you do the witchy stuff. When you're like, man, how are they connected to their deity? Like, how'd they get an answer from Hecate? Because they listened. They slowed down and listened, and that's what meditation is. So that's what we start with. And so today I'm gonna end with some journal questions, as always. So I'm gonna ask you, what is your like meditation? What are your meditation fears, worries, anxieties? Feel free to ask them to me wherever you find me, social media, um, our coven. What is your meditation practice? What would be an ideal meditation practice? Like perfect worlds, you're like, I have this special room, and there's fresh flowers every day, and everybody's out at my house, and there's a cat purring, whatever. What's your ideal situation? And then let's talk about the king of pentacles. What makes you feel rich? And who is a king of pentacles in your life? If there is somebody, and how do you enter flow state? And the answer is meditation. Okay, so anyway, it's all connected. I hope you have a wonderful week. Melicity.