What role does nostalgia hold in witchcraft?
It certainly feels helpful to include items that hold memories. I was curious as to why and searched the internet for clues.
According to a few different blogs and articles; nostalgia is all about looking at the past through rose colored glasses and looking towards to future with anxiety and fear. No one has an entirely stress-free past but, our memories tend to be selective. Many of us reminisce about the "good old days" when we look back in time.
Visiting my parent's home and sleeping in a room where I am surrounded by items from my teenage years and 20's is an experiment in nostalgia. Those years were certainly wrought with emotion and plenty of tears but, those were the years that I began to awaken as my own individual and as a green witch too.
These days when I find the scene perfect for returning to the roots of myself, my original magickal practice, as well as an ideal place for doing little rituals on the topics of self love and acceptance.
Imagine this .... the altar is draped in shimmery fabric with moons and stars. The altar itself is situated on top of a bookshelf full of my favorite titles from over the years. There is a section for young adult fiction and fantasy, another for the anthropological books I studied in college.
Book by book I have also been collected my favorites as a post-college adult too. Mostly Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Mythology, and, of course, magick!
At the very back of my closet is a box taped shut to keep away the prying eyes of an family members. Inside that box are physical memories of my college years (2010 - 2015). In those days film was going out of fashion but as a luddite I kept the practice of printing out pictures and writing letters alive. Now, a decade-ish later, I am so glad I did!
These pictures tell stories, they hold feelings, they remind me of who I was then and how it is I have become who I am today. Of course they also remind me of a heart break, missed connections, and friendships destroyed. It is a mixed bag as is anyone's past.
Inevitably I am not the person I was then. In some ways I have matured but in other ways I have become a shell of the vibrant and sociable person I was then.
Past boyfriends and expired friendships cannot be recovered but, I wondered if I could use some of this nostalgia to recuperate the vibrancy and friendliness I had then. And so, I did some reflection and later a spell or two on this very topic.
As art and writing were main pillars of my life then I have roped those practices back into my life. I started by re-instating a couple of my pen pal correspondences and even mailed them a few of the nostalgic pictures to set the vibe. I made copies of a few letters I had received and pictures that seem particularly positive to bring back with me to what is now my home, half a world away.