10 - Witchcraft, Sigil Magic and Remembering Who You Are with Emma Swailes

In this rich and empowering episode, Danielle is joined by Emma Swailes - also known as The Friendly Green Witch and host of The Bell Witch Podcast. Together they explore the magic of living as a modern witch, from intuitive sigil crafting and spellwork to the everyday power of nature, motherhood and remembering who we really are.

Emma shares her personal journey into witchcraft, how it helped her overcome depression, and how it continues to shape her path, parenting and podcasting. The conversation flows through sacred rituals, spell jars, protective magic, intuitive energy work and how witchcraft can be both deeply healing and wonderfully practical.

Whether you’re a baby witch, a seasoned practitioner, or just witch-curious, this episode is filled with grounded wisdom, laughter and truth.

🌿 Topics include:

• Emma’s journey into witchcraft and motherhood
• The power of sigil magic and intuitive spellwork
• Working with nature, elements and intuition
• Protection, curses and energy boundaries
• Witchcraft in daily life and raising magical children
• Podcasts as modern covens and spaces of healing
• Living cyclically, seasonally and spiritually present

Transcript

Good morning and thank you for joining the Sacred Spirit Sessions, the Golden Wolfwing Podcast, with myself Danielle. I'm so excited to bring you lots of interesting episodes, insights into what it is like to work with the spirit, from so many fascinating people across the globe, such as shamans and healers, psychic surgeons and mediums and energy workers. And I hope this gives you some inspiration into your journey with spirit.

I hope that you enjoy the stories to come and you walk this path with us. So this morning I've got Ennis Wales, the Green Witch from the Bell Witch Podcast. Hello, hello.

Finally got it right, we've just done that take about five times so far. So it's lovely for you to join us this morning. I'm excited to have you on because I know that you do amazing podcasts yourself and you talk about lots of topics and one being is witchcraft, which is a topic that obviously I love and I'm obviously a witch myself. 

So I thought we would dive into some of your, you know, like your work, what you do, what are your favourite ways to work? Yeah, so thanks for having me. I'm Wales, the Friendly Green Witch. I've been into witchcraft about, I would say, 10 years now. 

I've always been a bit weird and a bit spooky and a bit woo-woo and I was a goth growing up. Yeah, we were all goths growing up in the 90s, but so I've always been interested in unusual stuff. I grew up with my mum who was a single mum and a fantastic medium and psychic.

Wow, so like a guru medium? Yeah, she were amazing and this was before the internet, you know, she would see people at the bus stop and say, can I be honest with you and tell them about the life, you know, and shock horror them and that's how she made friends in all honesty. People would be so impressed by her abilities and she was such a people person. They used to flock to her for readings and she did a bit of palmistry and a bit of psychometry and so I grew up around that and it was really normal to me. 

Now, my mum would never consider herself a witch. She would have never said that because back then the stigma was quite severe with witchcraft and it were all like and like fly my pretties fly and all that. And so I went into witch films, you know, like the classics, like practical magic and the craft and I just didn't make that connection and it astonishes me today because I loved witches, like I watched them and absolutely believed in them, but I never went, ooh, perhaps I could be a witch. 

I had. And then witchcraft came to me when I had my first baby, Florence, who's about to turn 10. I got in with the right crowd basically, a crowd of baby wearing, breastfeeding, goddess worshipping mothers and they introduced me to so much magic and it was a really beautiful time of my life, like my cup was so filled of spirituality and like drawing yonis and walking labyrinths and, you know, learning how to draw them and talking about feelings of breastfeeding openly and oh, it was golden times. 

It sounds like you're really effeminate, you know, like really safe to be effeminate. Yeah, it was beautiful and from then I got a surprise box in the post and it was all about witchcraft. It had a book called Witches by Lisa Lister, which I read in like two days because I was just so into it and the penny dropped then. 

It was like, gosh, am I, I must be a witch then because all this makes complete sense. It did, people coughed that bit going and like feelings start coming, you know, where you think, oh, that's me. Yeah, absolutely, yeah and I think I learned a lot about myself really quickly, you know, like feminine rage and stuff we've been accepting just because mainstream and capitalism and so it's made me really healthy in my mind because until this point I've always suffered with depression. 

I've always disliked myself, disliked my voice, thought I couldn't get anywhere, you know, woe is me all the time. Witchcraft has completely turned all that around and I'm the best I've ever been now and a massive part of that is witchcraft and also podcasting. Oh, I know, I love that. 

Do you feel like it's helped you like find your identity and step into your power, fully embody it and accept it? Absolutely, yeah and find ways of achieving what you want, you know, not trying to gain things because we're meant to be doing this at this time, this precise time, we should be on this property ladder but you look into it, it's all just a bunch of nonsense, isn't it? It's just because mainstream, which I've never liked and I've never fitted in with, you know, it was like that's why because I'm not meant to be on this path, I'm meant to be on this witch path. So, on your witch path what have you discovered about being a witch? What does it, what does being a witch mean to you? Well, I started as a Wiccan as many of us do mostly because there's so much access to it, there's lots of books and it's relatively a new religion from the 50s and the 60s, as you know, Jal Garda and all that and it has these 12 rules and the rules are, you know, you don't harm, cause harm to none and all the other ones but one of them is cause harm to none and that includes yourself, you know, like don't give yourself, am I allowed to swear? Yeah, but of course, you can just tell us before. Don't give yourself shit because you're causing harm to yourself and that was like a big revelation really, you know, it's bizarre how just having it written down, it's a rule I need to learn to be part of this Wiccan lifestyle, oh my gosh, I've been doing this and everybody knows about manifesting and the words we speak, which I'm big into at the moment, speaking positively and lovingly to others but more so yourself because we're all just so easily harsh to ourselves, you know, and it's like, why though? Why? Because we're taught that because we need to bow this junk we don't really need, your healing's inside yourself, you just have to literally like unearth it and ground in the grass and speak kind words to yourself and people go, oh it sounds so fluffy and so, but why? Why does it sound fluffy? Because capitalism has done a number on us and made us think that.

We've completely been conditioned, haven't we, to move so far away from like the natural existence of who we are and kind of our own essence and I think, and I don't know if you agree with this, but witchcraft for me, it's just, it's a remembering, it's an unbecoming as opposed to becoming anything, it's a coming back to yourself and I think from what you're saying, like it's all about like the boundaries that we have of ourselves but that the mind believes what we tell it don't and it's really powerful and everything ends and begins with us so we are the vessel for everything. Yeah, yeah absolutely and because witchcraft for me is heavily entwined with nature and the world and Gaia and that helps the human person, the human condition to tap into nature and energies and then you're living alongside it rather than just on it, you know, and using it, you're not using it anymore, you're respecting it and it's a relationship. Yeah. 

Witchcraft encourages that relationship because you're still doing stuff for yourself, you're still trying to manifest and do spells but it's with kindness and it's with respect for our earth and other people. Oh my god, it's fascinating, I love it. Do you think sometimes people miss that a little bit, you know, and they're like I'm gonna manifest or they don't, they don't fully like go down the rabbit hole of the spectrum of like witchcraft or understanding or like you say embodying it, sometimes they're dipping in and out a little bit or they cherry pick little bits and it is about having that reverence in it for the earth and yourself and I feel like it's a respect thing as well, you know, like it's like building the respect of like the cycles and seasons of nature and that rather than seeing ourselves as a separate entity, we're actually part of it and that is the the leading direction of oneness and loving to be interconnected. 

Yeah and we all start that way because we only know what we can know, we learn bits and bobs and then you start to have fun with it, don't you, and you start doing little spells here and there because you think oh my god I could have whatever I want but then the more you do it, the more it's like well actually I'm quite grateful and content with the things I have so even though I'm a witch and I absolutely do live every single day as a I very rarely do spells myself anymore because I'm quite content with my life and it's a lovely place to be and that is because of witchcraft. Spells aren't always about gaining something or benefiting, they're also about giving back and healing others and healing the energies of the earth and being present. I mean we're all very distracted at the moment with social media and the scrolling, I swear TikTok and AI will be the end of us, we need to unplug it because it is going to ruin so much but yeah I've just deleted my Instagram actually this morning, I was like my personal one, I've had it for 11 years, I just deleted it just now.

It's really difficult isn't it because social media is something that I'm not a big fan of, I think it's lovely because you can connect with people so easily and fluidly even when we're not like you know sitting in the same room and things like that and and I think it's an amazing tool to spread awareness and share knowledge and to be connected in certain ways but then sometimes it can have like the complete opposite effect, it can drive us away from each other and it creates that separation and so I always, I am very conflicted with social media where I'm like I don't like to advertise my work but yeah you know you need to be present and then how do you connect to people, you don't put yourself out there but you don't want to kind of buy into the politics of it all and stuff, it's a tricky one actually. It is really tricky and as a podcasters we do need it don't we to talk to people but I'm very aware of my personal life not being on it anymore especially my children need to not be on it and we're all addicted to it, it is an addiction and when it's an addiction it's a problem no matter how many connections you get because you could be doing other more enlightening more fulfilling things and instead, especially I think TikTok is the worst for it, it'll just steal all the hours and then before you know it you haven't done anything. Because you've miles of scrolls on TikTok, all of my videos and I've seen my marbles in it with that and so in terms of like the witchcraft because I remember meeting you at Lime Tree Farm at our Rising Bird festival and all like I want to speak to them more and you told me a clip of your journey when you first got into it and your journey in motherhood and how special it was with you and things like that and I know at the minute you're like and I can completely resonate where you're saying yeah it's part of your life like I'm pagan so for me it's not a separate entity it's just how I live my life I tuned at seasons and cycles and I don't do loads of the magical stuff or the spells it's like the then it's nice isn't it to do it but I miss doing things like that but I wanted to ask you but when you've done it well like what are some of the most profound things that you've seen happen through spelly work or any kind of like work through witchcraft when has it really worked for you when you've been like wow this is bloody amazing oh I can think of sigils what my some of my best so again some of my best magic is creating sigils people buy them from me I always remember one of the first ones I did was for a perfect birth and I'll never get over this the the lady wanted it from me she'd had quite a lot of bad luck with getting pregnant and keeping the baby so she asked me for the sigil to have an easy pregnancy and like the perfect birth at home with a family and stuff so that's quite a lot of responsibility to do is a big ask and so I I spent ages on this sigil and it took a couple of weeks to manifest and I sit them on my altar for a bit and then I knew when it were ready and I gave her it and when she saw the sigil she was really astonished how it looked and I didn't understand that I was a bit like oh I don't know it's just this a sigil and she talked me through the lines that represent things like the lines represent her the baby her oldest daughter and it was amazing that she could dissect it and I was a bit like whoa that is really impressive I think she ended up getting it tattooed like on the side of her face. 

Did you just channel that sigil through? Yeah I cannot describe how it happens it's so bizarre it's a long process but I just know when they're done and they're perfect and she went on to have a really good pregnancy and the best birth like a home birth I think she might have had a free birth as well I can't quite remember that because it's a few years ago now but that's like one of my most successful sigils ever I always remember that and then there were this other time I was feeling a bit broke as we all do near Christmas and I was manifesting like a bad-ass like a lump sum of money I think I can't remember how much I said it was it was like eight grand or something yeah so I was precise and I was going to town manifesting visualising it mood board you know stirring coffee and walking around saying I am rich and all that and I knew it were working and then shortly after this my husband got told it would be made redundant he'd had this job years and years like 30 odd years and it was astonishing that they even thought about it because he'd worked really hard he'd worked all his way up so of course me felt so guilty and I had to kind of scurry around and do a spell to reverse it and be like I'm really sorry I don't I don't want it at the price of you know redundancy pay and I you know please forgive me kind of thing so I worked really hard doing spells to reverse it and they were meant to be made redundant at the end of June a couple years ago now and I swear down it got to like the third last day of June or three days to go and one of his people he worked with quit randomly and somebody else got the job and then the office were saying I think we've just broken the law because we should have given it to this guy who's being made redundant so they all rallied round and scared the boss dude and then the boss rang my husband up and said would you like to keep your job and he were like of course I want to keep my job and I cannot believe it was like by the by the seat of my pants that literally it's the last hour so when talking about sigil magic just explain it to people like because I know we've got I use sigil magic and I use it in a really specific way but not how I don't I don't channel it as much as you do it I do it in a different way so tell people like what is sigil magic and how do they do it so sigil magic it's creating a bespoke sigil which is kind of like a rune you know on a rune stone but it isn't an alphabet and it has its custom meaning kind of like tarot versus oracle decks you get runes and you get sigils and sigils are very higher magic they work how they work for certain people there is ways you can do with grids but they're quite mathematical and I don't do that I tend to have a long time knowing what exactly I want this sigil to do journaling writing the perfect sentence with no room for error and then it's really hard to to describe it I'll look at the sentence and then do the whole like you know you take certain letters out like vowels put them together and kind of just mess them up and then something grows like some kind of patterns and it's very fluid and I'll move you know like turn the book around use different pens add bits take bits away and then suddenly it's there like that is the one it's it's like there's no denying this is the sigil and they're all really different and like nothing that looks like you know the sentence but then that's just the beginning so like I'll sit with a sigil I'll do a few master copies I'll put them on my altar I can ring bells around them and I visualise them glowing bright gold or bright red or bright green you know like if it was a money one yeah sometimes if it's protective I can put salt around it or you like burn a candle on it all sorts it depends what the client wants really I've done many for selling houses I've done many for passing exams shielding for families that feel a little bit like they're bad luck and then when I've done all this it takes about a week I will put it on some nice parchment paper in a nice sealed envelope with a few herbs and either post it to them or email it to them depends where they are in the world or sometimes they want a spell jar so I can put the sigil in a spell jar or it's better in a cloth bag really because spell jars tend to lock it in which is nice for travel but if you want it to work best you want it in a bag really and they can do what they want with it some people burn them some people put them in the wallets some people put them on the pin board the notice board some people why do you think work better in a bag as opposed to a jar because a jar is glass in it so it's a vessel that keeps things contained I mean they look nice and everybody does them up but I think for a spell unless you open it I don't think they'd work quite as well as like a net bag you know because the energies can escape they've got energy to move yeah it's interesting so I do some in jars but the way that I do it in my jars are I'd always sit in a specific space in the house and it's it'd always be facing the sun to keep giving it energy and what I would usually do is just count a clockwise just give it a gentle swish rather than a big flip so that things don't come in a bit chaotic oh yeah and I'll do it certain ways but do you when you when you were guided to put yours in bags do you think do you feel like again it's like intuitively like this is how I need to do it yeah absolutely all magic is intuitive if it's right for you to put in a jar then it is right for you I'm not suggesting my way is the only way of course not we're all open to our own interpretation and if we feel it in us gut as instincts are always right just by default because we care about what we're doing as witches yeah and I think that's that's really like important for people listening to know that everything's about intention isn't it intention and reality and how you're doing it and the purposes and things and like you say it there's no like it's not magic in black and white is it's not like a rigid set of instructions I think it's all intuitive and like your sigil magic sounds amazing I don't think I've met anybody who is like we do it intuitively but who is channelling it through because for me it sounds a little bit like um if I get a vision through for somebody and like if I'm thinking if I'm asking my guys right what what what are we doing with this person or what what am I doing creating like something like um if it is a spell or whatever from and but yours is very like it feels like you're using your energy and you're pulling the energy into it at you and so it's it's it feels very um psychic as well because you're you're intruding into the energy of what the person needs I'm not telling you but it goes beyond that from what I feel you know as I'm as I'm like watching what you're saying yeah um what one thing I wanted to ask you as well is what did your husband think you know so like when you've you've done like this magic and he's off to work wherever else and by the sounds of it I don't know if he practises as well or he don't practise no we're very we're very opposites I've been with him a long time over 20 years now and he just accepts me for who I am because I've always been into different stuff I'm I'm quite good at finding hobbies you know and keeping them so I've got a collection of hobbies and interests but witchcraft became so much more than that really quickly and he isn't which he's quite straight but he's really open-minded and he doesn't ever judge and he respects my opinions on stuff it's like um over summer we went on holiday we're camping and my eldest Florence she wrote a name on one of the logs you know that came with the place to burn and um I could see Florence ready to put the wood in and Paul my husband was a bit like you don't want to put that in the fire do and they were like nope so he went and got the um the saw and cut her name off the wood to burn because he knows me as a witch that would just be like oh don't put the fire in here I mean as a witch as well you know connected to burning times never put your own name in the fire okay that's like witchcraft 101 so even though he's not a witch I mean he totally gets it he totally gets me he buys me things for witchcraft oh he's very encouraging because it makes me happy and it makes me well and it's like happy wife happy life isn't it well yeah a smart man knows that but what did he think do you know what like did we were you honest and said actually I've manifested this money and I think I've made you redundant at the same time and what did you think of that yeah I mean I don't know if he believed it was a bit like I think it's bigger than that but I think a little part of him went maybe maybe but yeah it was a bigger deal for me than it was for him he would just you know distract to China train for other stuff and apply for other jobs and stuff but maybe a little part of him thought perhaps apart from your sigil might you can I didn't I know that you do aspects but I didn't know that you did custom sigils for people and um do you do it for people's businesses and things like that because I know that I think witchcraft is opening up and it's becoming more accepted and I think there's been a big shift since Covid so I think that's the one positive that I've seen in a flip side of where is you know since TikTok has evolved people had a you know for some people it was space to share and other you know sometimes it brought negative aspects from it but and I've seen that more people are a little bit open to oh it's not all dark and it's not it's not bad and you know it's okay so and I was just thinking like what else have you have you seen how you know like um happen as a result of that people are much people are much more open to it and that's because of online witchcrafts and that's been going on since the 2000s really when people started joining things and I think the first online coven was a thing in like 2002 I did an episode on this called digital witchcraft it was fascinating oh wow it was really good and yeah so it is more accepted I still get quite a lot of stigma in daily life people always think I wear a pentacle for protection and love I mean I adore my pentacles they're so positive to me and people go oh gosh you're wearing the sign of the devil it's like no no you're so misinformed a lot of misinformation I get negative connotations about it and I think I've got a lot of it it's misinformation and I think it's like fear or it's that you know keep me inside my box and I feel safe kind of thing um but I've noticed a lot of people um you know we've got like a lot more people in the public eye talking about we've got um people in businesses now thinking actually is it a solution to my business you know is it something that I've not looked at mm-hmm yeah yeah it's more accessible and I think there's quite a lot of conversations going on about the witch wound which I don't really like the title of I think it's just women were pitched off against each other because men wanted land and stuff so that's a big conversation at the moment especially with the wars going on and how dark the earth is people are actively looking for ways to bring positivity in that they have got control over and witchcraft is perfect for that because it's asking you to think outside yourself and recycle and you know like do a bit of gardening get your your hands mucky and all that is really basic down-to-earth stuff but the impetus of it is massive yeah it's all the good stuff that is so massive for your well-being and it's like you're connecting back in aren't you and we saw she connecting back in my nature and the elements and things like that and it's just it's you know like when we're talking about people being addicted to stuff it's all stuff that give you a massive dopamine rush but it comes from the good stuff and there's no cost to you there's no cost to your mental health or your well-being in fact it just improves it's the opposite effect and and don't go straight to the doctors you know of course if you need to you need to but if little things you know like headaches instead of taking the paracetamol why don't you drink a little bit of herbal tea if you've got period pains why don't you drink a little bit of mugwort tea you know and that'll help you feel better rather than just straight away going to you know the the normal mainstream stuff i mean i'm not anti-nhs or anything and i'm not anti-vax at all so i get a lot of that as well but i think instead of just doing what we've always done in general for everything why don't we just take a moment and be like is there another way that's not quite as impactful it's not quite as expensive and there's so many other ways and yeah i remember when i had my second son so it were he's turning 20 next it's obviously quite a while ago and i remember drinking raspberry leaf tea in preparation to tone my womb and so because it was such a difficult birth and intuitive they were like my body can do this but i'm going to do it a different way and i like everything has got to be so natural um and i remember drinking the raspberry leaf tea and it was absolutely vital it tasted like woody cold vomit but um it worked it was amazing and like natural oils and that's when i started to really work with um generating oils for healing and stuff like that and it was just it that the breadth of what you can do is is fascinating you know what we can utilise yeah so i know that you mentioned your mum and i know that your mum's no longer with us she's not no she died 20 years ago in 2005 which is so long ago now and i know that she was are you obviously lost her so young um and i know you talk about her mediumship and her psychic abilities and stuff like that do you ever do you do you have do you use those gifts to have those gifts coming through and do you use them in in witchcraft as well not as much as i should be because i'm just so busy which is a terrible excuse and i've got two little girls that's 10 and 7 so my life's quite full on at the moment i do try and tune in sort of every sunday night but even that's dropped off the radar i know if i'd give it a time and chance to to manifest i could get there because i do have intuition i do have things that go oh and it turns out to be right you know and when i do reiki as well gosh when i get messages via reiki that is amazing which is connecting straight to their energy right so it pulls through that um so i could tell you loads of stuff about the messages i get when i'm actually giving people the healing but in daily life i'm a bit slack with it just because at the moment especially with christmas there's a lot going on isn't there yeah and it's got you've got i think your energy has got to be balanced as well and you've got to be in the right space first for it to come through like and to work them and you know it's about your well-being as well in it you know you've got to make sure that you're not like giving yourself too much on your plate and that you've got to have that time and commitment to it as well yeah and it fascinates me how people come and ask me questions especially about curses and stuff like how i think this person's hexed me what can i do i know the answer and i'm like how do i even know the answer because i've never had any training in this if you're enjoying the work that i'm putting out to the world through this podcast there will be some bonus episodes coming up there will be some free accessible pdf downloads to help you on your spiritual journey and healing and there will also be some meditations you can support me to keep putting free work and content out to the world through buymeacoffee.com and that is at sacred spirit sessions so it's buymeacoffee.com forward slash sacred spirit sessions now i'll let you get back to enjoying the episode see you soon typically i saw um just a group of people coming through who'd had hexes put on them and it were really common in their community um and kind of like dark magic and different things how they did it and everything and i would be the same i'd like i'd link him on my guides and i'd be like right show me i'm going to transform meditation say show me how it's being done what's being done who's done it you know if they've got like some people will have um like artefacts of someday if they've been friends or if they're in families they'll keep something like an object i've seen um or they've they've done something and they've sent them like food as well and things like that i don't know if you ever come across anything like that before no no not yeah it's in a certain community and they'd they'd physically keep something of that person's and they'd go to like you know a local person in community who does dark magic um and things like that and they'd usually and do something to stop him they might you know might suffer ill health like really ill health everyone family um they had like tragedies and then um there were one which is really common in a certain community to stop fertility especially a boy being born loads of crazy stuff like this um but i would usually um see threads of energy attached as well and we'd like cut the threads of energy um do some extraction medicine or whatever around them and then do some cleansing and exactly the same thing get them to really build that circle of protection i'd ask spirit to put protection around them but then i'd want to them to do it so that every time that thing oh i feel a bit off or i'm sensing something they're like right you know like they've got that empowerment to put the self in that bubble of protection or whatever but you know when you wanted to give it back to the earth when i've i don't know how you've experienced it but when i've experienced it like that and it's like you know we're not um we're not giving it to lord and lady like but we're transmuting it back to earth sometimes it's been like all the ways of magic or and ones that are really difficult to kind of uh deflect or get the residue away does that make sense yeah yeah i mean the earth is massive in it and it's so powerful so to me it can always diffuse the negativity through like down below you know like all the earth and stuff kind of like filters it in my mind what have you noticed in signs of like where people have come in and said oh i've actually feel like you know somebody's put some on me and it is quite i don't feel like it's a norm it's not something i would ever do and i don't know many practitioners who would but i do know that it's become a trend and i've seen a lot of people justify it on social media and i've seen a trend of other practitioners having it done to them by sometimes other practitioners who think it's as well which is shocking to me it is shocking to me and i would never send anything negative out i could not live for myself if stuff went wrong because we are responsible what we send out we are responsible and i don't believe in the threefold law but i do believe energy we use it we manipulate it and it will it will go around it will come out from us it will be returned so i definitely believe in karma if you're sending out negative stuff yeah eventually absolutely will come around to you and it's just so easy to be nice and be good it is i find it really bizarre that people get angry with people that don't even know or get like jealous of people that don't even know and it's a shame and i do suffer a little bit of compare and despair and that's the internet that's not the people that's the internet but um yeah uh i say something and it's gone so how you know like if you have people coming to you and what is the most if they said actually i think somebody might have done something but i'm not sure even though you're intruding it and you're you're you're kind of channelling that information through right this has been done what are the sometimes like the big sets big things when somebody says something you think oh i think yeah what what would you typically hear from them you know like what story will the typical tell it's so different it's really it's really really individual but i the first thing i'll say to people is if you think that way it's probably right but if you are feeding it because you're worried and you're scared and you're you know worried then that's giving it power so one of the first things you can do to just dismantle any bad negative spell coming to your energy is to to like deflect it by going this has no power over me i can easily withstand this and that's not easy though you know for it to be truly coming from inside you it's not easy so people do need something with it which is what i provide you know if it is just doing the meditating with the ball of light or if it is a sigil they can look at and also say this sigil and myself we're powerful now so you've got no power over me that makes sense yeah because the fear does feed it doesn't it with anything absolutely yeah yeah i mean if the negative will feed off negativity and fear and and it keeps you kind of it disempowers you but it keeps you in that place of feeling like fearful and trapped and like you you know you can't and i think that's half the battle like you say you you might intuitively be like oh yeah do this and do that but half the battle is that person really believing i can protect myself from this you know like i don't have to accept it i've got everything that i need again it's leading them back to themselves as well into but out of your like sigils and things like that what have you done for yourself where you've seen it work amazingly for yourself so i know you've you've mentioned some bits but i was just thinking you must have if sigils are your big thing like give us some more deepers my first ever sigil i discovered before i even knew what sigil magic was i went to a moon circle in york held by another group of mums and we did sigils on bread we baked the bread we painted it on with food colour and then we ate it and i remember being like whoa that's so cool you know you're physically making a symbol and then you're taking it with inside yourself and this sigil was for growth now that's quite a big thing it is massive really growth but i i absolutely adore that sigil and i've got it tattooed on me i see it all the time i put it on my mirrors and stuff because i do feel like the past five years i've expanded so rapidly and the sigil was that sort of chapter moment that catalyst moment that that made me spring off so i'd been a witch probably a couple of years by then and i was getting into it all reading all the books and i hadn't come across sigil magic until that night and it just absolutely bewildered me like i was just so into the idea of it and then that were it then i did sigils all the time but that that one growth and it looks a little bit like a little person it's a kind of a g a t and a h kind of blended in with a little dot that looks like a person with their arms stretched out and it's really powerful how would you do it into your bread so people are going to do sigil magic in the bread how did you do it did you carve it in um after you'd baked it or like mid bake or something we we made the we kneaded the bread and then we literally drew our sigils on with just dye you know with food dye and a dainty brush and then we cooked the bread with the sigil already on which i think added to it because you know you it's expanding and it's being heated and it's being baked so it's like the sigils being baked into the bread and then we had a little bit of a ritual where we all had our bread and we all broke some off and ate our own sigil a little bit you know with some words saying this sigil work or you know something like that it was really really beautiful and one of my favourite witchcraft memories oh i love that idea because i know a lot of people will do sigils on their palm or they might do sigil in their makeup and i've when my boys the older boys because i've obviously got you know children at nearly 20 and nearly 24 well nearly 25 actually and then i've got a little again but when the older boys got to secondary school or like oh you know like they're throwing lines down what we're gonna do and like and i wanted him to be able to stick up for herself but not get in and all that kind of stuff you go through a lot more anxiety of transitions and stuff and i put sigils in the school bags i purposely wrote them because they were like oh i don't want people to see them and i'm like right we write them in the bottom of your bloody bag and i like because that bag's gonna be with them all the time or inside labels and the clothes and things like that because i thought i want them to have something like forms of protection or different stuff so on all you can be dead inventive with sigils and at the minute i've created my own sigils which i never really do i don't do a lot of intuitive how you do but they're on each picture of my vision board because i like to draw and put my own energy in but everyone has got a sigil because somebody said you can't even see what's in your vision barge i like it's got sigils over each thing that's why i love them so much because they're just so so versatile you can do anything with them you can put them in your makeup you can put them on a steamy mirror you can bury them in the yard you could burn them and forget about them that's kind of like high magic i've been designing some for jogging so i'm going to put them on the bottom of my trainers and it's like a sigil that's two halves so they'll be on the bottom of each trainer do you know to help me run wow that's different yeah honestly you could wake up yes i know that um there's people i know on like one woman she wanted a new house and then she wanted the business for changing that she worked in and she's like i need to i want to stay part of the business but the role needs to evolve and she put one in a shoe to walk around in with a shoe for the house and then the job and it came and i know that some people do them for like love magic which is not something that i really practise um everyone's got different beliefs around stuff like this on there but um you can just be dead inventive with it can't you you know like and i know people who've gone tattooed like you've got yours tattooed on and things like that so there's loads of ways to be right creative with sigils i would say with tattoo and you've got to be careful of what the sigil is doing if it's something that's going to have like an expiry because you've achieved your thing you want your sigil to achieve that's a bit dodgy because then you've got like an out of date sigil on your body whereas the one i've got tattooed i've got growth and self-worth and i never want to run out of that so you've got to think if you're going to tattoo it is it going to be a sigil that will run out but it's a really good point making it because i know people who've got more protection sigils but that and the the ones that are dead personal that you always want to embody the essence and energy of they're lovely to have i don't i think there must be people who think oh i didn't know i didn't think so i've got myself yeah i know it's a fantastic um way of doing sympathy magic in it because it's like an action an intuition and action and outcome i mean you were saying about putting stuff in your shoes i know some witches put photographs or names of people on the shoes which i'd never do again you know because it's like you're going to walk all over them kind of thing yeah or stamp them in the dirt and that fills me with dread honestly as a friendly green witch yeah it's not for me i must admit the only thing i think is yeah sometimes you change and your practise changes and evolves and i would never want to do any harm to anybody i'm completely opposite however i would never stand anybody harming me and i've learned like the boundaries of magic and witchcraft and actually in it i will always protect myself and i won't let myself be from the attack whereas before i would probably think oh god you know like and but now i would i would protect myself but in a peaceful warrior way if that makes sense yeah and as women western white women that's how we're brought up you know you've got to put everybody before yourself you've got to be the mum you've got to sacrifice everything and that is not good for you you need your own time you need your own interests your own hobbies it's like when the mask comes down put your own mask on right before you put your kids mask on yeah and i didn't do that until witchcraft i was very much about helping people survive saving people you know and be like why what why don't they like me why won't they let me help them that's all changed now it's like i enable people to help self whereas before i was always trying to be the saviour so and that was no good for me it's it's amazing what what witchcraft where it can lead you and what what paths it can take you down and the people that you meet as well yeah yep totally so do you work with anybody else or like um do you help other like baby witches on the journey if anyone's listening you know like that anyway baby witches well that's why that's why i do the podcast because i want to help the community of people who are willing to seek it like it's not just gonna land in your inbox or in your scrolling because it's i find when you scroll it's not quite as valuable is it as you're going out and seeking it which again is another problem you know like finding stuff really quick if you've done loads of scrolling can you remember the stuff you've looked at no you can't because it's just so unvaluable because you're just constantly looking but a podcast people make the decision to sit with you and listen to you for an hour half an hour i find that absolutely beautiful and quite magical and so this content i put out i want it to be helpful and i want people to appreciate me yes and tell other people yes but also if i am helping them heal the selves and using their own intuition and being self-reliant and having confidence i'm proper there for it i love it it's rewarding it's the thing that you can't put a number on you can't put a price tag on you it's you feel it and it's starting it that i'm exactly the same it massively fills my cup just to see people thrive and be like do you know what like whatever part i had to play in that i've i've helped people thrive or step up the path or just it's it's it's just the bigger than anything isn't it really yeah yeah there is ego attached to that because it's really hard not to have ego people think it's such a bad thing but again it's a like how much we do need it to get stuff done and we would it's not selfless there is an aspect of being repaid somewhere not not necessarily by money but by people dming me going this episode oh my gosh it's changed my life makes complete sense my you know i need that to keep going if i'm honest it's valid i think i think it's important i think validation for what you do with anything especially when you're putting so much passion and so much personal energy and actually it's such a big energy exchange what you're giving it's nice for that that work to be validated because we're very neat it's still very niche in the world of what the what the wonders of what the world has to offer like it's not as accessible is it for everybody it's not this is you know this is something that you can look at like we're not taught it sadly so i think pushing through the barriers and the boundaries i think you need ego because if you don't i mean imbalance but if you don't have some form of ego would you even push through your own self-limiting beliefs and would you push yourself out of your comfort zone to do a podcast and it you need the ego to drive it a little bit don't you to say i'm you know i'm bloody nervous doing this but i want to do it yeah absolutely yeah it's all the balance everything in witchcraft paganism healthy life healthy mind it is everything's a balance you need the darkness you need the light plants can't grow without darkness and they also need the light everything is the same you can't be happy chappy all the time right no i think ah so what about you yeah just before i let you go what about your little lazy little girls are they are they following in your footsteps oh i hope so my eldest florence she is so mature for her age and totally a little witchling helps me make black black soul and is aware of the plants you brought to school and is really flourishing now it's a lovely age my little one's seven and she's quite distracted and a little bit emotional at the moment she's a bit young to get involved with witchcraft although i do invite her but i think she's getting suckered into all the politics of the playground at the moment bless her but it is it is lovely we can bond over things that don't require any money we do a lot of day we do loads of camping my kids don't need tablets or screens or anything when we're camping to our kids and like the finds of the bones where i was like oh she says they're fantastic bone finders which fills my witchy mum heart with so much happiness i've got piles of deer skulls and stuff that they just naturally find because they're really good at mutual martins like i thought i would find stuff on a satellite how and how do you even find all that i think everybody were like really shocked when you burst pagan kids are the best um so do you teach your children the there's like the sabbats and the the moon cycles and all that kind of stuff as well yeah yeah we celebrate both we do christmas we do easter and astara they're very aware of of what i celebrate and halloween and stuff is also sawed but we do a lot of camping like we do the pagan camps so they they're aware of people that walk around naked that that that burn um you know big wicker man and stuff and it's normal to them they don't even question anything they just accept beautiful humans being honest and being pagan and i really like that i wish i had that when i was a kid that escapism and reading books and digging for worms you know rather than just playing minecraft or say green ideas or whatever you know oh that's lovely i do i started it with my older children and then i think if i as i've accepted my path more like you know i've been shamanic journey when i've been pregnant and doing all my shamanism and my parents it's it's just always been part of theo and especially my it was part of but it took me a little while to just accept and find my path but it's lovely to teach the children it's it it just gives a deeper meaning that connection don't i which i love i like the the natural connection that the kids have with everything yeah just don't and my two are they're known as the alpha generation aren't they i think because they've lived through covid and stuff in such a short time you know so they're going to be an interesting generation to watch growing up because of ai rearing its ugly head and how how kids are gonna cope and all this so i i'm quite confident that my two will do all right because at the moment you know they're looking for other things rather than just seeking answers from the screen and ultimately that that'll power them and it'd be lovely if they became witches of course i can't pressure that in if they want to be christian i'd accept it absolutely but it would be lovely if we were all witching together in the future oh it's lovely as well little girls so your podcast emma tell us how people find you or if they're like actually emma you know i'd love a sigil or you know i'd love you to help me with something which which you will and how will they find you yeah i'm absolutely everywhere you could just google the bell witch podcast and i'd show up i work really hard on getting the podcast on lots of different um podcast places streaming places spotify apple and all that jazz i'm on instagram the bell witch podcast separated by underscores i'm really active online i do be myself about it because i am a little bit addicted but i'm working on that but if somebody wants to come and talk to me about witchcraft or a podcast episode or even come on as a guest or ask me to advise them absolutely let me know come and talk to me i'm rachie jacob rosner here and email me at the bell witch podcast at yahoo.com and just to celebrate what is the award that you've just won in luck i didn't win the in the in independent podcast awards i got shortlisted for lifestyle category which is very good for a little newbie like me who's there i've taken as an award i were like that's why i've got the hubhopper last year for best documentary and i've pagans of the north i've awarded my spotlight podcast of the year for a couple of years so i do have a few awards but i would like a trophy trophy would be grand well that sigil needs to be manifested in that finance award yeah oh it's been amazing having you on there were just literally so many things i could have asked you know like stay on topic keep talking about i could come on again i can come on again oh that'd be amazing thank you so much thank you for listening and i hope that you've enjoyed today's episode look out for more episodes coming up if you'd like to reach me in the meantime you can contact me at golden wolf ring on the website or alternatively through email which is danielle at goldenwolfring.co.uk