The first spell I ever cast

The very first spell I ever cast was never written down by me or anyone else.

I didn't cast a circle. (Still don't, generally speaking, at least not formally.)

I didn't have an altar, or athame, or wand, or cauldron, or pentacle. (Still don't; I'm a staunch member of the "use what you already have because when my ancestors were first using magick they only had one pot in the whole cottage and they needed to make soup once they were done, and obviously they came out fine" school.)

I didn't speak in rhyme, or close the spell with some variation of "so mote it be," or invoke any Goddess or God.

All I had was a single candle, the energy I raised by myself in my room, whispering to myself, and my fervent belief that it would work.

It would work.

And it did.

Its effects are still manifest today, years later.

Now, don't get me wrong - I love the trappings, the tangibles, the accoutrements of witchcraft and spellcasting. (My particular focus of interest is in the power of herbs to augment spellcasting, which I'll no doubt expound upon in future entries.) It's part of the reason I was drawn to it in the first place, I think; it was grounded in the physical much more than Christianity. However, I know full well that, ultimately, it's all unnecessary. What's most important is the power of raw human will and emotion. All the rest just satisfies my yen for ritual and theatricality.