Witches walk among us — but they're not like the fictional ones you grew up with

Two witches talk about their daily rituals, from spell-casting to TikTok posting, and how they discovered their magic.

Elwynn Green’s morning routine is relatively unremarkable, at least at the start.

With his wife, Green wakes up his three daughters, makes them breakfast and prepares their lunches. Once they’re shipped off to school, and after he’s had a moment to meditate, he’ll take a walk near his home on Northern Ireland’s rugged Causeway Coast.

While he’s out, he’ll typically talk to the wind.

Green might feel the air swirl around him or the force of a gust pushing dark clouds into the sky, blotting out the blue. He hears the wind speaking, so he may feel compelled to ask it a question. Sometimes, the wind will answer. He has a similar impulse when he overhears trees whispering to each other or the waves crashing.

“For most people in everyday life, that’s a sign of madness,” he said.

But Green is a witch, and communing with the world around him is at the heart of his craft. He asks questions of the wind and trees, ancestors and spirits. Sometimes answers never come. But witchcraft, to Green, isn’t about finding answers to life’s big questions (or death’s, for that matter). It’s about finding beauty within the chaos.

“Sometimes it’s not about knowing,” Green said. “Knowing is overrated.”