Everyone thinks you need an eye of newt, to stir three times clockwise under
the full moon, or to glance backwards into a gold-framed mirror. You do
need ritual to perform magic, but it’s a wide word, one that encompasses so
much more. There is power in small things, repeated with emphasis and
belief.
I know of a witch who always makes sure to spill one drop of her blood drawn by
the circuit board of a new device. She said it had happened thrice before, and each
time the instrument ran well beyond its parameters and expected lifespan. Maybe it
was luck to begin with, but now it’s an ability, a ritual that imbues each new
apparatus.
Another practitioner sings an old nursery rhyme about passing into the
beyond while anointing their face with shaving cream. Ostensibly it’s to give it
enough time and massage to soften the follicles, but for them they’re singing a
song for the follicles they are about to reap and it’s been oh so long since
they’ve had even the slightest razor burn or a lone ingrown hair that it
lends credence to the power of intentional repetition, of belief, and of magic
itself.
You don’t need to be the seventh son of a seventh son, you don’t need to be born
under a dark moon on a terrible night. You too have the ability to turn the mundane
into the occult, a chore into an enchantment. Put yourself into everything
you do, believe in the ability you have to realise small miracles in small
actions.